Free Republic

The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff's Department (that's them above) just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun. Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle "The Peacemaker," and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it's generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will "save lives."

Jeremy Lott has joined Capital Research Center staff as the new editor of the Center's monthly publication Labor Watch. (A full press release is available here.) "We're excited to have Jeremy on board," said CRC President Terrence Scanlon. "Labor unions are gearing up for the elections and a new administration, and conservatives had better be prepared. We think Jeremy's extensive writing and editorial experience will help us get the word out on labor's political strategies and its public policy agenda." Lott was previously an editor at the American Spectator, where he was responsible for the Spectator's website content, and served...

House GOP leaders have taken the blame for last week’s devastating loss in Mississippi, but in some Republican circles the real culprit is former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss). Lott created the House opening by opting to leave Congress late last year before tougher lobbying restrictions went into effect. After his departure, Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was appointed to serve out Lott’s unexpired term, which created the need for the special election to fill Wicker’s seat. Republicans were irked that Lott would retire early just to serve his own financial interests. But that’s only the tip of the anger iceberg for...

On Dec. 12, 2002, Obama, then serving as an Illinois state senator and filling in as host of the Cliff Kelley radio show on WVON, challenged the Republican Party to demand Lott's resignation. "It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we...

Federal agents are investigating whether former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott knowingly played a role in an alleged conspiracy in 2006 to influence a Mississippi judge presiding over a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against famed plaintiff attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, according to people familiar with the situation. Mr. Scruggs and several associates are scheduled to stand trial March 31 on charges that they offered $40,000 in bribes to State Court Judge Henry L. Lackey in return for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit against Mr. Scruggs over $26.5 million in legal fees. Mr. Lott, who is a brother-in-law to Mr. Scruggs, unexpectedly...

This was presented just before the beginning of the Super Bowl yesterday, a Fox Sports Super Bowl tradition. Speakers include: Jim Brown, Don Shula, Roger Staubach, Marie Tillman (widow of Pat), Ronnie Lott, Ozzie Newsome, Teddy Bruschi, Paul Tagliabue, Lovie Smith, Steve Largent, Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy and more. Well done and moving.

The Dickie Scruggs bribery case keeps getting curiouser, with yesterday's news that even the tort baron's former defense attorney has copped a federal plea. Mr. Scruggs was indicted in November along with his son and three other lawyers for conspiring to bribe Mississippi Judge Henry Lackey. Two of the defendants have already pled guilty and are cooperating with the feds. And according to court papers released yesterday, Joey Langston, who had until recently represented Mr. Scruggs, has now pled guilty to conspiring with Mr. Scruggs in a scheme to influence a different judge in a separate case. * * *...

BARBOUR PICKS WICKER 12/31/2007 11:16:36 AM Daily Journal JACKSON – It’s official: U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Tupelo, is Mississippi’s new junior senator. Gov. Haley Barbour announced his choice today at an 11 a.m. news conference in Jackson. The governor is authorized to appoint an interim senator until a special statewide election to fill the remaining five years on the term. Wicker, a Pontotoc native, has represented Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District since 1994. Before that, he was a two-term state senator. Barbour will introduce South Mississippians to Wicker at an afternoon news conference.

BILOXI, Miss. -- Court records showed through ties to attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, P.L. Blake will earn $50 million. The Sun Herald reported Blake is earning that money for clipping newspaper articles and alerting Scruggs to maneuvering in political "cloakrooms," as Scruggs put it, from Mississippi to Washington. Scruggs has said that Blake will earn $50 million in fees over 20 years from Scruggs' share of tobacco settlements. Mike Moore, who as Mississippi's attorney general guided the tobacco litigation, has said he was unaware Scruggs is paying Blake such a large sum. Accounts of how Blake earned the money are...

JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi Republican Trent Lott officially resigned from the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, ending a 35-year career in which he reached the of height of power before falling from grace and climbing his way back to the top, a spokesman said. Lott, 66, had announced in his home state Nov. 26 that he would step down by year's end, saying he wants to pursue other opportunities. He submitted the paper work Tuesday to make it official, his spokesman, Lee Youngblood, told The Associated Press. "U.S. Sen. Trent Lott has informed Vice President Dick Chaney, the president of the...

JACKSON — Mike Moore, viewed by many Mississippi Democrats as their best hope to capture a U.S. Senate seat held since 1989 by a Republican, said Thursday afternoon he would not be a candidate for the post. Moore, who served four terms as state attorney general, had said earlier he was considering running for the Senate seat that is being vacated by Republican Trent Lott. Moore stepped down as attorney general four years ago and is now in private law practice in Jackson. "The polls show I could win; and I would have the money I needed to win the...

A grand jury in North Mississippi has indicted Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, his son, Zach Scruggs, Scruggs Law Firm attorney Sidney A. Backstrom, attorney Timothy Balducci and former State Auditor Steve Patterson for conspiring to bribe a state court judge in North Mississippi over a case that involved funds from a settlement with State Farm insurance companies. The indictment, filed late Thursday, said Scruggs attempted to influence Lackey in the case by offering him $40,000 for an order that would resolve the lawsuit Jones vs. Scruggs in favor of Dickie Scruggs and the Scruggs Law Firm. Dickie Scruggs also is accused...

(Dickie) Scruggs arrested on bribery charges

WASHINGTON -- Is Trent Lott going to be the next chancellor of the University of Mississippi, his alma mater, or a high-priced lobbyist with Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, the Pennsylvania Avenue powerhouse founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour? As speculation sizzles about why Lott would drop out of the Senate just a year into his fourth term, others are looking at the future GOP Senate leadership, where Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander has aimed for the No. 3 spot as Conference chairman. Lott's decision to consider his pastor's sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and, as folk singer Pete Seeger wrote of those...

According to a brand-new and extensively covered study by the JFA Institute, a George Soros funded group, the U.S. prison system doesn’t deter crime and is "a costly and harmful failure.” Prison is supposedly so useless that the U.S. prison population could be cut in half with no effect on crime. This distrust of prison reducing crime is not new, but many have a hard time believing the simplest rule of economics: if you make something more costly, people do less of it. People accept that this principle applies to what we buy in grocery stores, but not to “bad”...

The FBI in Jackson has been searching the Scruggs Law Firm on The Square since 10:30 this morning for a specific document that is "ancillary" to Hurricane Katrina insurance litigation, attorney Joey Langston said this afternoon. The FBI confirmed this morning that a search warrant had been executed at the law firm headed by high-profile attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who successfully sued Big Tobacco and has represented hundreds of policyholders suing insurance companies over Katrina damage.

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott announced Monday he will leave a 35-year career in Congress in which he epitomized the Republicans' political takeover of the South after the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Another Mid-South legislator, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said later Monday he would not seek Lott's position as minority whip after a spokesman had said earlier that Alexander was considering it.In stepping down, Lott said he wanted to leave on a "positive note" after winning re-election last year to a leadership post and fostering legislation for rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. The announcement caught many by...

LOTT: Tricia and I have had wonderful experiences. It's been such a pleasure to serve the good people in this state and to work on things that are important to our country and even issues that involve the world. And for a boy from Pascagoula, Mississippi, it's been quite a wild ride, but a very enjoyable one, and one that I'm proud of. I want to also say to my colleagues in the House and the Senate that I thank them, too, for allowing me to serve in leadership positions in the House and the Senate and being able to...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Trent Lott’s decision to resign from office may open the doors for U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander to win an influential leadership position in the Senate. Aides to Alexander said today that the Maryville Republican is considering running for the minority whip position currently held by Lott. The minority whip is the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “Sen. Alexander is looking at all options and will be having conversations throughout the day,” said his spokesman, Lee Pitts. “We’ll be making a decision soon about what, if anything, that he plans to do.” Alexander ran for whip last year...

More details at FoxNews Channel as they come in...

Few tragedies make their victims feel more helpless than multiple-victim shootings. Imagine the terror: Unable to escape, simply waiting for the killer. Virginia Tech’s just released report on how to stop future tragedies was pretty disappointing, and this coming week’s Virginia Governor’s task force report isn’t likely to be any better. The university proposes more counseling ... But one glaring omission remains: The report failed to ask whether there were any common features or similarities among the different multiple-victim public shooting tragedies. And what happens if these policies fail? Should there be some ultimate protection upon which the university can...

http://www.streamaudio.com/stations/asx/wzzk_fm.asx

Prominent Democrats want to revive a policy to require broadcasters to present multiple viewpoints on controversial issues, spurred by complaints that talk radio has unfairly impacted the national immigration debate. An article published Wednesday by The Hill quoted Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.),stating: “It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision.” The Fairness Doctrine was a Federal Communication Commission regulation that dates back to 1947. Under the regulation, station licensees were considered “public trustees” that had an...

“It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)......“I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit,” said Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). “But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired ........." House Republican lawmakers are preparing to fight anticipated Democratic efforts to regulate talk radio by reviving rules requiring stations to balance conservative hosts such as Rush Limbaugh with liberals such as Al Franken. Conservatives fear that forcing stations to...

(CNSNews.com) - Charging that "right-wing talk reigns supreme on America's airwaves," two liberal groups on Thursday called for increased government regulation and greater diversity of commercial radio station owners to "close the gap" between the amount of conservative and "progressive" talk. An analyst with a conservative media watchdog group responded by calling the organizations' recommendations an example of "amazing liberal hypocrisy." "There's very little free speech and free choice in a market system that pushes one-sided information 90 percent of the time," said John Halpin, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress (CAP) and one of the authors...

Immigration Dispute Roils Conservative Radio Matt Purple Correspondent- President Bush's immigration bill has created a rift between right-wing talk radio and Republican politicians that threatens to rupture the conservative coalition, according to a nationally syndicated radio host. "If [the bill] is jammed through before, ironically, Independence Day, I think we will have been witnesses ... to the end of the old conservative coalition," Laura Ingraham said on Monday. "I truly believe that it is over if this happens, and it's time to rebuild and restart." Conservative radio has been dominated by outrage over the immigration issue. The Project for Excellence...

In their joint appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Sens. Trent Lott and Dianne Feinstein unwittingly gave a seminar on the corrupting influence of governmental power, the "bipartisanship is a virtue" myth and the urgent need for term limits. During their interview, which was billed as a "rematch" but more closely resembled a love fest, the senators seemed to agree with each other way more than they disagreed -- and this from legislators reputed to be ideological opposites. The senators were busy congratulating themselves over their collegiality and how nice senators looked during Seersucker Suit Week in the Senate, and commenting...

I categorically reject this unseemly wave of vitriol being directed at Trent Lott for his recent caustic gripe that "talk radio is running the country." An elder statesman should not be castigated for one flip offhand throwaway line. Instead, we should focus on his august career punctuated by so many poignant and quotable insights. (NOTE TO RESEARCH ASSISTANT: Honey, please get me some of Lott’s gems from his Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations entry.) While we look into that, let us review the top ten reasons why Sen. Lott is wrong in his observation and unjustified in his grumble. 10. NOBODY IS...

WASHINGTON — Immigration has supplanted Iraq as the leading issue on television and radio talk shows, complicating the prospects of a Senate bill desperately wanted by President Bush. Conservative talk radio's impact on the immigration debate reached new heights last week, with one host effectively writing an amendment for when the Senate returns to the imperiled bill this week. National talk-show hosts have spent months denouncing the bill as providing amnesty for illegal immigrants. Some top Republicans who support the legislation have defied the broadcast pundits. Other GOP lawmakers have tried to placate them, even to the point of accepting...

Unfairness Doctrine By The Editors Remember Jim Hightower? We didn’t think so. He was the former Texas state official who was, for a few minutes, the Left’s great hope for a liberal talk-radio host to challenge the domination of Rush Limbaugh. It didn’t work out. Neither did former New York governor Mario Cuomo, another failed radio talker. And neither did, most recently, Air America, the attempt to build an entire network of liberal talk. Nothing has worked too successfully for liberal political talkers. Rush, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, among others, are as dominant as ever. The only thing that...

WALLACE: Let me bring in Senator Feinstein . . . Do you have a problem with talk radio, and would you consider reviving the fairness doctrine, which would require broadcasters to put on opposing points of view? FEINSTEIN: Well, in my view, talk radio tends to be one-sided. It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole. It's explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information. This is a very complicated bill. It's seven titles. Most people don't know what's in this bill. Therefore, to just have one or two things dramatized and taken out...

With his buffoonish complaints about talk radio and its role in educating the American public about the flaws in the Senate immigration bill, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott has done much to energize the conservative Republican base and jeopardize the chances of its passage. Earlier this month, open-borders advocates came up 15 votes short when they attempted to shut off debate on the immigration bill, and nothing that has taken place since that time leads us to believe that the Bipartisan Alien Amnesty Caucus will fare much better on tomorrow's cloture vote — the most critical one on illegal immigration...

The top Senate Republican negotiator on immigration said he has heard the complaints of conservative talk-radio show hosts and bloggers, and will try to change the immigration bill to accommodate them. Sen. Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who wrote the bill with Democrats and the Bush administration, said he is making moves to stiffen immigration law enforcement when the Senate bill returns to the floor next week. "All of the concerns from our constituents and some in the media have been listened to, and incorporated," said Mr. Kyl, who is drafting new provisions in an amendment he hopes to offer....

Conservative voices continue to have a stranglehold on talk radio - at least on those stations owned by the biggest media corporations, according to a study released this week from a liberal think tank. The report, from the Center for American Progress, in collaboration with the group Free Press, found 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative-oriented on 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five group owners: Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Citadel Broadcasting, Cumulus Media and Salem Communications. "Group owners, those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market,...

SOMETHING LIGHTER A Thought on Lott, Goats, and Fences To Head Into the Weekend On Few e-mails from readers have made me laugh like this one from Joe: Trent Lott: "If the answer is 'build a fence' I've got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain't no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence." Right, senator. Fences don't work. That's why no ranches use barbed wire, why no prisons are surrounded by high walls, why pricey residential communities never have security gates, and why there aren't traffic barricades to...

What does a fence on the United State-Mexico border have to do with goats? Sen. Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., was talking to reporters Wednesday about the immigration bill, when he said, "If the answer is 'build a fence' I've got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain't no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence." "Now people are at least as smart as goats," Lott continued. "Maybe not as agile. Build a fence. We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats...

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) gets that talk radio hosts are angry with him, but he wants to set a couple of things straight: He’s not hiding, and he still doesn’t like that fence. Lott told a scrum of reporters on June 14 that “talk radio is running America — we have to deal with that problem,” adding that the troublemakers who are overwhelmingly opposed to the immigration legislation “don’t even know what’s in the bill.” Now they’re really mad. “The people that he’s actually complaining and whining about now are the ones that tried to defend him when everybody else...

This is from last night’s show, and it’s a gem. Levin begins by noting that he defended Lott during the Strom Thrumond brouhaha, but moves quickly into Lott’s record supporting the Fairness Doctrine all the way back to 1987.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., has managed to rile up some of his core supporters - conservative talk radio shows nationwide from Rush Limbaugh to Neil Boortz as well as local Mississippi stations - with remarks last Thursday blaming talk radio for the collapse of the immigration bill. "Talk radio is running America," Lott said last week. "We have to deal with that problem." Although the bill has since been revived, it faces stiff opposition during this week's Senate debate and talk radio is in high gear over Lott, his support for the bill and his seeming...

Trent Lott, nominal Republican and former Senate Majority Leader - who showed himself a faux conservative during the Clinton Administration - is starting to lash out at we troublemakers who oppose this amnesty bill and (egad!) listen to talk radio. He told the New York Times: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” Lott showed himself a true elitist with this quote in the Washington Post: “I’m sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people who don’t even know what’s in the bill,” Lott said. He added that...

RUSH: What are we going to do about Mississippi Senator Trent Lott? What are we going to do about Senator Lott? You remember when he got into trouble with the Strom Thurmond comment? We're out there defending the guy. The White House threw him overboard. All kinds of Republicans were throwing him overboard. Talk radio came to his defense. Trent Lott is now one of the engineers of the Senate immigration bill, the amnesty bill, and they're trying to bring this thing back. The amendments are being kept under wraps. By the way, I understand Lindsey Grahamnesty, senator from South...

Majority Whip (or should I say 'whipped') Trent Lott sent me a letter today on behalf of the NRSC, asking me to send in MONEY! bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha haha. HE EVEN USED TED KENNEDY'S NAME THREE TIMES IN THE LETTER, trying to convince me to support the NRSC. Hey look, I'll support CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS...but I'm not giving to an organization supporting Chuck "Bash the War" Hagel, Arlen "Let Santorum Sink" Sphincter, or the rest of the linguini-spined Republicans.

***update: Rush on Lott--"You've got Republicans talking about talk radio like liberals talk about talk radio. That tells you something." Yes, it does. It tells you that the Republican Party is in deep, deep doo-doo. Speaking of doo-doo, the literal kind apparently turned up in the Capitol today. How fitting.*** Reader Jerry e-mailed me this morning after seeing Trent Lott's bashing of conservative talk radio: I was going to write Trent Lott and let him know how I felt, so I typed in TrentLott.com and it took me to, are you ready for this, Moveon.Org. No joke. Indeed, it looks...

Comments by Republican senators on Thursday suggested that they were feeling the heat from conservative critics of the bill, who object to provisions offering legal status. The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

Lott Lashes Out! GOP Senate whip Trent Lott attacks "these talk-radio people who don't even know what's in the bill." The New York Times reports: Comments by Republican senators on Thursday suggested that they were feeling the heat from conservative critics of the bill, who object to provisions offering legal status. The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: "Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem."At some point, Mr. Lott said, Senate Republican leaders may try to rein in "younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill." [E.A.] a)...

a quote from Senator Lott: "I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people who don't even know what's in the bill," Lott said. He added that the "leadership will have to be prepared to do what needs to be done."

President Bush visited with Senate Republicans behind closed doors yesterday, promising that he will follow through on border security, pleading with them to give his immigration plans a second look and trying to overcome hard feelings that arose from his recent charge that opponents are guilty of trying to "frighten people.". . . One key question is how to go forward even though several amendments have already cut at the grand bargain -- including limiting the guest-worker program and making it easier to deport those who don't qualify for legalization -- and several other difficult amendments could pass before the...

Trent Lott, Unplugged: "Are We Men Or Mice?" Thursday, June 07, 2007From Hugh Hewitt's website (click on top link for the actual audio) Trent Lott's floor remarks in the Senate this morning were not certainly designed to asssure Republicans that their concerns on border security and illegal immigrants from countries with jihadist networks were being addressed in a serious fashion. There is also an unfortunate, and probably unintentional tone of condescension which just doesn't play with the voters that GOP senators seeking re-election need to help them in that effort. The backdrop to the current debate is not only the...

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he has told the most virulent Republican opponents that he will not tolerate a raft of amendment votes designed simply to filibuster the measure, and he castigated his own party's senators for their vote switches. "We're going to do this damned thing, and if we don't, I think we should dissolve the Congress and just go home," Lott fumed.

What an odd day. Trent Lott, our very own Senatorial Republican Whip, has essentially declared war against the Republican base. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is pleading with George W. Bush to twist enough Republican arms so McCain-Kennedy can live through the night. To offer a cinematic metaphor, McCain-Kennedy is currently Vito Corleone lying helpless in a hospital bed. Reid is begging W. to play Michael Corleone and rush to the hospital to hide the Godfather before Solazzo’s goons can finish him off. Bush would probably comply, too, but as we’ve long known, this bill’s champions are all a bunch of Fredos,...