Tag: Congressman Gene Taylor

James Gill strikes again plus Geoff Pender sets the record straight.

Around a week ago I spoke with a new reader who paid me the ultimate compliment IMHO when telling me I distilled the subject matter and made things understandable.  I tell you folks no one in these parts can hold a candle to T-P OpEd columnist James Gill along those lines and today’s column illustrates why. It is about the post Katrina Danziger Bridge shootings, a subject we’ve occasionally blogged on. Here is a snippet:

The latest prosecution motion can hardly do much to taint the jury pool, because it is good and tainted already. Media coverage has been so exhaustive that, if you can find a potential juror who comes to the case fresh, you have found an idiot.

Geoff Pender has a great story in today’s Sun Herald on the Mississippi 4th Congressional District race. In the piece Pender debunks many of  the BS talking points that have been repeated to the point that smaller minds often quote them as gospel such as the meme that Gene has not risen in the ranks given his seniority.  The sad lesson here is that simply doing your job well isn’t good enough when the other political party results to telling lies and half-truths to gain traction.  Unfortunately too many people sleep walk through life and do too little due diligence when picking candidates to support the result of which is they end up as dupes, voting against their own best interests. Continue reading “James Gill strikes again plus Geoff Pender sets the record straight.”

There can only be one: Mississippi district 4 TEA Party candidate endorses Gene Taylor for Congress.

In connection with a few of the Louisiana elections we’ve covered I’ve opined several times that everyone, regardless of political affiliation, should be begin evaluating the candidates based upon character traits such as personal honesty before they consider party when pulling the lever.   The end result of putting crooks and political hacks in office is most evident in places like the Jefferson Parish School System and New Orleans City Government for instance as the cost to society is great.

I’ve written a good bit about the TEA Party here on Slabbed through time beginning with a Town Hall Meeting held by Congressman Taylor in Moss Point that I attended back in August 2009.  I’ve learned a good bit through that time as well.

Yesterday, former GOP/TEA Party candidate Joe Tegerdine crossed party lines endorsed Gene Taylor for Congress illustrating the concept of honesty over party.  We’ve covered the concerns these well intentioned folks on the political right have with Mr Palazzo and his family’s political connections to Boss Hogg’s political machine including the graft that is inherent to that gang. WLOX is all over this story and it is there we head next:

In the statement to the media, Tegerdine said, “I did not make this decision because I agree with all of his positions on the issues. I made this decision based on his record of integrity and willingness to be forthright with the people in our district.” Continue reading “There can only be one: Mississippi district 4 TEA Party candidate endorses Gene Taylor for Congress.”

Congressman Gene Taylor – the hardest working member of the team

Reports of Gene Taylor as a “do nothing” Congressman, like those announcing the death of a very much alive Mark Twain, “have been greatly exaggerated”.  Congressman Gene Taylor’s list of accomplishments on National Defense in the 111th Congress is even more impressive when viewed in total as this snapshot suggests:

Experience matters!

Vive la r

While we may have a difference of opinion about Gene’s job performance I would be remiss if we did not give the folks at Fire Gene Taylor.com a hale and hearty howdy from the Mississippi coast and acknowledge their kinda sorta endorsement of Gene in the upcoming election. I became hip to them thanks to Alan Lange over at Yallpolitics who previously linked Lavelle and his group on his website.

Also I’d like to give a shoutout to The Mississippi Informer, who has broken the news of another FEC complaint alleging strawman donations and worse against Steven Palazzo.

Finally a reader sent us a link to a brand new website, Twice the Legal Limit.com, which has a picture of a DUI ticket young Palazzo received in Gulfport back in 1992. Yes, young folks make mistakes and that certainly appears to be the case here but the concerns with our friends on the political right about Mr Palazzo’s pedigree have yet another cause for concern.  I’ll try to do my best to add to that discussion in a future post.

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This time the trouble isn’t with Trippel. TEA Party files an FEC complaint against GOP Congressional hopeful Steven Palazzo

Our readers may remember my recent post on how MS 4th Distrcit Congressional Steven Palazzo was the candidate of choice with State Farm’s Bloomington Illinois executive crowd.  I remain certain they think they are buying a fine congressman but since I actually live here in the 4th district my preference was to view the campaign ca$h from Bloomington as a good contra indicator of the coming election results.

I’m not the only guy with heartburn on Palazzo’s individual contributors as the Mississippi TEA Party of all folks has filed a FEC complaint against him alleging straw man donations funneled through his father in law.  Geoff Pender has done a bang up job covering the congressional race over here and has all the skinny at the Sun Herald.

La révolution a tourné sur lui-même.

The wheels appear to be coming off the Palazzo bandwagon.

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There can only be one: The Sun Herald endorses Gene Taylor

And here a full month before the election the endorsement is early as well. Here is an excerpt from the Sun Herald OpEd:

Tanned and open-collared, Taylor embodies the Coast wherever he goes, from Bay St. Louis to Afghanistan.

Yet his face has lost that boyish look. Partly, no doubt, because he just turned 57. But probably more so because he lost almost everything but life to Katrina, an experience that aged us all.

While we do not agree with him on everything, Gene Taylor has never given us reason to think that he has anything but the best interests of his constituents at heart.

Such loyalty deserves our support.

Indeed it does.

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State Farm execs for Palazzo…..

I tell you what folks, all that stuff you hear about how State Farm CEO Ed Rust Jr hates our own Congressman, Gene Taylor must be pure bull because if they were trying to beat him they sure as heck should NOT have given money to his Republican opponent, Steven Palazzo, especially out of Bloomington.

I don’t do much political blogging, at least in the classic sense, but with the silly season heating up the shots are both plentiful and cheap so I can’t resist and I’ll add Palazzo might as well be getting money from child molesters as from a home office State Farm Exec after the raping they put on a great number of people (read voters Steven) here on the coast after Katrina.  We’re certain here at Slabbed Palazzo would do a bang up job representing Ed Rust in Congress.

The smart money is seeing this contest a bit differently.
Continue reading “State Farm execs for Palazzo…..”

What I like about livin’ way down south are the occasional Cat Fights. An Ana Maria of the Slabbed nation in the news again.

In today’s installment of right wing nuts gone wild I offer Grace “Bea” Harrison, owner of The Encore Group, a dissolved Mississippi Corporation and host of the Sunday morning show That’s What I Like About the South, where her wingnuttery goes on full display each Sunday morning.  I discovered the show by pure chance and figured out quickly she was buying the time slot from the local Fox affiliate and selling her own advertising.  After seeing her coverage of the August 2009 Gene Taylor Town Hall meeting, an event I attended as a member of the local media it did not take long to open my mind to the possibility that ol’ Bea may have a few screws loose to go along with the serious hard on she has for our Congressman, Gene Taylor.  I never blogged about ol’ Bea but did resolve to not patronize any of her advertisers including the local italian restaurant Salute (which has good food) as I was not interested in helping Ms Harrison fund her jackassery. 

The Moss Point meeting was my first experience with the local TEA Party movement. I want to make sure the Slabbed Nation in Louisiana understands we’re all for political expression here at Slabbed but these right wing nuts on my side of the line are what gives the TEA Party movement such a bad name nationwide IMHO.  After reading a poll which appeared in the New York Times earlier this year, I also figured out the local TEA Party here on the Mississippi Coast does not match the demographics revealed in the NY Times poll, which did happen to closely mirror my experiences from meeting the Jefferson Parish based Citizens for Good Government back in June.  Simply put Citizen Activists like Margie Seemans show for all the meetings but do not disrupt them. 

The gang over here follows Gene Taylor from town to town across the 4th district trying to disrupt all of his constituent meetings. These meeting are important to local folks in places like Waynesboro, Mississippi who get a great opportunity to get help with navigating the federal bureaucracy.  At the Moss Point meeting for example, there was an older man on the front row with an adult child that was severely mentally handicapped who attended the meeting for a damn good reason.  It sure is easier to help people when there isn’t a group a 15-20 wingnuts acting like asses. This of course explains some of the more biting criticism I’ve levied against the TEA Party movement. Here on Slabbed though, we are all for open exchange of ideas which is why even Dan Triplett has commented here in the past free from personal attack. If I were asked, my advice to the Mississippi coast TEA Party movement would be to go meet Miss Margie over in Jefferson Parish and learn some manners. Continue reading “What I like about livin’ way down south are the occasional Cat Fights. An Ana Maria of the Slabbed nation in the news again.”

National Association of Home Builders, National Association of Realtors, and American Bankers Association all support H.R. 1264!

Members of Congress would be well-advised to follow Sandra Bullock’s lead and consider the source – and source of funding – of opposition to Congressman Taylor’s HR 1264.Bullock, according to the story appearing in today’s Sun Herald, “wants her parts of a video promoting Gulf Coast restoration removed until she learns whether oil companies influenced it”:

[Bullock’s]…statement Thursday came after the website DeSmogBlog called the campaign an industry push to get support for drilling and taxpayer money to repair wetland damage caused by the BP oil spill.  Women of the Storm, a New Orleans group that produced the video, lists America’s Wetland Foundation as a partner. The foundation lists BP and other oil companies as sponsors on its website.

After reading the article about Bullock’s stand, I found a related email message about Congressman Taylor’s latest “Dear Colleague” letter:

The lobbyists for a few environmental groups have contacted your offices in opposition to H.R. 1264 the Multiple Peril Insurance Act.

Their statements are not only misguided, they are offensive. It is offensive to suggest that no one living within 30 miles of a coastline should be able to buy reasonably-priced insurance that would pay claims promptly and fairly simply because there are some ecologically sensitive coastal areas that should not be developed.

My bill does not subsidize development for anyone, anywhere, not in sensitive areas or any areas. Continue reading “National Association of Home Builders, National Association of Realtors, and American Bankers Association all support H.R. 1264!”

Stop the lies about HR 1264- Taylor's bill to provide multiperil coverage under NFIP essential to strong economy

Once again, instead of walking the talk of jobs and economic recovery, government is about to stumble – tripped, this time, by lies about the need to enable the purchase of multiperil coverage and optional separate windstorm coverage under the NFIP as proposed in HR 1264.

The truth about the need for HR 1264 can be found on the Congressman’s website and is summarized in his recent “Dear Colleague” letter below”

Dear Colleague:

You may have received statements or letters in opposition to H.R. 1264, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act. These statements all appear to be based on the same false assumptions that the private insurance industry is meeting the demand in coastal areas and that insurance premiums in coastal areas are appropriately priced. These statements are not supported by the facts or the economics of the hurricane insurance market.

There is no functioning, competitive market for property insurance in coastal areas. Millions of homeowners and business owners have inelastic demand, which means that they are required by their mortgages or lenders to buy windstorm coverage. However, private insurance companies are not required to sell it to them, and companies have stopped writing new coverage in most coastal markets, even though all of the Gulf states and most of the Atlantic states allow insurers to charge premiums that are several times higher than what they expect to pay in claims. Continue reading “Stop the lies about HR 1264- Taylor's bill to provide multiperil coverage under NFIP essential to strong economy”