Former energy and tobacco lobbyist Haley Barbour, now the confederate-flag loving governor of Mississippi, would be oozing compassion from every pore if those pesky scales weren't in the way

How's this for compassion? Mississippi has approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S.

The new policy will end Medicaid eligibility for some 65,000 low-income senior citizens and people with severe disabilities Ñ people like Traci Alsup, a 36-year-old mother of three who was left a quadriplegic after a car accident.

The cut in eligibility for seniors and the disabled was the most dramatic component of a stunning rollback of services in Mississippi's Medicaid program. The rollback was initiated by the Republican-controlled State Senate and Mississippi's new governor, Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the national Republican Party. When he signed the new law on May 26, Mr. Barbour complained about taxpayers having to "pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to."

The governor is free to characterize the victims of the cuts as deadbeats if he wants to. Others have described them as patients suffering from diseases like cerebral palsy and Alzheimer's, and people incapacitated by diabetes or heart disease or various forms of paralysis, and individuals struggling with the agony of schizophrenia or other forms of serious mental illness.

The 65,000 seniors and disabled individuals who will lose their Medicaid eligibility have incomes so low they effectively have no money to pay for their health care. The new law coldly reduces the maximum income allowed for an individual to receive Medicaid in Mississippi from an impecunious $12,569 per year to a beggarly $6,768.

See, don't you just hate it when greedy people don't want to pay their fair share?

Let's do a quick morality check here, k?

Some upright citizens

Former Republican National Committee Haley Barbour is in a tight race for the governorship of Mississippi with Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove. His chances are threatened by a picture of him with members of the C of CC at a July event that their Carroll County chapter sponsored.

The picture is found on the website of the white supremacist organization as well as in its newspaper the Citizen Informer. It was taken during the C of CC's Black Hawk Barbeque and Political Rally held on July 19. The website states that The Black Hawk Barbecue is an effort to raise money for private academy school buses.

Why do the C of CC want those private academy busses?

Well, they don't want their kids mixing with this kind:

The CCC gained notoriety in the mid-1990s when it became known that Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, also from Mississippi, had spoken before it. Nothing has changed about the CCC. Its website is full of direct links to blatant racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia.

The home page features an article titled "In Defense of Racism." The article maintains that "certain racial groups show a marked proclivity for physical violence. Generally, those racial groups possess lower IQs. . . . No amount of learning, welfare, affirmative action, or socialization will interfere with the behavioral response of lower IQ races. . . . Blacks, who are given to physical violence at a rate 50 times that of whites, Mexicans, and certain Pacific Islanders, are among these groups."

and you know, ol' Haley can see their point

In addition to the standard conservative stance against affirmative action, among the charges have been him attempting to link Musgrove's run to Barbara Blackmon, a black lieutenant governor candidate, even though the two campaigns do not run on the same ticket in Mississippi. He also has criticized the spending at the Department of Human Services, which oversees the distribution of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, which Barbour has called "welfare." In May he caused some outrage when he suggested that some children in Head Start would be "better off sitting up on a piano bench at a whorehouse. He also supports a voter identification requirement that black lawmakers railed against during the last general session. Again, Barbour plays dumb and says he does not believe they send mixed messages to the black community

and in fact it's hard to argue that the message the black community is receiving here is mixed in any significant way.


Now, it's important to be open-minded here, and not point out that Gov. Barbour doesn't expect exactly all pots to stand on their own bottoms without government assistance

Barbour, who founded lobby giant Barbour Griffith & Rogers knows a great deal about special-interest money. When he became Republican National Committee chair in 1992 Barbour pledged to sever all ties with his lobby firm, which he never did. When the Swiss government hired his old firm four years later to address the scandal over Swiss banks pocketing Holocaust victims’ deposits, it registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department, filing ownership disclosures that revealed that Barbour retained his stake in the firm. After raising millions of soft-money dollars from corporations as RNC chair, Barbour returned to the lobby in 1997 to represent many of the RNC’s top corporate donors. After Barbour led an RNC campaign to slash Medicare spending, for example, he became a lobbyist for the nursing homes that sought these very policies. After Philip Morris was the top RNC donor in 1996, Barbour became a tobacco lobbyist. He also lobbied for drug, insurance, transportation and utility firms. Lobbying for big utilities including FirstEnergy, Barbour helped convince the Bush administration in 2001 to break its campaign promise to support limits on carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. “We don’t represent issues that are inconsistent with what we believe in,” Barbour told the New York Times in 2001. Recent Barbour clients include dirty utility Southern Co., which benefits from the Bush Administration’s weakening of the Clean Air Act, and the Oxygenated Fuels Association, which lobbied a House-Senate Conference Committee in 2003 to grant legal immunity to producers of toxic gas additive MTBE.

See? If poor people and jews and minorities and old people just had money and hated poor people and jews and minorities and old people, ol' Haley would be on their side. He's not a bigot or something. As a matter of fact, Our Fearless Leader calls him a man of faith.

Here are some of the things Gov. Barbour has faith in:

Corporate polluters and energy companies (not a very wide venn diagram there, but whatever)

When President Bush reversed his campaign stance on regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, he said the nation's energy problems — not pressure from energy industry lobbyists — changed his mind.

Documents released by the Bush administration Thursday in response to a court order shed light on the intense pressure the new president was under.

Two weeks before Bush's decision, lobbyist Haley Barbour virtually papered the White House, from Vice President Dick Cheney on down, with a memo suggesting the president must provide a sound energy policy by not taking action against carbon dioxide.

At the time, Barbour represented the interests of several energy companies that gave substantially to Bush's campaign.

"A moment of truth is arriving," Barbour wrote Cheney on March 1, 2001, in a two-page document on his lobbying firm letterhead that was copied into top White House officials and three Cabinet secretaries.

Tobacco companies

It was one of the darkest mysteries of Congress: who was the mastermind behind the biggest heist of the year--the delivery of a $50 billion tax break for tobacco companies? Now a prime suspect has emerged: former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour. Two Republican Party officials told Time last week that Barbour, now a millionaire tobacco lobbyist, had gone to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and majority leader Trent Lott and persuaded them to slip a giant gift to his clients into the must-pass balanced-budget agreement just minutes before it was inked. For weeks it looked as if the two g.o.p. leaders had pulled off a classic fix: looting the general Treasury in the interest of a specific client with a laser-like incursion into a massive bill that no one had the time or inclination to read.

Protecting the Republican party from campaign finance reform

Last month, Common Cause called on the Republican National Committee (RNC) to make an immediate public disclosure of all contributors to the National Policy Forum (NPF), a foundation created in 1993 by former RNC chairman Haley Barbour and operated as an arm of the RNC.

You responded by stating that, because the NPF was "separate" from the RNC, the RNC does not possess the NPF contribution records and cannot "assist" in disclosing its contributors.

Your unwillingness to disclose NPF contributors raises serious questions about what the RNC is trying to hide.

Your position that NPF is "separate" from the RNC is not credible. As we noted in our last letter, Mr. Barbour referred to the NPF as "an issue development subsidiary" of the RNC. Further, The Washington Times reports that the RNC's own finance chairman, Mel Sembler, labeled the NPF to be "a fundraising vehicle" that required "a lot of money." According to the Times, Mr. Sembler stated of the NPF that, "Without our help, they may not have survived as long as they did."

Corporations that knowingly injure citizens of Mississippi

The House on Thursday approved a Senate lawsuit reform bill, ending months of debate, potentially ending a special session that's costing taxpayers thousands of dollars a day, but leaving much resentment among many lawmakers who believe the Legislature and governor sold out consumers to big business interests.

"The poor consumer in this state just got run over big-time," said Rep. Frances Fredericks, D-Gulfport.

But Gov. Haley Barbour and other lawsuit reform supporters appeared jubilant over the 75-39 vote, although they are a little leery of a motion to reconsider, which will be taken up in the House today.

"We now have a comprehensive tort reform package," Barbour said. "It will make a difference. It will end lawsuit abuse in Mississippi, and as far as I'm concerned it should put this issue behind us for a long time to come."

...

Some highlights of the lawsuit reform bill that the governor is expected to sign into law:

--Takes effect Sept. 1, 2004.

--Limits pain-and-suffering damage awards to $500,000 for medical malpractice claims, $1 million for other civil cases.

--Caps punitive damage awards under a sliding scale, based on the defendant's net worth. Individuals or companies worth $50 million or less found to have caused someone harm would pay punitive damages no greater than 2 percent of net worth.

Fellow lobbyists with below-the-sheets links to the Republican party (this from official CPUSA publication The Economist)

The new governor has accumulated his extraordinary influence in Washington by bringing about a revolution on K Street. Until the mid-1990s, this haunt of the lobbyists was either neutral or narrowly Democratic turf. Any bias reflected the fact that the Democrats had ruled Capitol Hill for decades. But the lobby shops tried hard to employ Republicans as well as Democrats and to avoid being too ideological. Democratic lobbyists were particularly concerned not to offend either the businesses that paid their bills or the trade unions that provided their party with votes. In contrast, Mr Barbour is resolutely partisan and ideological. His firm insists on having a solidly Republican staff, right down to the telephonists. His only concession to bipartisanship was founding the Caucus Room in association with a powerful Democrat, Tommy Boggs.

Two things have turned Mr Barbour from an anomaly on K Street into a sign of the future. The first is the Republican Party's grip on Congress, which began with the victory he helped to engineer in 1994 and now seems stronger than ever. The second is the Republicans' “K-Street project”. Leading conservatives such as Tom DeLay, the Republican House majority leader, and Grover Norquist, chairman of Americans for Tax Reform, have told lobbyists in no uncertain terms that they should hire more Republicans or risk being snubbed on the Hill.

The lobbying industry is now thoroughly intertwined with the Republican Party. The Republican National Committee's chairman, Ed Gillespie, is a leading lobbyist. (Mr Gillespie showed up in Mississippi this summer promising that the party would “do everything that we're legally allowed to do” to get Mr Barbour elected.) Almost all new appointments on K Street are Republicans. And this intertwining is happening at a time when lobbyists are getting ever more influential. In 1968, there were only 62 of them. Now there are 21,000. And they don't just try to influence legislators; they raise money for them, too.

In an article in the Washington Monthly this summer, Nicholas Confessore argued that the Republican Party is in the process of absorbing K Street into its political machine in much the same way as Franklin Roosevelt and his heirs once used government to the Democrats' advantage. In its glory days, the Democratic Party used its grip on the machinery of government to dole out largesse to loyal constituencies (the poor, the old and, eventually, racial minorities) and also to provide jobs for its own foot soldiers. Now the Republican Party is using its sway over both K Street and the wider business community to build a private-sector equivalent of Roosevelt's machine. It hands out government contracts to businesses that favour its causes. It provides its most loyal foot soldiers, from congressional aides to congressmen, with a pot of gold on K Street when they retire.

There is only one problem with this: the Republican Party is supposed to be the party of light government and open competition. Mr Barbour's brood can flourish only in a world of government meddling and backroom deals. Introduce open competition and they have no influence to peddle. As for reducing government spending, this would mean that the Republicans would have fewer goodies to dole out (something that helps explain why spending is so out of control at the moment).

National nursing home corporations which were hurt by the Medicare cuts pushed through by RNC head Haley Barbour, and who will know better next time when to open their wallets

MEDICARE: EX-RNC CHAIR DECRIES CUTS HE ONCE CHAMPIONED
Health Line May 20, 1999
In an interesting twist, former Republican National Committee chair turned high-profile lobbyist Haley Barbour now "pleads with Congress for relief" from the Medicare reimbursement provisions of the Balanced Budget Act "he helped write," the New York Times reports.
--------------------------------
But last month, he was retained by several nursing home companies -- including Sun Healthcare Group, Vencor Inc., the Mariner Post-Acute Network, Beverly Enterprises, HCR Manor Care Genesis Health Ventures and Extendicare Inc. - to push for greater reimbursements from the federal government. Downplaying any contradiction, he said the cuts had been much

Corrupt corporate management that stole retirement savings from countless americans and faith in the american system from countless stockholders (a family project)

The plaintiffs who filed the complaint against WorldCom management were obliged to do so in the U.S. District Court in Jackson, Miss., where the company is located. By some unfortunate coincidence, the judge to whom the case fell was William H. Barbour Jr., a Reagan appointee -- and first cousin of Haley Barbour, the supersmooth K Street lobbyist, political strategist and former Republican National Committee chairman.

Judge Barbour might have thought about recusing himself from the WorldCom case, since he no doubt owed his appointment to the influence of cousin Haley, who is also the judge's former law partner. The Forbes article only suggests the multiple connections between Haley Barbour and WorldCom, which include massive donations from WorldCom to GOP causes over the years, and a $1 million donation to the notorious "Trent Lott Leadership Institute" at Ole Miss, for which Haley Barbour served as chief fundraiser. Also overlooked is another significant bit of information about Haley Barbour's relationship with WorldCom. Three years ago, when the Mississippi telecom giant swallowed SkyTel, Haley was a member of the SkyTel board who voted for the merger. I can't help wondering how many shares of WorldCom Haley might have received as part of that deal, and whether he sold them or held them.

Unfortunately, Haley's cousin William didn't recuse himself. Instead, as the Forbes story points out, the judge dismissed the shareholder lawsuit last March with prejudice, indicating in his opinion that the plaintiffs had fabricated their amazing allegations about the company's chicken-fried books.

By another remarkable coincidence, Haley is now managing the reelection campaign of Chip Pickering, the Republican representative from Mississippi who was by far the largest recipient of WorldCom political largesse.

and a personal favorite, people who not connected to the VP who want to make a profit off of the blood of our soldiers and the collapse of our international credibility

I should have known that a little digging into this Iraq contracting biz would bring me to uber-GOP-insider Haley Barbour. But I tend to be a touch naive about these things, as you can imagine.

Barbour of course is former chair of the RNC, former chair of President Bush's campaign advisory committee in DC in 2000, and former just about everything else in the DC Republican party, as well being one of the priciest and most wired Republican lobbyists in town.

At the moment, in his spare time, Barbour's running for governor of Mississippi. But his real digs are at his DC lobbying shop Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc.

Now, yesterday I told you how President Bush's right-hand-man Joe Allbaugh has just set up a new outfit -- New Bridge Strategies -- to help companies get the sweetest contracts in Iraq. New Bridge, as their site says, is "your bridge to success in Iraq."

But when you look more closely at New Bridge, of which Allbaugh is Chairman and Director, you start to see that New Bridge looks an awful lot like an outgrowth of Barbour Griffith and Rogers.

For one thing, the Vice President and Director of New Bridge is Ed Rogers --- the same Ed Rogers who is Barbour's partner in Barbour Griffith and Rogers.

Then there's the third partner, Lanny Griffith. He's Director at New Bridge and Chief Operating Officer at Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

Then there's former Ambassador Richard Burt. He's 'Director' at New Bridge and 'International Director' at Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

Needless to say, Allbaugh's wife Diane is 'of counsel' at Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

With all those needy souls around, how dare elderly Mississippians with disabling diseases who have more than six thousand bucks sit around on their asses expecting to be kept alive? Are there no workhouses?

They should just die, I guess, and decrease the surplus population.

Except the way things are going, if all the poor folks died, there'd be no-one left paying taxes in Mississippi.

You could fit this party's compassion in a flea's heart and still have room for a sesame seed.

I wonder if it would trigger a karma debt if I wished very sincerely that everyone involved ended their lives depending on social services?