Jackson Free Press

Barbour's 2013 Budget At a Glance

In his final budget recommendations before leaving office, Gov. Haley Barbour put everything from Mississippi Public Broadcasting to the Egg Marketing Board on the chopping block Tuesday.

Are ‘Workers' All We Want?

As we move into the fourth or fifth year of the Great Recession (depending on whose measurement you use), it's more and more difficult to divorce anything from its ability …

Online Tax Debate Looming

Sidewalks, busy sidewalks. In the air, there's a feeling that the economy might finally be picking up momentum if trends during the holiday shopping season are any indication.

Supremes Question Kemper

In all the pages of court records regarding a dispute between environmentalists and an electric utility company--pages that one Mississippi Supreme Court justice characterized as the most voluminous he has …

Documenting Mississippi

Photographer Suzi Altman didn't glance back when she left New York City after years working for prestigious news outlets such as the Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine. When she …

Barbour Budget: Slash Education, MPB, Combine HBCUs

Gov. Haley Barbour called for a 2.9 percent average funding reduction to various state agencies today including education and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. He also called for state universities, including HBCUs, …

Barbour Touts Skills Training

Gov. Haley Barbour is singing the praises of skills training programs at community colleges and high schools while warning of future budget cuts to education. Barbour spoke during his conference …

Barbour Reacts to Race to the Top

The Obama administration announced the recipients of this year's Race to the Top grants, and Mississippi was not on the list.

PERS Commission Recommends Cuts

After a four-month wait and much speculation, a commission studying the Public Employees Retirement System has recommended freezing the cost-of-living adjustment paid to retirees for three years.

[Week In Jacktown] December 7 - 13, 2001

With what that goes on around Jackson, we indeed live in interesting times. Events come and go, weirdness happens, occasional gossip about someone, and of course the usual political muckraking. …

Smokin' the Polls

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is smoking the polls. Well, one poll anyway. The Raleigh, N.C.-based firm Public Policy Polling, which Democratic pollster Dean Debnam founded, unveiled its findings Friday, Dec. …

How to Win (or Lose) an Election

Johnny DuPree faced an uphill battle in his race for governor this year. As a Democrat running in a state trending more Republican, an African American where people often vote …

PERS Commission Recommends Three-year Freeze on COLA

Verbatim from Gov. Haley Barbour's office:

Verbatim: PERS Study Commission Releases Recommendations for Strengthening Pension Fund

Barbour: Don't Marginalize Women

I'm not sure what Gov. Haley Barbour is "running" for now--vice president? chief of staff?--but I was dismayed to read about his recent speech in which he focused on how …

City Crime Rankings: ‘Invalid, Damaging and Irresponsible'

We've been warning Jackson for years about the "dangerous" city rankings scam designed to sell books. Leaders in most cities across American cringe and complain when the CQ Press (formerly …

Doomsday for Black Folks?

By all measures, the state of black Mississippi should be strong. Mississippi's concentration of African American residents, 37 percent, is the highest of any state. Mississippi also has the highest …

Repub Govs: Fear Occupy, Divert Attention from Middle Class to Win

At a Republican governors meeting this week, GOP partisans were warned to keep the subject away from the middle class in the upcoming presidential election—or President Obama will win.

Our Anti-tax Governor Just Endorsed Online Sales Tax

I can't say I disagree with this: The Hill is reporting that Haley Barbour endorsed it in a letter to lawmakers today, urging them to close a loophole that lets …

Ouch: Barbour's Advisers Were Embarrassed to Show Him What They'd Dug Up

Imagine being all set to run for president, and your advisers have dug up so much "opposition" dirt on you that they don't have the courage to present it to …

Personhood's Next Move

Religious fervor illuminated much of the dialogue at a Yes on 26 event just moments after voters refused to pass a constitutional amendment to declare that people with legal rights …