Business Blog

By political columnist Bill Minor You’d hardly expect to hear a diehard Reagan-era Mississippi Republican sharply criticizing a big utility company for building a costly, unneeded — and experimental — generating plant with endorsement from state GOP leadership. Well, it has happened. Clarke Reed, of Greenville, pioneer of the state’s modern GOP, has spoken out [...]

Here are the top MBJ stories posted online for 2012.* 1. Greenville Mayor Chuck Jordan resigning; has late-stage cancer 2. Jackson’s Charley Hutchison believed to be one of Apple’s youngest app developers 3. Trustmark feels pain of $10 million in bad debt after Tri-State Brick’s demise 4. Greenville Mayor Chuck Jordan dies after bout with [...]

Gov. Phil Bryant has recommended a frugal, balanced budget to the Legislature, saying, “We must take a balanced approach and spend only the money we have.” Highlights of his recommendation include: >> $24 million in new spending to improve education outcomes; >> $8.5 million in new spending to expand and upgrade the Mississippi Highway Patrol; [...]

Former Gov. Haley Barbour, in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday morning, became the latest Republican to say he’d live with raising the tax rates on top income brackets as part of a broad fiscal cliff deal. “[As] a Republican, I would take raising the rates on the two top brackets if, in [...]

Haley Barbour is not sounding like the rational voice the Republican Party so badly needs in the wake of the thrashing it just took in the presidential election. As a Rider of the Storm, he’s proving to be a false prophet. The former GOP chair and two-term Mississippi governor is telling anyone who will listen [...]

  Tuesday night’s vote counting ended with some Republican Party strategists coming to a single conclusion: The GOP’s viability hinges on it turning to a grown-up leader who can preach a gospel of inclusiveness. That would be Haley Barbour, they say. The former party chairman and two-term Mississippi governor bailed out as a potential GOP [...]

Haley Barbour knows a bit about hurricane recovery and working with the federal government to preserve lives and property after a storm, having led Mississippi’s rebuilding from the historic destruction of hurricane Katrina in 2005. So you can understand his irritation at criticism leveled at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his work with President [...]

by Bobby Harrison/NEMS Daily Journal Jackson Bureau JACKSON – Some of the state’s political leadership seems to be throwing in the towel when it comes to fully funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. Senate President Pro-Tem Terry Brown, R-Columbus, House Speaker Pro Tem Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, and House Ways and Means Chair Jeff Smith, R-Columbus, [...]

Former president Bill Clinton joined former governor Haley Barbour last week in Horn Lake to launch a new automotive plant operated by GreenTech Automotive, a U.S.-based manufacturer of “environmentally friendly, energy-efficient vehicles” including MyCar, a two-seat, all-electric vehicle that produces zero emissions and provides a range of up to 115 miles. “Too many people have [...]

ABC News has an interesting look at the South’s tradition of prisoner pardons, a practice it says is rooted in the region’s religious practices and culture. ABC asks whether those practices influenced former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s controversial decision to grant more than 200 pardons on his way out of office. Here is the introduction [...]