Phil Bryant is unconvincing
The Republican Party has me confused. I thought it liked billionaires.
It certainly likes Harlan Crow, who has provided U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with lavish vacations and private school tuition assistance that the conservative jurist might not have been able to afford on his government salary.
But then comes Phil Bryant this past week disparagingly referring to Mississippi Today, the journalistic thorn in his side, as a “billionaire-driven media outlet.”
Who is that billionaire who is supporting the nonprofit, philanthropy-dependent newsroom and, by inference, its investigation into the massive public corruption scandal that occurred during the former Republican governor’s last term in office?
Jim Barksdale.
The same Jim Barksdale who was a major contributor to several of Bryant’s political campaigns. And the same Jim Barksdale who was held in such high regard in GOP circles that Bryant’s first appointment, after being elected governor in 2011, was to make the native Mississippi businessman the interim head of the Mississippi Development Authority.
That contradiction is just one clue not to be too impressed by Bryant’s decision this week to release hundreds of pages of text messages he sent to or received from those entangled in the welfare scandal.
There’s also the unconvincing video, circulated in advance of Thursday’s data dump, in which Bryant said he would be releasing “all” the text messages. He failed to mention, however, that there would be at least one huge gap in what he produced. Missing are any text messages with admitted crook John Davis between 2016, when Bryant picked him to lead the state’s welfare agency, and June of 2019, when Bryant forced Davis to retire. Bryant doesn’t deny there were text messages between the two, but a spokesman said Bryant couldn’t find them on any of the cellphones the former governor used.
Curiously, Davis’ cellphone, which was confiscated by the State Auditor’s Office when it began its investigation almost four years ago into the fraud, had its own similar gap. There were no text messages with Bryant on it prior to March 2019.
Thus, during the nearly three-year span when the majority of the theft and misspending occurred, we don’t know what was said between Bryant and the man at the center of the scheme that auditors say improperly diverted at least $77 million intended to help the poorest of the poor.
There may be other gaps, too. Mississippi Today and its lead investigative reporter into the scandal, Anna Wolfe, undoubtedly will be looking for them.
Although it was State Auditor Shad White and a Hinds County district attorney who broke the story on the welfare scandal, it is Wolfe’s subsequent reporting, more than anything else, that has suggested Bryant’s hands might not be as clean in the matter as he professes.
Bryant argues on his video that one of the largest and most controversial expenditures of welfare money — $5 million to build a volleyball facility at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi — was cleared by several attorneys within state government. Even if that’s so, he still has the problem of the stock options he was agreeable to accepting as a reward for allegedly helping a start-up pharmaceutical company secure its own big slice of the welfare money. In addition, some of those who have been convicted or sued in the scandal have claimed in court documents that Bryant directed or influenced their misspending or fraud.
Bryant, who has not been charged or sued, has never been a big fan of Mississippi Today. In its early years, he wouldn’t talk to its reporters. But attacking that news outlet or anyone else reporting on this scandal is a diversion.
It’s the fallback mechanism of any politician, current or former, who is getting bad press. Blame it on the folks doing the digging and the reporting.
In this age of drastically shrinking newsrooms, Mississippi Today has become this state’s premier nongovernmental guardian of how public money is used in state government. The Clarion Ledger is challenged these days to just cover the city of Jackson. The Associated Press does a remarkable job with just two reporters in its Jackson bureau, but it’s not enough. The rest of the news outlets statewide have five Capitol correspondents combined.
Mississippi Today, now up to 15 persons on its news staff, thankfully has the resources to cover state government and politics aggressively. Jim Barksdale or his foundation has helped make a lot of that growth possible with contributions totaling more than $1 million since Mississippi Today was founded seven years ago.
That’s been a more deserving investment by the billionaire, it appears, than what he contributed to Bryant’s campaign kitty.
Tim Kalich
Greenwood Commonwealth
The chase for ‘carbon zero’
Skeptics of climate change, along with people who believe burning fossil fuels will be the most efficient way to produce energy for a long time, should go online and watch the April 26 episode of the PBS science show “Nova.”
The episode, titled “Chasing Carbon Zero,” reviewed goals the United States has set to stop releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2050. According to scientists, we’re actually making progress. And once technology solves the challenges, there will be money to be made from supplying alternative energy.
First, the good news: Since 2005, the U.S. has reduced its CO2 emissions by 18% and is working its way to 25%. It’s a start.
Second, “Carbon Zero,” also known as net zero, does not mean the country will no longer use traditional energy sources. Reporter Miles O’Brien said the goal is reducing CO2 output as much as possible — while developing methods to capture and store production from the most stubborn sources of the compound.
But there are plenty of challenges remaining, many of them involving cost. The best example is electric cars, which generally cost more than cars that run on gasoline.
Another example is heat pumps, which use a refrigerant to collect heat from outside air and bring it inside a building to provide warmth. In warm weather, the process is reversed, creating air conditioning. The technology has the potential to greatly reduce carbon emissions from buildings — but right now it’s expensive.
Kitchens are another area where carbon-based energy can be eliminated. “Nova” specifically looked at induction stoves, which use electricity to create a magnetic field. Electrons in iron pots and pans try to align with the magnetic field, creating heat. The result is energy efficiency, faster cooking and no methane fumes.
Energy production is another area ripe for innovation. Solar farms and wind turbines have led the way in generating one-third of America’s electricity without producing any CO2. More is on the way.
One appealing idea is “floating” wind turbines, which are not anchored to the seabed and are designed to survive heavier waves 30 or 40 miles offshore.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is storing excess energy to use when the sun sets or the wind dies down. Solve that problem and it makes the alternative energy supply a lot more reliable.
One solution in early testing is an “iron-air battery.” When the iron is exposed to air, it triggers oxidation — otherwise known as rust. This releases electrons that can be sent to an electricity grid. And when the grid doesn’t need the power, electrons flow back to the battery, releasing the oxygen and causing the iron to “un-rust,” as O’Brien put it.
Finally, scientists are experimenting with geothermal energy that is artifically created through the underground fracking process.
The idea is to drill two deep wells, pump water into one and retrieve it with the other. The earth will naturally heat the water enough to generate electricity. The big hurdle is getting the cost of drilling down to make the energy affordable.
There’s no way to predict whether any or all of these ideas will work. But the point is that there are plenty of creative thinkers out there trying to figure out how to transform energy production by 2050.
As for the global warming debate itself, maybe the planet is just in a natural warming phase. But why take that chance? If we can produce cheap energy more cleanly and efficiently, there’s no reason to avoid doing it.
Jack Ryan
Enterprise-Journal
