Jackson Jambalaya

This is all such amateur, childish bullshit. Nobody deserves to be incarcerated. It's a comedy of errors with puppeteers yanking this boy around. He ough to be spanked and released back into the wild.

The documents speak for themselves. I can't wait to hear the spin the tea baggers are going to put on this, though.

So, "My Opinion" can we assume you are one of those 'strict law and order' types - those that believe in the absolute of the Constitution. Guess you believe that applies to everybody else but not to those that you like.

There was clearly a conspiracy to invade the privacy of an individual's residence. Yes - it was amateurish, childish, and bullshit. But it was also a felony. And felons do deserve to be incarcerated.

My understanding is Kelly was offered a deal last year that would not have included incarceration. But then, as earlier, he was obviously listening to folks that were letting him take the rap and he turned down the offer.

Part of plea bargaining is timing. Because he waited until after in the courtroom, he had little chance of getting by without going to the big house.

Frankly, I'm glad he's being sent away. Maybe it will stop idiots from doing crap like this in future campaigns and let them be fought about things that matter, not playing childish, amateurish games.

You may not can directly link McDaniel but after reading the message chain I believe he was close this.

But, the larger take-away from it all, after the dust settles and the jailhouse door slams on this boy, is.....The giant fraud perpetrated on Mississippi by Thad Cochran.

Notwithstanding his wife's illness and regardless of what you or I might have done in the same circumstance, Cochran, for two decades passed his paramour off to us as his employee from whom he simply rented a room. And he paid her a salary plus rent, on our dime. Althewhile passing her off as his spouse on congressional junkets. And of course we all know what he did four months after his wife passed away.

7:05. Thank you Mr./Ms. Holier Than Thou. Frankly I don't give a sh!t.

McDaniel was adamant that no one on his campaign mention Thad's adultery. That's why he lost. He should have hammered the old bastard.

It amazes me that these yahoos were planning a criminal act over Facebook chat. Good grief, let's make sure these idiots never get their guy to Washington.

We still need to know if Mark Mayfield was the one who alerted Melanie Sojourner that Kelly had been arrested.

I feel sorry for Kelly. He's obviously a dumbass and a double dumbass for refusing his chance to avoid jail time, but that's not why I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him, because Bert (Mary) and Sager should really be serving his time.

They obviously duped a patsy. They deserve far worse than they got, and simply put they just seem like bad people.

7:56,

Glass houses, pot/kettle, etc, etc, etc....

if I got duped into ruining my life by those dimwits I would kill myself too.

Yup. "Mary was the instigator". No one should be bitching about him coming to Jackson in an ambulance to come to court last year. He put this together, cut the first deal, got the best deal, got no jail time. Meanwhile one of his merry band is in jail and another one is dead while their families suffer.

Hope Mary suffers some more.

Well said KF. Someone is dead. Someone is going to prison. Both at Mary's hands. For what?

Wonder how well he sleeps?

Apparently none of the tea nuts has figured out the moral of the story is be careful what you type from behind the privacy of your computer screen. Its been apparent for 6 months based on the crap they post here. They have all been very similar in tone to the email evidence KF just posted, yet they keep on typing.

Mayfield may have gotten a year suspended at most. He must have been concerned about something else.

Mayfield was the biggest SAP in all of this.

A reasonable person would not want to be associated with this, but not Noel. He loves being infamous.

Folks, you are missing something here. The moral of this story is: "Don't screw around with powerful politicians". It will get you thrown into prison. Kelly is now a political prisoner as well as a dumbass.

Those who are outraged that " Cochran lied to us" and are into being morally superior, are dumber than a box of rocks!

I can come up with a long list of people you voted for who were having affairs while in office. Some of them divorced and remarried and some of them kept their marriages together.

Y'all think you are voting for saints?

Cochran could have gone public or divorced Rose and brought a media circus to his family's doorstep either way.

He could have made this all about him and his needs and done it in such a way as to garner sympathy. It'd be easy, he divorces her on her behavior before the cause become obvious.

How y'all see publicly humiliating his whole family as the " moral" role of a husband and father is beyond comprehension. Protecting and caring for his wife and family when a tragic illness adversely affected them is far more moral to me!

It's easy for y'all to know what you would do as a private citizen. And, apparently, you think public figures should tell you every family problem they have in detail.

There is nothing he did that affected his ability to serve Mississippi. He did not, unlike Clayton or others, engage in criminal activity.

So glad y'all are without sin! I suspect you've never had anyone tempt you when you were vulnerable to temptation!

This entire story is about how politics is corrupting. It should be a cautionary tale!

fools, thinking that the people of Mississippi care about the moral character of their elected rulers. so foolish I pity them for even considering this scheme was a good idea.

@7:06 - sounds a lot like rioters on TV "political prisoner" at the hands of politicians - not "someone committed a crime and got caught." Blame the police...blame the politicians - all destined to live hide and thrive in victimhood.

June 16, 2015 at 7:37 AM = Yaawwwnnnnn, Ssssnnoooorreee, ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

There goes Lange stealing your traffic again.

Truly excellent reporting. This reads like the Confederacy of Dunces. What absolute morons. I'm more embarrassed by their efforts than affronted by the result, ugly as it was. Seriously, this is proof that establishing the "meeting of the minds" element to the conspiracy charge only takes the collision of one brain cell from two fools.

So tell me again how the McDaniel camp had no knowledge of this and was in no way involved? Because it reads to me like Noel was given info on more than one occasion before they released this, and Chris was happy it was released so people would find out about it but then happy to take the moral stance of telling someone to take it down.

7;56 - McD might have been 'adamant' that no one mention the word adultery during the campaign because boomarangs have a tradition of coming back to the sender. Pots should never talk about kettles being black.

Who has time to read?

The republiCONs are runnign things into the ground!

We don't have to second-guess to make sure that an eye is being kept on— the need to reform government.

Its time for the sheeple to wake up and git it done!

I'm not one of those who feel like whether that is part of the solution or not to look at that as more opportunity.

So if you dont now who the five am call is for then it isnt for you!

Can't we all just get along?

Bottom line in the entire 2014 Mississippi Republican nomination battle for U.S. Senate between Cochran and McDaniel: McDaniel ran an amateur campaign and was extremely lucky to get the amount of votes that he did with his budget and staff and persona and crazy comments and given his total involvement in elected politics. Cochran was lucky he could still walk and talk enough at his age to ask Haley for his money help to wage another campaign, and was lucky these fools muddied the waters enough with their antics that voters actually never paid any attention to the fact that Cochran has been shacked-up with his secretary in DC for years while his wife lay dying in Madison. At least now he and Kay are married and his wife is in heaven either frowning down at them or smiling that he moved on. Sad and sordid chapter, but most Mississippi political stories are sad and sordid and tragic throughout the decades...

Umm... 11:29 et al. might be more at home on the ISIS Jambalaya blog where ideology trumps informed reason...

12:02 Maybe Cochran's win shows you that in the eyes of voters no amount of sad and sordid affairs will make up for the complete lack of competency held by Chris McDaniel. He was a terrible candidate who only won votes off the general ignorance of the far right and the Teabillies just aren't smart enough to ever admit it.

Cochran was considered unbeatable. Untouchable.

12:02:

McDaniel was such a bad candidate that the entire GOP establishment had to abandon their platform and need the help of 40,000 Democrats to even stand a chance against him.

Considering no one in the establishment would even touch or help with his campaign, what he and his volunteers did was amazing.

The shame of the matter is that McDaniel is one of the most honorable men I've ever met. And the people of the Pine Belt -- those who know him best -- supported him with record-breaking numbers.

The GOP machine took a good man and they have attempted to destroy him.

That's why good people don't enter politics.

McDaniel won more Republican votes and the RINOs are incapable of ever being honest enough to admit it.

Who was he atty. with the blocked phone number? What happened to him? See the article today in New York Magazine about Mark Mayfield's suicide.

Fallacy @ 7:37; You are intelligent enough to know that your claim falls flat. Suggesting that Cochran's infidelity, adultery and fraud perpetrated on his constituency is not that bad because we have voted for others who've done the same thing is a fallacy of the highest order.

And to the chirpers under the stands who keep claiming it's critical that we know if Mayfield alerted Sojourner....WHAT POSSIBLE DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? (with apologies to your friend Hillary.) Mayfield is dead and Sojourner was not brought before the grand jury. Do you also want to know the bulb-wattage on the wing Mrs. Cochran was housed on?

Peace be to you.

@ Tilting at Irrelevance ...asks

Do you also want to know the bulb-wattage on the wing Mrs. Cochran was housed on?


NO.

But I already know were to find all the dim bulbs I want to. Just wait until all the teabaggers hear about the new diagnostic tests for wattage loss and limp filaments. They will be almost as upset as they get when they think someone might be having some

Rick Sager to Clayton Kelly on the morning of 4/26

"Hey...From the main guy's mouth...He asked if you pull it down. Wants you to hold on to it. Some of his supporters are calling him about it...It's getting a bad response[...]From Chris...I wouldn't have asked you to for anyone else[...] Think they want to sit on it in case it gets out. No. In case they try to do something nasty."

Some of these responses prove how totally insane these tea party people are. There is no reasoning with them. Common sense is non-existent. They see what they want. All freaks.

Hide and watch. The tea baggers will elect Hillary to the WH. They will eat alive all candidates running (except maybe Adolph Hitler), in one way or the other. Trump has already started. The Republican "Party" will eat our own on the way to electing that woman.

8:05am Sorry to nudge you to a state of semi- wakefulness. Go back to sleeping through real life!

1:59 pm Thanks. You know the McDaniel people don't like to read anything longer than two paragraphs.

They don't have time because it takes them SOOOOOO LONG !

have to admit that i was one who voted for mcdaniel after a lifetime of supporting cochran. a big mistake and regret.

It would be comical, if not so seriously sad, that all you pretend conservatives do nothing but throw wood on what you think to be a McDaniel bonfire. You won the game by one point. One Point. And that's because the other team's left tackle and running back defected to the other team in the last five minutes of the last quarter. But, continue piling on and deflecting from the real important issues that came out of the entire fiasco. You know what they are. It matters not to you that you have a lecherous fraud in the position. All that matters is that Haley's will has been done. Forget the transgressions - He's a good boy who did right by his momma and brought home some bacon. That sounds sorta like a democrat philosophy. Wonder why.

Love is in the air.

Thanks 2:57. Right on target. Effing IDIOTS.

I have been too busy to keep up with this sordid affair (see what I did there?). Conspiracy to do WHAT? What did Constitutional Kelly conspire to do, and with whom? As a lawyer, I'm interested about the legal aspects of this. What does the criminal information say?

Yes, there is another story I am posting tomorrow. I am trying to split them up over several days so this site doesn't turn into Johnny One Note on a particular subject.

Can't believe none of y'all got the title of this one. Y'all are slipping. Five years ago, you gals would have nailed it within an hour.

I think a lot of you folks trashing the Tea Party are missing the point. What I saw was a third rate candidate ran against the most powerful politician in the state and lost a close race in overtime. The next time the conservative candidate will be stronger. And the reason for that is - these fools on the other side are not your daddy's Democrats. Oboma is so far left he cannot even see the left field foul line. You cannot compromise with them because they will never agree with anything close to reasonable. So you either cave in, like Thad has done so many times, or try to stand up to them. A lot of us believe that standing up to them is the only hope for our country.
Thad should have retired and let us have an election between the best candidates who were capable of serving for six years. When the governor has to appoint someone to complete Thad's term, thousands of Mississippians are going to be be really angry at Thad and Haley.

Yes 7:03, the show must go on.

7:03,

You're an idiot.

Third rate candidate? Seriously? I don't agree with McDaniel's politics (he's too far right), but damn! He took on the entire machine, and won.

What are you smoking?

But for the Democrats and walking around money, McDaniel beat Haley's cash cow!

Now, now, children! Enough with the name calling.

The humor in all this is that even though the election has been long since over and Cochran stayed in office( by questionable methods) the RINOS here are still ranting about Chris McDaniel because he scares the Hell out of them. No matter how they may attempt to bad mouth the Tea Party, they know deep down in their hearts that there is a tremendous amount of power that can be exercised by them.Will Chris McDaniel be back on the political scene? Who knows, but if not Chris then someone else who they(the conservative right) can support may well change the politics in Mississippi in the future

Third rate in comparison with the slate that would have been running if Thad had gone to the house like he should have. Make up your own list of who would have run for that open seat. It would have been a very strong field. Then tell me if McDaniel would have been the the top 5 ? Yes his results were good. I am saying the reason his results were so good had much more to do with how angry the voters were with Thad than anything McDaniel did. McDaniel just talked like most any conservative would have. Like many folks, I had voted for Thad forever. But he caved in to the Democrats so many times that I would have voted for most anyone else. Yes I know - he is in a powerful position due to seniority. That will be worthless in a year or two when he retires.

5:57 - I agree with you and I don't know any lawyers who see a crime in this case.

Simply a stupid McDaniel trick, as per Sager.

Doing the "dirty work" of political intrigue puts a political prisoner in jail for 2 and 1/2 years.

TO: June 16, 2015 10:32 PM

You are absolutely correct on one point: Chris McDaniel scares the hell out of me; but, not for the reason or reasons that you believe. He scares the hell out of me because he is a loose cannon who has no common sense. In addition, he does not know how to handle himself. For someone who, at first glance, had the prospects of a promising future in Mississippi politics, he is now dead in the water. The best he can hope for is to be elected to a local office. I dare say that even if the voters in his State Senate District send him back to the Capitol, he will be ineffective there as well. He has shown his true colors to the entire State of Mississippi.

I for one cannot wait for the free-for-all senate race in 2017 after Cochran retires next year. Going to be fun to watch.

I took the high ground and voted Childers!

Ronald Reagan, Newt Ginrich, Governor Fordice are known as iconic conservatives . These guys are worshipped by the Tea Party as good Republicans. Yet these guys couldn't keep it in their pants. You don't see or hear the Tea Party complaining the morals of these guys.

Mc Daniel's campaign knew what was going on with photographing Rose Cochran. It is apparent that Noel Fritsch campaign communication manager was aware early on. The no holds barred politics of the Tea Party and McDaniel in particular caused this conspiracy. Sojourner and McDaniel caused their own defeat-- no need to blame anyone or any other group but themselves.

KF, some folks won't ever believe there was a conspiracy and some will believe if there was a conspiracy that it was " noble" thus all the focus on morality while overlooking that dirty political tactics with these kind of results is anything but noble and moral.

This is worse than Nixon and Watergate in the tragic results as no one died from Watergate .The objective was the same...to find out something dirty about the opponents. And, in this , too, unauthorized and criminal entry was something that was approved. The classic " end justifying the means".

They don't want to see that one man is in prison and another committed suicide because of this conspiracy and that they weren't the leaders but were used.

And, they miss entirely that they could have challenged Cochran on his infidelity without Rose's photo in ways that weren't illegal.

12:49 a.m., I know a good many lawyers that understand it is a crime to break and enter the residence of another with the intention to commit any crime, even a misdemeanor. That room was Rose Cochran's residence. Opening the door or using any effort to gain entry is "breaking". Planning that crime with one or more is a conspiracy.

The lawyers I know include myself, Michael Guest and Judge William Chapman.

Now get back to chasing that ambulance.

All you need is love........

you know, the sad part is, what they wanted to do might have worked if they just used that photo of the nameplate on Mrs. Cochran's door. But they had to go too far.

What nameplate? Have you been inside that wing at St. Catherine's Village? You've watched too much Gunsmoke where the marshall makes the innkeeper turn the registration ledger around so he can see who signed into a room.

The nameplate mentioned in articles, etc...

If this wilbourn guy didn't get arrested, maybe it's because he covered his tracks well and the only person that could testify to it died...

Anyone besides me notice that john Mary asked mayfield about this picture when his mother died... "Hey, sorry you lost your mother, do you think you could photograph another dying woman for me?"

Man sneaks in White House with a knife... 17 months

Man sneaks in nursing home with camera... 30 months.

Sounds about right

9:44 a.m., is it a crime to take a picture? Assume that Kelly broke. Assume that he entered. Assume that he agreed with one or more people that he would do this (making it a "conspiracy"). What was the crime on the inside? There is caselaw that says the State must allege and prove that crime in order to obtain a conviction for burglary. So what is the crime Kelly intended to commit on the inside?

It HAS been a while since criminal law class, and I did make a mere C, but I always thought one must agree with others to commit a crime or another unlawful act in order to enter into a criminal conspiracy. I guess that isn't true anymore. Or maybe just not for "teabaggers."

Invasion of privacy is not a felony. However, there was no expectation of privacy as the woman in question did not have expectations. Nor was there privacy as those doors are typically left open. No lock was picked, no burglary tools were employed. No rules were compromised - and if they were, not feloniously. The judge in this case missed a good opportunity to dismiss. But, he was enjoying the popularity.

Now, on to more important Madison County matters. John (Bell) Crosby has grown a scraggly beard.

All you lawyers aren't familiar with constructive breaking and entering. And the underlying crime was exploitation, doesn't have to be a felony, it's any crime. And using a resource (her image) for one's gain (clayton Kelly trying to get his blog notoriety, help mcdaniel's campaign). The law is very broad, but the elements are there. If he told the guards that he was there to see Rose Cochran, would have been a lot harder to call it a crime. But by using methods of deception, he was constructively breaking and entering.

However. When it comes to exploitation in this case, I think his first amendment should have still been protected because a blog is considered a news source by the U.S. Supreme Court, thus negating the second element of burglary. He isn't the first news gatherer that's used deceptive means to gather news, but there's been many instances where reporters have been charged with trespassing... However, again, trespassing would have even been hard to prove under mississippi's statute, because if he had a right to be there (even by deception), he was not asked to leave...

Could they sue? Would be tricky, because is mrs Cochran a public figure? Many will say no, but being married to a senator kind of puts you in the view of the public. And photography and news gathering of public figures is protected under the first amendment as well.

There's a lot of "what if's" in this case... And I'm no lawyer, but I did sleep at a holiday inn last night.

I highly doubt Mrs. Cochran was her own Responsible Party and was allowed to make the call on whether she wanted privacy or not. Whomever is listed as her Power of Attorney/Responsible Party is, and it seems to me like they expected her to have privacy. There are people to make decisions for people that can't- that's how that works. How caustic of you to say though that she had no expectations. Hey, toddlers have no expectation of privacy either, but that doesn't mean you can't commit crimes against them. This disgusted me.

I am sincerely appalled at the people continuing to complain that there was no crime committed here. "Their doors are left open", so we should feel okay about treating it like it's some zoo? The fact is this guy was too scared to go until it was very crowded and tried to blend in with visitors and entered her room and took her picture without permission from a responsible party. That's wrong. He wrongly exploited her for gain.

It was a crime. As far as I'm concerned, the guy deserved his sentence. The conspirators that had intimate knowledge of this plan, particularly John Mary, deserved more. Clayton Kelly, dumb or not, goaded or not, knew what he was doing was wrong. He's old enough to know better, and being dumb does not absolve one of responsibility. Mark Mayfield gave a whole lot of information, and he knew exactly what he was contributing to. Nice guy or not, he was very guilty in this. Those that blamed the investigation for his demise were wrong to do so- he made a calculated, bad choice that led to an even worse one.

It appears Noel was kept well in the loop on this, and there's no way to me Chris has no intelligence that something like this was happening. His fan club can say until the end of time he took the moral highhorse on it, but you can read where he liked it getting leaked, and he happened to get wind of it pretty quickly it appears and knew who to contact almost immediately, which I find strange.

8:02, you win for your observation, "fools, thinking that the people of Mississippi care about the moral character of their elected rulers." THAT'S the real crux of this whole thing.

11:28 taking a photo in a public place is not a crime. taking a photo in a place you have no right be in, and the subject of the photo is a vulnerable adult, yes its a crime. a misdemeanor, but a crime. A credentialed AP reporter cannot break into or trespass to take a photo without committing a crime. Being a journalist is not an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card.

Kingfish they did not even need her nameplate.Just show an elderly bed ridden woman. An actress. Don't show her face. Show her withered hands, bed pans, gray hair. Then show black and white footage of a happy young coupe making ice cream in the 1940's. A mother cooking. Making a quilt. You can paint that picture quite well without breaking any laws. And real pictures of the Senator working side by side with his new wife, former girl friend, were a matter of public record and fair game.
For my money I would have stayed away from this topic and gone after the man's voting record. Nothing dirty in that. And they would have won too.

@3:51... You're right, but the tresspassing statute in Mississippi is vague... Only saying that the first amendment should have covered the exploitation part...

There are Many cases around our country concerning trespassing and news gathering by deception.

I'm not trying to say it's ok and no punisemt is deserved... Just saying some of these laws need to be updated/clarified

Example was made... People in the future will be more careful... I think that's what's important

The bottom line is the KKK/TeaParty thought Mississippi would vote for a clown if they could prove Thad was "messing around."

Not gonna happen, dumbasses.

It they had video of Cochran in the act, it wouldn't have gotten goofball elected.