Raw Story

When 34-year-old Thad Cochran arrived in Washington after his first election in 1972, the Republican felt it important to document what he’d heard and learned from Mississippians on the campaign trail and share it with his young staff.

He sat down at a typewriter and wrote a memo titled “General Responsiveness" and dated March 14, 1973:

During the campaign I detected a very strong animosity among the people toward government and those associated with government bureaus and agencies. This included elected officials and those associated with them. Part of the cause of this attitude was due to a lack of feeling or understanding by government people for the needs and opinions of the average citizen. We are all in a job to represent all our constituents. We are not the bureaucracy. A constituent who asks us for help should be assured to be in need of help with our office as his last resort. A constituent who writes a letter should be made to feel by our response that he is glad he wrote us. A constituent who claims to have been wronged by the government should be assumed to be correct. Everyone should guard against developing the attitude that we are better than, smarter than or more important than any constituent. We do not hold a position of authority over any constituent. We are truly servants of the people who selected us for this job.

Every year from 1973 through 2018, over his three U.S. House terms and six U.S. Senate terms, Cochran shared that memo with every staffer who worked in his offices. The guidance, he said all those years, was a necessary reminder to show respect to the people who offer feedback or need help. He never wanted his staff or himself to forget who sent them to Washington.

The memo, like so many other things, serves as a stark reminder that Cochran was among the last in a bygone era of American politics. The perspective he wrote and shared is a far cry from what Mississippians have been getting recently from our current U.S. senators.

“Surely everybody else has better things to do with their time,” senior U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker said to a room full of constituents earlier this month when asked about calls and emails his office has been getting. After half-heartedly explaining that he does see a list of names of people who reach out to his office, he quipped: “Get a life.”

Wicker, who typically chooses his words a little more carefully, perhaps was trying to match his junior colleague's energy.

“Why is everyone’s head exploding?” U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith said in April to Mississippi constituents who had expressed concerns over slashing federal Medicaid spending. “I can’t understand why everyone’s head is exploding.”

There are many kind staffers working for Republicans Wicker and Hyde-Smith who are helpful to Mississippi constituents in any number of ways privately or behind the scenes. These people care deeply about serving their home state and they do it well, and they cannot help how their bosses address the public. But, boy, their phones must be blowing up more than ever since the senators made these comments.

Consider, for a moment, what it means that we have devolved from having a leader who believed that “a constituent who claims to have been wronged by the government should be assumed to be correct” to one who thinks telling constituents to “get a life” is appropriate. Think about the fact that we replaced a leader who regularly reminded his staff that “we are truly servants of the people who selected us for this job” with one whose gut response to legitimate concerns from constituents is that their “heads are exploding.”

Just … wow. To call it alarming doesn't fully encapsulate the gravity of their behavior. It’s enough to discourage even the most optimistic among us about the present and future of our state and our nation.

It’s enough to inspire you to ponder, in this intense political climate when unprecedented and harrowing federal government decisions are being made and going largely unchecked every day, whether our current U.S. senators even remember why they're in Washington, why we sent them there.

It is necessary, in the shortest possible order, to ask and answer for ourselves what we should expect of our elected officials and whether we should feel OK about being dismissed or ignored outright like this.

You don’t have to be a Democrat to think that this behavior is out of line. Plenty of Republicans — some publicly and many privately — are increasingly disturbed by what’s happening in Washington. Regardless of your own personal political beliefs, be honest with yourself about whether you can read these comments from our senators and still feel that your best interests are being represented.

Sadly, we can no longer ask Cochran to help us answer these questions, but it sure seems clear where he’d stand. What about you?

Several of the law firms that agreed to do pro-bono work for Donald Trump’s administration after he publicly targeted them with threats have yet to do a single thing for the president because they believe the terms of the agreements are unenforceable.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s campaign against the law firms resulted in a series of executive orders threatening their access to federal buildings, removing security clearances and putting their clients’ government contracts at ris.

It caused multiple high-profile firms to cave to the president and promise to provide millions of dollars worth of pro bono legal services.

While some of them have come through, others haven’t lifted a finger since the president moved on to other perceived enemies.

As the Journal reported, “Several firms that struck the unprecedented deals have shrugged them off as unenforceable and have taken on little to no additional unpaid work, according to people familiar with the matter. They are hoping Trump has moved on.”

RELATED: Clients dump law firms that rolled over for Trump: 'Don't know how to fight'

According to their report, one way the firms are getting around complying stems from the fact that no one at the White House is compelling them to make good on their promises.

“Many firm leaders said they received limited follow-up from the White House after inking the deals,” the Journal reported, before adding, “One leader at a firm with a White House agreement told associates that they wouldn’t have to work on causes favored by Trump, including representing participants in the Jan. 6 riots on the Capitol — and wouldn’t face new obligations because of the deal, according to people familiar with those discussions.“

According to attorney Gary DiBianco, “I think the administration has completely lost the leverage it has over future firms.”

The report goes on to note, “The Oversight Project, a conservative watchdog group formerly affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, has been approaching law firms that made deals to ask for legal help, but most never responded, the group’s president, Mike Howell, said. A few firms took meetings but haven’t yet taken on any proposed legal work.”

You can read more here.

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that brings same-sex marriage back into the national debate, featuring a familiar face for those who have followed this issue over the past dozen years. However, one retired Harvard constitutional law scholar thinks he knows what will unfold once the high court rules.

For the past ten years, same-sex couples have had the same freedoms as straight couples, including access to civil marriage and the legal protections that come with it.

Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who spent six days in jail after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is now appealing a verdict that requires her to pay $100,000 in restitution and $260,000 in attorneys' fees to the couple she targeted. Davis claimed that issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple violated her religious beliefs.

In her filing, Davis called the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges “egregiously wrong.” “The mistake must be corrected,” said Davis’ lawyer, Mathew Staver, in the filing.

In other cases involving public officials refusing to do their jobs for religious reasons, legal decisions have been mixed. For example, a baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding won her case. However, in a case involving a Minnesota pharmacist who refused to sell Plan B or “the morning after pill,” the courts ruled that the pharmacist could deny the medication as long as another pharmacist was available to dispense it.

Former constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe pointed to Davis’s case and a recent USA Today article, which cited the 2022 passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. The law, which passed Congress with bipartisan support, requires all states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages.

"It wouldn’t surprise me if SCOTUS took up this case and ruled (wrongly) for Kim Davis on religious freedom grounds but declined (rightly) to consider her outlandish request that Obergefell be overturned," said Tribe on Bluesky.

Georgia law professor Anthony Michael Kreis similarly pointed out, "There’s also federal statutory protections on the books. And it would be a very messy right to dismantle."

"We certainly know that [Justices Samuel] Alito and [Clarence] Thomas would gladly walk Obergefell back," he added. "But, the Court as it is comprised of now, almost surely doesn’t have the appetite. Anything is possible, but [Justices Amy Coney] Barrett and [John] Roberts (I suspect [Brett Kavanaugh] Kav too) aren’t going to bite. Don’t trust them. But let’s be good legal realists."

Lawyer and journalist Imani Gandy authored a thread where she explained why she is less optimistic.

"We've had a decade of marriage equality—and that may be all we get," said Gandy. "Just like I warned about Roe for years, I'm warning you now: Obergefell is absolutely on the chopping block. The same 'history and tradition' test that killed abortion rights? That's their blueprint for same-sex marriage."

Even if Davis is unsuccessful, Gandy thinks "Christian conservatives will find another one. Don't let anyone tell you the polling is too strong. 61% of Americans supported abortion rights too. This Court doesn't care about public opinion. The votes are there. Thomas and Alito have been gunning for Obergefell since day one. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all signed onto Dobbs using the framework they'll use against marriage equality. Roberts literally read his Obergefell dissent from the bench—he's THAT mad about it. That's 6 votes."

Vice President JD Vance’s visit last week to a small community in Southern England has been met with fierce protests from locals, and while most of the opposition stems from the Trump administration’s policy positions, a number of locals are growing increasingly frustrated with Vance's accompanying security detail, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

“We’ve had a curtailment of our freedoms here, just by his mere presence, in terms of where we can walk and where we can be,” said Steve Akers, deputy mayor of Chipping Norton, just over three miles away from Vance’s vacation home in Dean, speaking with the Wall Street Journal.

“And the American Secret Service knocking on people’s doors and asking about their Facebook profiles.”

Vance and his family are staying at an 18th-century manor house in Dean, which he rents for nearly $11,000 a week. He’s characterized the visit as both a family vacation and a diplomatic visit, and is expected to return to the United States on Friday, marking the trip as the vice president’s longest since assuming office.

His ten-day visit, however, has already caused chaos in the small English community, as well as communities outside of Dean, sparking further outrage for longtime residents.

“Roads near the tiny hamlet of Dean, where the Vance family has been staying at an 18th-century manor, have been closed and only residents are allowed through,” wrote Roya Shahidi with the Wall Street Journal.

“Some in Dean have complained that local police or the U.S. Secret Service have knocked on their doors to verify their identity and even ask about their social-media profiles, according to local officials.”

A no-fly zone was also established over the Dean community and beyond, impacting the British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, former host of the popular British Broadcasting Corporation show “Top Gear,” who owns a farm near Dean, the subject of an ongoing reality show “Clarkson’s Farm,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump has found a new role for his daughter Ivanka in his second administration—Ultimate Fighting Championship event coordinator for a historic White House bout.

The 43-year-old former senior adviser, who largely dropped out of the political spotlight after being front and center during her father's first presidency, is now spearheading plans for the first UFC fight ever held on White House grounds.

"When [Trump] called me and asked me to do it, he said, 'I want Ivanka in the middle of this,'" UFC CEO Dana White revealed on CBS Mornings Tuesday. "So Ivanka reached out to me, and her and I started talking about the possibilities, where it would be and, you know, I put together all the renderings."

The president, a devoted UFC fan who has attended multiple fights cage-side with his eldest daughter, has been floating the White House fight concept for months. White confirmed the event will take place July 4, 2026, launching America's 250th birthday celebration.

"It is definitely going to happen," declared White, whose influence with young male voters reportedly helped Trump's 2024 victory. CBS News confirmed a White House source verified the event planning.

Ivanka's return marks a dramatic shift after her self-imposed political exile. Following four years as a senior adviser managing economic initiatives, she rejected involvement in Trump's 2024 campaign, citing the "darkness" of politics.

"I love policy and impact. I hate politics. And unfortunately, the two are not separable," she explained on the Him & Her podcast before Trump's January inauguration. "I know the cost, and it's a price that I'm not willing to make my kids bear."

While Trump weathered controversies and global tensions, Ivanka maintained distance, attending elite social events like Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's Venice wedding. However, the opportunity to organize a groundbreaking sports spectacle—with guidance from her casino-owning father who previously hosted UFC events—apparently proved irresistible for the mother of three.

A Danville, Virginia, city councilman was set on fire by a man who broke into his workplace and doused him with gasoline, WBTM reported.

Lee Vogler was attacked after the suspect entered the offices of Showcase Magazine, where Vogler is an employee.

Vogler tried to escape the building after the man dumped a 5-gallon bucket of gasoline on him, but was set on fire after the suspect chased him down, the report said.

"Vogler is awake and talking," the report said. He is being treated at a burn center in Lynchburg.

Police arrested Shotsie Michael Buck Hayes, 29, of Danville, in the attack.

"Based on the investigation at the time of this release, the victim and the suspect are known to each other and the attack stems from a personal matter not related to the victim’s position on Danville City Council or any other political affiliation," the report said.

Read the WBTM article here.