MidDays with Gerard Gibert 2026-06-08

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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Get ready to go beyond the headlines and join a meaningful conversation with people from around the state. You're listening to MidDays with Gerard Gibert here on SuperTalk Mississippi.

**Gerard Gibert** (1:01)
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to MidDays SuperTalk Mississippi. I'm your host, Gerard Gibert, along with Rhino in the Element Wealth Studio, guiding you through the middle of your day with facts, fodder, and fine music. Morning there, Rhino.

**Rhino** (1:17)
Howdy, howdy.

**Gerard Gibert** (1:18)
All right, we got the missing headset somewhere in the SuperTalk headquarters. Rhino is not, does not have on his head at this time his normal headset. And I know that can be frustrating because you get accustomed to them, don't you?

**Rhino** (1:33)
Oh yeah, especially the sound of them, because they don't even make that headset anymore. They just crone legs and walked off.

**Gerard Gibert** (1:40)
That'll be in here somewhere, man. We're all buckled up, ready to go. Prentice Harrell, circuit court judge for the 15th Judicial District of Mississippi joins MidDays at 1105, talking about the impact of the drug courts. Interesting. So that should be an engaging conversation. The markets, I was off Friday, of course.
And so, I take off one day and the markets go to hell. What in the wide world of sports? Huge sell-off on the NASDAQ, closing down 1,100 points. I think that's because it had such a run-up in the month of May, and then folks were getting some liquidity to buy in to the big SpaceX IPO later this week. I'm not sure I've ever seen an IPO generate this much media attention, ever. And this is expected, based on the price at which the stock, the company, will go public. This is expected to make Elon Musk the first trillionaire in the world. Now, I've thought for some time that eventually we would mint a trillionaire. I just didn't think it'd be this soon. I always kind of figured it'd be maybe an infant in a stroller somewhere that would grow up and achieve that level of wealth through time. But no, it looks like Elon Musk is on track to earn that distinction. Let's see, going public, is it Friday? I think it's Friday when SpaceX, in fact, does hit the tape. This could be something, man. Really.
But the markets are up today. Just to get you started there, the Dow up 217, the NASDAQ also in the green. Funny money's making a little recovery up to, what, $3,300. So it's doing a little better, but it's been taking a beating of late, as you know. Yeah, the NASDAQ now up comfortably in the green, 455 points. Some are up, some are down in the big tech names.
We gotta start out also by letting you know that today is tax filing day. Recall, Rhino, that after we had the storms come through a couple of months ago, the IRS announced, hey, you folks in Mississippi, you don't have to file by April 15th. It would have been really difficult given the timing of that storm. You can hold off until today, June the 8th. And initially, we didn't really get the same change in filing date from the Mississippi Department of Revenue, but they quickly did adjust and align with the Internal Revenue Service. So today is the day that your taxes are due. I think a lot of people probably already took care of that. But if you have it, you have until today, and you're still good to go.
That's where we are on that situation. The United States Postal Service, it's raising stamp prices again.
They will take effect on July the 12th. A first-class mail forever stamp is going up four cents from 78 cents to 82 cents. The old postcards from 61 to 65, international postcards and letters also rising in price from $1.70 to $1.75.
But the United States Post Office says, sorry, that ain't enough. This won't solve our financial problems. Quote, we are running out of cash, and we have to make trade-offs. Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers earlier this year, quote, we would love to have brand new trucks driving through the neighborhoods safely, but we don't have enough cash to do it.
The United States Postal Service is also facing a bit of criticism over a new rule that's being proposed, not active yet, that would create nationwide standards for absentee voting by mail. Remember the president? He basically said, look, you shall not, I'm reading from the order, the USPS shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a state-specific list. And that state-specific list, as you know, is supposed to be one compiled that says only these people should get a ballot or have their ballot transmitted via the mail, because they're the only ones that are eligible. In other words, if you're dead, that would be a pretty good indication you shouldn't get a ballot, not that that stopped some of the Democrats from harvesting ballots ostensibly cast by, impossibly cast, we should say, by dead people. But of course, you've got to be a US citizen. You're watching what's happening in California. It was predictable, wasn't it, Rhino, looking at the mayor's race there. You had incumbent Democrat Karen Bass, keep in mind, in California, it's a jungle primary. There are no partisan primaries. Everybody is on the ballot. The top two, if not one, candidate receives fifty percent plus one of the votes goes to a runoff.