Jackson Baker

Devante Hill (Photo: Devante R Hill | Facebook) Another former aide to U.S. Representative Steve Cohen has decided to seek his ex-employer’s seat. Like state Representative Justin J. Pearson, pastor-activist Devante Hill served the current Congressman at some point as an intern.

It remains to be seen whether Shelby County Republicans can find someone to carry the parity banner in the county mayor’s race — or end up shifting their hopes to deposed schools superintendent Marie Feagins as their most acceptable Democrat, should the Democrats’ primary become this year’s “tantamount” election.

The year began with two surprises, the greater of which, of course, being the dramatic — and wholly unexpected — raid ordered by President Donald Trump on Venezuela and the extraction therefrom of dictator Nicolás Maduro to stand trial for “narco-terrorism.” A lesser astonishment, from a local point of view, was that Trump, in his first post-raid press conference, chose to dilate on what the president deemed the successes of another recent intervention — by the Memphis Safe Task Force.