OurTupelo

Mississippi Today’s political team breaks down this week’s congressional primaries and looks ahead to potential November general election matchups.

The post Podcast: What you need to know about 2022 Mississippi midterms appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss coach Scott Berry made one point perfectly clear Friday night after LSU rallied from four runs behind to send the Golden Eagles into the losers bracket of the Hattiesburg Regional.

“To achieve the task we are faced with now, we are going to have to call on players to do things they haven’t been asked to do before,” Berry said.

Justin Storm must have been listening.

With the Southern Miss season hanging in the balance, the seldom used Storm entered the game in the fifth inning and never left it while leading his team to an 8-4 victory. He pitched five innings of sensational baseball, shutting down the high-powered LSU Tigers as if he had been in similar situations often in the past.

Actually, he never has. He’s never thrown 85 pitches in a game either. Storm’s longest previous stint this season was 1.2 innings. But he shut out the Tigers, allowing only two hits while striking out seven and walking only one. The 6-foot, 7-inch former Madison Central basketball and baseball player pitched the game of his life. That’s all.

“A star was born tonight,” Berry said. “I’ve seen players step up in these kinds of situations before, as Justin did tonight. He was so calm, so in control. I really believe we saw a star born tonight.”

It was nothing fancy. Storm spotted a 90-91 mile per hour fastball, using both sides of the plate, high and low, and kept the Tigers off balance with an effective slider. He threw strikes.

Storm said if he has ever thrown 85 pitches in a game — from Little League until now — he doesn’t remember it.

He will remember these 85 pitches for a long, long time, no matter what happens when the Tigers and Golden Eagles square off in the Hattiesburg Regional’s deciding game at 3 p.m. on Monday. It will be 46-17 Southern Miss going against 40-21 LSU for the third time in three days. Southern Miss will be playing its third game in a 27-hour span, having had to defeat feisty Kennesaw State 4-3 in 10 innings earlier Saturday.

Hunter Riggins was the pitching hero in that one, allowing only one earned run and seven hits over nine innings. Riggins was fantastic — but then Southern Miss fans have to come to expect that from him, just as Delta State fans had before he graduated and transferred to USM to play his final season of college eligibility.

Riggins covered the nine innings in temperatures that soared well over 100 degrees on the artificial playing surface. He threw 117 pitches. Yes, he said, he had considered the fact that after all those 36 pitching victories in five seasons of college baseball (including the Covid season), Sunday night mark his last game as a college pitcher.

“I thought about it and what I thought is that I am not ready to transfer to the couch,” Riggins said. “I want to play some more baseball.”

Riggins won’t be available for the Eagles today. Neither will Hurston Waldrep, who was extended to 117 pitches against LSU on Saturday night. Storm surely can’t throw again on such short rest, but one would think that all other Southern Miss pitchers could be called  for an inning or three on Monday.

LSU is in the same boat. Said LSU coach Jay Johnson, “That’s why we carry 13 pitchers on a 27-man roster. We have plenty of options.”

Johnson seemed confident. “We’ve answered the bell after failure before,” he said. “I feel as good as any coach can given our situation.”

LSU broke on top 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning on Cade Doughty’s two-run home run off the new Southern Miss scoreboard in left center field. Southern Miss answered with two runs of its own in the second inning.

LSU fired right back with two more in the top of the third, but then Southern Miss responded with two more in the third to tie it at 4.

“I knew when we answered them after they went up 2-0 and 4-2 that we were locked in and ready to play,” Berry said. “I couldn’t be more proud of our resilience.”

It was as if the LSU and Southern Miss teams were swapping punches on the field, while the fans tried to drown one another out in the stands. Again, it was a football-like crowd atmosphere. Every time Tiger fans would start their L-S-U chant, Southern Miss’s much larger home crowd would drown them out with chants of U-S-M.

LSU chants became fewer when Storm entered the the game with one Tiger on base and nobody out in the fifth and the score still tied at 4. The big southpaw kept LSU at four runs for five straight innings, while Southern Miss scored three in the the sixth and then another in eighth on Carson Paetow’s line drive home run into the Right Field Roost, which left the ballpark in a seeming nanosecond.

Southern Miss pitching coach Christian Ostrander kept asking Storm how he felt. He kept saying he felt fine. Ostrander and Berry kept sending Storm back out and he kept throwing strikes.

How did he feel afterward?

“I’m exhausted,” Storm replied.

Much later came the news that top-seed Miami had been eliminated from the Coral Gables Regional, meaning that Southern Miss will host the Super Regional if the Eagles can knock off LSU for a second straight time.

For the Golden Eagles to do it, someone likely will have to pull off another Justin Storm — if that’s even possible.

The post On an otherwise clear night, it Storm-ed on LSU in Hattiesburg appeared first on Mississippi Today.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Tupelo Republican, believes the leak of the draft U.S. Supreme Court decision revoking a nationwide right to an abortion is “an attack on a key institution” and “threatens (the) independence of the Court.”

But by Wicker’s estimation, the alleged conflict of interest created by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ruling on cases involving his wife Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and election denier, is no big deal and does nothing to hurt the Supreme Court.

“I’m not concerned about Justice Thomas and I disagree that there are apparent conflicts as you assert. His service to date has been beyond reproach,” Wicker said in response to a question from Mississippi Today.

The senior senator from Mississippi went on to add, “Mrs. Ginni Thomas is a free American entitled to her own views. She does not surrender her rights based on who her husband is.”

No one, of course, is questioning Ginni Thomas’ right to have a personal or public life of her own. What is at issue is whether Clarence Thomas, as one of the nation’s nine most powerful members of the judiciary, should be ruling on issues surrounding his wife’s public life.

Earlier this year, Thomas was the only member of the nation’s highest court to rule against releasing correspondence from the White House to a commission established by the U.S. House to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election.

That commission is chaired by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who is the lone Democrat in Mississippi’s congressional delegation. It is of note than Wicker voted against forming the commission.

It is hard to fathom that when Thomas ruled on the case, he was not aware of his wife’s email correspondence with the White House in which she urged members of President Trump’s team to do all they could to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

While Wicker sees no problems with the Thomases, he said if the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked by a Supreme Court law clerk, that person should be disbarred. If it was a Supreme Court justice who leaked the draft opinion, that justice should be impeached, Wicker said.

“This leak will severely damage that trust, putting at risk the ability of our nation’s highest court to function,” Wicker said in a commentary. “It will also set a disturbing precedent of inciting mob pressure to intimidate the justices before they issue a decision.”

On a conservative news show, Wicker said, “I think Democrats and Republicans should have denounced the leak. So far it has only come from our side.”

Many believe both Republicans and Democrats also should be speaking up in favor of placing guidelines on Supreme Court justices for dealing with conflict of interest issues. There are guidelines for recusal from cases that judges are supposed to follow. But the Supreme Court is not bound by those guidelines.

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges that apparently does not apply to Supreme Court justices says, “A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. This prohibition applies to both professional and personal conduct. A judge must expect to be the subject of constant public scrutiny and accept freely and willingly restrictions that might be viewed as burdensome by the ordinary citizen.”

Perhaps such a code also should apply to the nine most powerful judges in the nation — those who make up the Supreme Court.

Fix the Court, a nonprofit advocacy group, cites about 60 alleged ethics violations by Supreme Court justices in recent years, including Thomas’ possible conflicts of interest related to his wife and other justices accepting gifts and travel from groups that might appear before the court.

“At a time when the Supreme Court has outsized power — over our personal privacy and health care decisions, over who can vote and who wins elections, over who can marry and who can unionize, and so much more — it is critical that the branch, including those at its apex, are subject to transparency and accountability rules that measure up to its might,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court.

Legislation is currently being considered by Congress that will address some of those conflict of interest issues facing the Supreme Court and will provide more transparency.

Whether that legislation will receive support from Republicans like Roger Wicker remains to be seen.

The post Wicker says leak could harm Supreme Court, but scoffs at Clarence Thomas’ possible conflicts of interest appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss led LSU 6-2 headed into the bottom of the ninth inning, and Pete Taylor Park was seemingly coming apart at the seams. Fans stomped on the metal grandstand and thundered U-S-M, U-S-M over and over and over. It was more like a football crowd than baseball.

The Golden Eagles had slammed three home runs. Starting pitcher Hurston Waldrep had delivered perhaps the performance of his life. LSU was on the ropes, and Southern Miss closer Landon Harper, so dependable all season long, was on the mound.

The Eagles needed just three outs. LSU needed four runs just to extend the game.

And then, well, you know what happened next. LSU scored those four runs in the ninth to extend the game and then won it with a single run in the bottom of the 10th for a 7-6 victory that was as exhilarating for the Tigers as it was devastating for the Golden Eagles.

Harper, who had allowed only 10 earned runs in 28 appearances all season, gave up four earned runs in one inning.

LSU now has to win just one game to advance to an NCAA Super Regional. Southern Miss must win three, and two of those will have to be over LSU.

Don’t know what the odds against that are, but they are sky-high. LSU will rest in the heat of Sunday afternoon while Kennesaw State and Southern Miss play one another to see who gets to come back Sunday night and face a fresh LSU team again.

Kennesaw State and Southern Miss share one regrettable fate. Both had LSU on the ropes on back-to-back nights. Neither could finish the deal.

“We just couldn’t put them away,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “We just couldn’t come up with that one pitch for a punch-out the way Waldrep had when he was in there.”

We should go no further without giving Waldrep his due. Actually, let’s let LSU coach Jay Johnson have the honors.

“Waldrep was outstanding,” Johnson said. “We faced (Tennessee All American) Chase Dollander (9-0) last Friday night and we faced Waldrep tonight. Those two are the two best pitchers we faced all season.”

That’s high, high praise and definitely deserved. After struggling with his control in the first two innings, Waldrep allowed only two hits to the explosive Tigers over the next 4.1 innings. He struck out 11 and at one time fanned six in a row and seven of eight batters. With each third strike, the home crowd got louder and louder. Waldrep was demonstrative himself, punching the air with each strikeout.

It was, both coaches said, a college baseball atmosphere that would be difficult to duplicate.

“Great for college baseball,” Johnson said.

“I can’t imagine it was like this at any other venue across the country,” Berry said.

All of which makes the defeat all the more crushing for the Eagles, who got home runs from Will McGillis, Carson Paetow and Christopher Sargent, who was playing with a sore lower back, but also added two singles to his home run.

“We played a really good game for the most part,” Berry said. “We just couldn’t get that last out in the ninth. Give LSU credit. They kept fouling off good pitches and did what it took to win the game.”

On Friday night, LSU rallied from seven runs behind in the eighth inning for a 14-11 victory over Kennesaw State. Dylan Crews, the LSU centerfielder and leadoff hitter, said then it was the greatest victory of his LSU career because of the circumstances. Turns out, it was the greatest victory for about 24 hours. What the Tigers did against a really good Southern Miss bullpen takes the proverbial cake.

“It’s about what’s inside of you,” Johnson, the LSU coach, said. 

LSU has plenty.

We’ll find out how much moxie the Golden Eagles have Sunday afternoon when they go against a Kennesaw State lineup that has pounded virtually every pitcher it has faced in this regional. 

Said Berry, “It’s all hands on deck. We face an incredibly hard task, but I feel like we can do it.”

The post You have to get 27 outs. Southern Miss got 26 before LSU flipped the script. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — The NCAA Baseball Tournament pairings had just been announced on Monday when Zachary, La., native Tanner Hall was asked about what game of the Hattiesburg Regional he wanted to pitch.

Hall, the sophomore ace for Southern Miss, was direct and to the point: “I want LSU,” he said, referring to the school, 16 miles away from his hometown, that did not recruit him.

Turns out, Hall got Army instead.

Army wishes he hadn’t.

Hall, an All American and winner of the Boo Ferriss Trophy, mastered the Black Knights, pitching eight innings of four-hit, shutout baseball in the Golden Eagles’ 2-0 opening round victory. Southern Miss will play LSU, 14-11 comeback winner over Kennesaw State at 6 p.m. Saturday night in a winners’ bracket game.

Hall mixed a 92-93 mph fast ball with a Major League-quality change-up that broke to either side of the plate depending on how he gripped the baseball. He struck out nine, walked only one and kept the Army hitters off balance throughout.

Said Army coach Jim Foster, “Hall is one of the best in the country and his numbers show it…. He has a change-up that would get Big League hitters out. I played 10 years of professional baseball and that’s what I saw. It was a good, late action changeup. … We had a tough time with him. He’s really good.”

Those “numbers” Foster referred to are becoming the stuff of legend where Hall is concerned. Through 17 appearances this season, Hall has now struck out 139 batters and walked only 12. That’s a strikeouts-to-walks ratio of nearly 12 to 1, which is stunning. (Three to one is considered top shelf.) Little wonder Hall has won eight of his 10 decisions.

Turns out, Southern Miss needed Hall at his best to beat Army, which got a superlative pitching performance from sophomore left-handed ace Connelly Early. Early, who allowed only one earned run over his six innings, was especially effective whenever the Eagles put runners in scoring position, which was often.

In fact, Southern Miss put runners in scoring position in three of the first four innings to no avail. Over those four innings Early faced five batters with runners in scoring position. He struck out all five. You won’t win many games with clutch hitting like that. Southern Miss would not have won this one if not for Hall.

Southern Miss finished the game batting zero-for-seven with runners on second or third – or both. It was as if Eagles were swinging at invisible pitches when it mattered most. That will have to change for Southern Miss to advance.

Clean-up hitter Christopher Sargent, playing with a painful back injury, was the hitting hero. He gave the Eagles the only run they would need when his line-drive double bounced off the left field wall with such force, it caromed back into the playing field past Army left fielder Nick Manesis. By the time Manesis retrieved it, Reece Ewing was on the way to scoring all the way from first base.

Sargent, who moved around gingerly, looking like a man much older than his 21 years, acknowledged he was playing with significant lower back pain. “I’m just going to get treatment and fight through it,” he said. 

Southern Miss added an unearned run in the sixth when Gabe Montenegro singled, moved to second on catcher Blake Johnson’s sacrifice bunt and then scored on a throwing error by the Army shortstop.

Johnson, the Eagles’ junior catcher, was his pitcher’s best friend. The game was still scoreless in the fourth when Johnson’s perfect throw nailed Manesis trying to steal second with two out. Army’s Sam Ruta was on third base at the time and would have scored easily had Johnson’s throw been late. Johnson also made a sterling play, throwing out Army catcher Cam Corruto on a swinging bunt with a runner on second in the fifth inning.

Otherwise, Hall needed little help. He was dominant. Not only did he win, he kept the Southern Miss bullpen fresh, a bonus in a double elimination tournament such as this.

Berry said he never discussed saving Hall for LSU or whomever the Eagles play next. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” Berry said. “I just think the most important game is the one you are about to play. You just have to win that first one and stay in the winners’ bracket. I’ve seen coaches do it the other way and I’ve seen it backfire.”

Anything less than the All American performance Hall gave might not have been enough.

Berry did make one significant change in the Eagles’ approach. He moved Montenegro, normally the leadoff hitter, down to eighth in the order, replacing him with Carson Paetow. That’s what the Eagles did earlier in the season when Montenegro was hit in the face by a pitched baseball and was out of the lineup.

“By my count we are now 15 and 0 with Paetow batting leadoff,” Berry said.

Paetow was zero for four with three strikeouts Friday. Montenegro was two for three, walked once and scored one of the Eagles’ two runs. Nevertheless, don’t expect Berry to switch the lineup back Saturday when Southern Miss plays LSU. After all, 15-0 is hard to beat.

The post Southern Miss survives Army, thanks to Tanner Hall’s brilliant pitching appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Bill Renick, who is serving as the chair of the Commission on the Future of Northeast Mississippi, has been nominated to serve on the nine-member Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors by President Joe Biden.

Renick’s nomination was announced Friday afternoon.

“This is an honor for someone from Ashland,” Renick said. “TVA is such a major player in Mississippi, not just in electricity, but also in economic development, workforce training and education.”

TVA was created during the 1930s to, in part, help bring electricity to rural areas of seven states. In Mississippi, TVA sells electricity to municipalities and electric cooperatives encompassing almost one third of the state’s population. TVA provides electricity in all or parts of 35 counties primarily in the northern part of the state, but stretching as far south as Rankin, Scott and Newton counties in central Mississippi.

Renick would be the first Mississippian on the board since former Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth resigned from the board in August 2020.

Renick will face Senate confirmation.

Renick’s nomination for the post by the Democratic president was praised Friday by both of Mississippi’s Republican senators, Sen. Roger Wicker of Tupelo and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Brookhaven.

“The Tennessee Valley Authority has long been vital for Mississippi’s power generation and economic development needs, as evidenced by Tupelo being the first TVA city in 1934. It is imperative that our state’s interests always be represented within TVA,” Wicker said. “I am pleased that President Biden has recognized this and nominated Bill Renick to serve on the TVA Board of Directors.

“Bill has a proven record of serving our state first in public office and then as a business and economic development leader.”

Hyde-Smith said, “I’m pleased the president has nominated Bill Renick to serve on the TVA Board, which would restore Mississippi representation on this important body. I look forward to the confirmation process and believe Bill’s experience, aptitude, and extensive record of service to Mississippi will serve the TVA and its customers well.”

Until last summer, the 68-year-old Renick served as director of the workforce division for the Northeast Mississippi-based Three Rivers Planning and Development District.

Renick said he hopes that he can bring to the TVA Board expertise in the areas of economic development and work force training. He said he would strive to reach the president’s goal of energy conservation.

Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley of the Northern District of Mississippi had lobbied the White House to appoint a Mississippian to the TVA Board. He praised Renick’s nomination.

“Bill Renick is a product of the region of America that led our rural areas out of the dark in the 1930s with the help of TVA, and he knows the struggles of working families, senior citizens, and business owners as well as anyone in the entire Tennessee Valley,” Presley said. “President Biden made a smart choice in picking this good man for this job,”

Presley added, “While we fought for two seats on the TVA board, Bill Renick’s abilities, tenacity and work ethic will mean that Mississippi’s voice will be heard loud and clear. I’m proud for my friend, Bill, and even prouder that such an upstanding man will be serving on the TVA board. The Senate should act swiftly in confirming his nomination.”

Renick was elected to the Ashland Board of Aldermen at age 18 and later served as mayor. He also served on the Marshall County Board of Supervisors and in the state Senate. Renick was chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Eddie Briggs in the 1990s and later as chief of staff for Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.

Renick also was a hospital administrator.

The TVA term will be for five years. There are currently four vacancies on the board with two more seats becoming open this year. Biden also nominated on Friday Wade White, a Lyon County judge executive in Kentucky, to the TVA Board.

TVA also manages various bodies of water and other recreational and cultural facilities.

The post Biden nominates Mississippian Bill Renick to TVA Board appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In an op-ed titled “The New Pro-Life Agenda,” Gov. Tate Reeves wrote that the pro-life movement must be more than anti-abortion – but he offered few specifics about plans to improve the lives of mothers and babies in Mississippi, which ranks last in the country in most indicators of child well-being.  

Reeves said in the op-ed published Thursday that Missisisppi will “strengthen our social services infrastructure” and “build grant programs” for expectant mothers following the likely end to legal abortion in Mississippi. 

Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the country and the country’s highest rate of children living in poverty. And in 2020, the state recorded the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Reeves’ office did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about how much money his administration would invest in those programs and whether the governor would support extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms – a measure that died in the Legislature this year. About 60% of pregnant women in Mississippi are on Medicaid.

The opinion piece was published in the Washington Stand, a news outlet run by the Family Research Council, a conservative evangelical organization that opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights. 

The op-ed covered much of the same ground Reeves presented in interviews on national television in May after the leak of a draft opinion showing the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe. The ruling in the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, will likely come later this month. 

“Being pro-life is about more than just being anti-abortion,” he wrote. “It requires working to ensure that every child who is brought into the world, no matter their situation, is given every opportunity for future success.”

During the 2022 legislative session, Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven authored a bill to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a year after childbirth. He pitched it as a pro-life measure, and it garnered broad bipartisan support in the Senate, but Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, killed the legislation. Gunn claimed it would expand Medicaid, which he opposes.

Reeves largely stayed quiet on the topic during the legislative session. When CNN’s Jake Tapper mentioned the failure to pass the extension, along with the state’s lack of paid maternity leave and poor child health outcomes, Reeves said the root of the state’s issues is poverty. 

But his proposed solution didn’t include direct assistance or more accessible health care.

“When you talk about these young ladies, the best thing we can do for them is to provide and improve educational opportunities for them,” he said. 

Despite his claims about the importance of education, Reeves has had at times a contentious relationship with public education officials and advocates.

He has not made any serious efforts to fully fund public education. During his tenure as lieutenant governor and governor, the formula that provides the bulk of the state’s share of funding for local school districts – the Mississippi Adequate Education Program – has been underfunded more than $2 billion.

He also opposed a citizen-sponsored initiative that would have incorporated in the state Constitution more of a commitment to public education. That proposal was narrowly defeated by voters after an intense campaign by Reeves and others.

Reeves has advocated for teacher pay raises, but the salary increases that have passed the Legislature have routinely been larger than what he originally proposed. And, of course, he famously filmed his 2019 political ad touting his teacher pay raise proposal at the New Summit private school in Jackson that was later closed during a federal corruption probe. Among other things, the probe accused the school’s owners of collecting money from the state for students they did not educate.

As for increasing health care access for mothers, Reeves’ office did not respond when Mississippi Today asked whether he would support postpartum Medicaid extension during the next session.

During an April 19 press conference, a reporter asked Reeves about his stance on the issue. He said he had not spoken with the director of the Division of Medicaid about it. 

“We’re continuing to look at that and many other topics that exist out there that didn’t make it through the legislative process,” he said. “We’ll make a decision in the future.”

Mississippi Republicans have refused to allow debate on expanding Medicaid eligibility for Mississippians, which would provide healthcare coverage for more than 200,000 people at no net cost to the state. 

In the op-ed this week, Reeves again mentioned plans to increase adoption access in Mississippi. He wrote that the state will “extend safe haven laws that allow for mothers to give up children they can’t care for,” but his office also did not respond to a question about what that would look like in practice. 

Missisisppi’s current law allows parents to relinquish an infant up to seven days after birth at a hospital, fire station, adoption agency, or mobile ambulance. Parents are not required to provide any identifying information. 

“We’re going to strengthen adoption services and help more children find their forever homes,” he wrote. “We’re going to build grant programs that support mothers in getting the care they need before, during, and after pregnancy. And we’re going to strengthen our social services infrastructure.”

The op-ed offered almost no specifics in terms of policy or funding proposals. He wrote that over the last five months, his office has conducted an analysis “of our state’s laws and regulations in order to identify any possible existing rules that might present an obstacle to expectant mothers.”

His office did not answer a question about what the review had found. 

As an example of steps his administration is already taking, Reeves cited the $3.5 million tax credit for the state’s crisis pregnancy centers, which he signed into law in April. 

Choose Life Mississippi offers grants to about 40 such centers around the state. They aim to dissuade women from getting abortions and generally offer pregnancy tests and ultrasounds as well as baby supplies and parenting classes. 

Nationally, abortion rights and women’s health advocates have criticized the centers as manipulative, focused on getting women in the door to try to stop them from seeking an abortion at any cost. 

Though many of the centers in Mississippi offer free ultrasounds and medical advice to pregnant people, they are not subject to any regulations from the state department of health. 

They’re also not evenly distributed around the state. A map on the Choose Life Mississippi website shows few centers in the Delta and southwest Mississippi, parts of the state that are predominately Black. 

And the tax credit legislation contains no rules or reporting requirements as to how they spend the money. 

Reeves and other Republican leaders in the state have repeatedly invoked the centers as a solution for pregnant women, with no mention of other investments in health care or financial support. 

“We’ve got to make sure that those expectant mothers, whether they want to be pregnant or not, have access to our pregnancy resource centers,” Reeves said during a press conference on May 18. “We have 37 of them in Mississippi, situated in every region in our state.”

Reeves wrote that Roe “paved the way for the slaughter of over 60 million children” and that “abortion is an unthinkable wrong that has wiped out an entire American generation,” suggesting that women rarely sought abortions prior to the ruling. But historians say that’s not true: Abortion has taken place around the world throughout human history. In the 1920s, for example, about 15,000 women died following abortions every year. 

According to Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, Mississippi was late to formally ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy. It did not do so until 1952 – half a century after nearly every other state.

Reporter Bobby Harrison contributed to this story.

The post Reeves proposes a ‘new pro-life agenda’ – but offers few details appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Incarcerated people at two prisons in the Delta will be able to start earning four-year degrees from Mississippi Valley State University this fall for the first time in more than two decades.  

Valley State’s Prison Educational Partnership Program (PEPP) is part of a growing number of colleges providing classes in prison with Second Chance Pell, a federal program that is restoring access to income-based financial aid for incarcerated people. 

Seven colleges and nonprofits currently offer for-credit college classes and vocational courses in prisons in Mississippi, but PEPP will be the first program run by a Historically Black college in the state. 

Provost Kathie Stromile Golden said that’s significant because while people of any race can participate in the program, in Mississippi, incarcerated people are disproportionately Black. PEPP will be a way for them to form a connection with an institution of the Black community on the outside. 

Stromile Golden said she views prison education as ensuring incarcerated students know their communities haven’t forgotten about them. 

“Many of the people who are incarcerated are parents and relatives of our students,” Stromile Golden said. “It’s in our best interest to do something like this, because these are the very same people who will come back to our community.” 

The university has accepted about 50 incarcerated students for the first semester of classes at Bolivar County Correctional Facility and the Delta Correctional Facility, a prison in Greenwood for people who violated parole. The Second Chance Pell program is limited to incarcerated students with a high school degree or GED diploma who will eventually be released. 

Rochelle McGee-Cobbs, an associate professor of criminal justice who will be the director of PEPP, worked with faculty and administration over the course of last year to set up the prison education program. She made multiple trips to the prisons to meet with potential students, bringing paper applications because they didn’t have access to computers to apply online. 

The students expressed interest in business administration, computer science and engineering technology courses, so those are the majors that Valley State is planning to offer, McGee-Cobbs said. 

She doesn’t know yet what courses PEPP will offer in the fall, because that will depend on the students’ transcripts, which she drove to Bolivar County on a Thursday in June to collect. 

“Here at Mississippi Valley State University, regardless of where a student is at when they come in, we try to make sure that we nourish them,” McGee-Cobbs said. “We try to make sure that we cater to the needs of each student.” 

Stromile Golden said Valley won’t know until the fall how many faculty are going to teach in the program. Instructors will be paid for travel to the prisons, but the university is working out whether instructors will reach courses as part of their regular load or as an additional class. 

Faculty who elect to participate in the program will receive training from Jamii Sisterhood, a nonprofit that works to increase the number of Black people teaching in prisons. Stromile Golden said the training, which is supported by a grant from Project Freedom, will emphasize culturally competent approaches to teaching incarcerated students without adopting a “savior” mindset, which can be demeaning. 

“Teaching inside is not the same as teaching outside,” she said.

Valley State’s incarcerated students will have access to the university’s counseling and financial aid offices. Stromile Golden and McGee-Cobbs are also working to partner with re-entry programs to assist students when they are released 

College prisons like PEPP, supported by federal financial aid that incarcerated people need to afford classes, were the norm for decades. That changed when President Bill Clinton revoked access to Pell Grants in the 1994 crime bill as a way to look “tough on crime.” Hundreds of college prison programs shut down, cut off from the public funding that made them viable. 

Over the last 15 years, as incarceration has become more expensive due to the growing population, lawmakers have started revisiting prison education programs, which studies repeatedly have shown reduce recidivism. 

Second Chance Pell, the program Valley State is participating in, was started in 2015 as an “experiment” by President Barack Obama’s administration to give incarcerated people access to Pell Grants. In December 2020, Congress passed a law restoring full access, regardless of a person’s sentence, to Pell Grants. 

In Mississippi, Burl Cain, the Department of Corrections commissioner, has supported prison education programs and restoring access to Pell Grants for incarcerated people as “a huge opportunity to cut costs.” Cain has met with Holmes Community College and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, which also participate in the Second Chance Pell program. 

“We need this training and skills in the prison to cut costs because not only do classes keep prisoners focused and calm, we need the training so they can train other prisoners to help us run the prison,” he said in an MDOC press release. 

The emphasis on prison education as a way to reduce recidivism can also be seen in the guidelines for Second Chance Pell. According to a USDOE fact sheet, participating schools should “only enroll students in postsecondary education and training programs that prepare them for high-demand occupations from which they are not legally barred from entering due to restrictions on formerly incarcerated individuals obtaining any necessary licenses or certifications for those occupations.” 

Stromile Golden said that Valley State’s prison education program is also a form of “restorative justice,” an approach to criminal justice that involves addressing how an act of harm has affected a whole community, not just the perpetrator and the victim. 

“For African Americans, this is part of our legacy, and we are all steeped in the Baptist church code that says, ‘forgive, forgive, forgive.’ But for the grace of God, easily any of us could be on the other side of it,” she said. “From my perspective, it’s the right thing to do. It’s needed. It’s a win-win for our community.” 

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Mississippi is one of seven states with midterm congressional party primaries on Tuesday, June 7, as Democrats and Republicans battle for control of the U.S. House and Senate.

Most prognostication is that Mississippi’s four congressional seats — one held by a Democrat and three by Republicans — are not expected to change party control. Only one race, District 4 in south Mississippi, is considered highly competitive, but all incumbents have at least one primary challenger. In District 4, the incumbent faces well-known and well-funded challengers including a county sheriff in the district and a longtime state senator.

Along with Mississippi, primaries will be held Tuesday in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

If no candidate gets 50% of the vote on Tuesday, primary runoff elections between the top two vote-getters will be held June 28. The general election, pitting Tuesday’s primary winners against one another, will be Nov. 8.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, and anyone in line by 7 p.m. is still allowed to cast a vote. To find your polling location, call your local circuit clerk. The Secretary of State’s Office has an online polling place locator, but as of late the week before election, a messages said it was not working due to system maintenance and directed people to call local clerks’ offices.

Absentee ballots must be postmarked on or before June 7 and received by local circuit clerks within five business days. Voters are supposed to present a valid ID at their precinct, but can cast an affidavit ballot without one, provided they present one to their county circuit clerk by June 14.

Mississippi congressional candidates:

District 1

District 2

District 3

District 4

The post Mississippi midterms: Vote Tuesday appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Michael Cassidy, a Republican seeking to unseat incumbent Rep. Michael Guest in Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District in the June 7 primary, has aligned himself with one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates of overthrowing the 2020 presidential election.

Matt Braynard, who has received broad national attention for his radical views on the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack that ensued, has received more than $13,000 as a consultant to the Cassidy campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission website.

Braynard, who worked about five months for the Donald Trump presidential campaign in 2016 before being fired, has been one of the principal proponents of the myth that if all the legal votes were counted in 2020, Trump would still be president of the United States.

And Braynard, according to multiple national reports, has profited handsomely from that position, with one national outlet describing his work as: “Forrest Gumping his way through the post-election Trump universe.”

His presence in Mississippi highlight the fact that for many Republican primary voters, the 2020 election is still an issue. Most of the congressional candidates who will be on the ballot in Tuesday’s Republican primary in Mississippi have also embraced, to some extent, the claim that voter irregularities or outright fraud cost Trump the election.

All three Republican incumbents — Guest in the 3rd District, Trent Kelly of the 1st District, Steven Palazzo of the 4th — voted to not certify the 2020 presidential election in several key swing states, as did U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Mississippi’s senior U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker was the only Mississippi congressional Republican who voted to certify the election in every state.

Guest, who Cassidy seeks to unseat, was the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation to vote in favor of creating the commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — an attempt to stop the congressional vote certifying the presidential election. Guest, a former prosecutor in central Mississippi, said he voted to create the commission at the request of U.S. Capitol Police.

Cassidy, on his campaign website, has sharply criticized Guest’s vote for the Jan. 6 commission. Guest is considered a heavy favorite in Tuesday’s primary that also includes Republican Thomas Griffin.

Braynard has been active in defending many of the people arrested in the Jan. 6 riots, saying they were engaged only in peaceful protests.

He has been a paid consultant testifying on instances of alleged voter irregularities. Based on testimony, he was paid $150,000 to testify in Wisconsin about the 2020 presidential election and $40,000 for similar testimony in Arizona. Records indicate he also testified post-election in other key swing states — Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Braynard’s data was cited in the infamous lawsuit filed by embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempting to throw out millions of votes in the swing states. The lawsuit, which maintained with no evidence that Biden had “less that one in a quadrillion” chance of winning several states, was joined by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and numerous Mississippi politicians. It was promptly dismissed by a federal judge.

The Texas Bar Association is currently investigating Paxton related to his filing of the lawsuit.

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