OurTupelo

OMAHA — Baseball hadn’t been invented back in early 18th century when Alexander Pope, an English poet and essayist, wrote the words: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” 

But 300 years ago, Pope could have been writing about this 2022 Ole Miss Rebels team, given up for dead seven weeks ago and now national champions. For these Rebels, it wasn’t just hope. It was belief.

Mike Bianco’s Rebels, once 7-14 in their own league, defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 4-2 to sweep the best-of-three championship and win the College World Series on Sunday. One year after Mississippi State won the national championship here, the trophy stays in the Magnolia State.

These Rebels never quit hoping or believing – or working. Their hope sprang eternal.

“Life is tough and there’s bad things that happen to everybody,” Bianco said postgame. “… These guys have worked really hard and I think they’ve shown a lot of people that you can fall down, you can stumble and you can fail, but that doesn’t mean you’re a failure. If you continue to push and you continue to believe, as Tim (Elko) said, you can accomplish anything.”

The Rebels have realized college baseball’s ultimate goal. They are national champions. They have worked their way back from 22-17 on May 1 to a final record of 42-23, including a remarkable 10-1 run through the NCAA Tournament. The team that lost at home to Southeast Missouri 13-3 on April 19 claimed the national championship on June 26, beating the mighty Oklahoma Sooners, undefeated in the College World Series before they ran into Ole Miss. This was no easy road. Ole Miss, the last team to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, had to run the gauntlet as a low seed through Miami, then Hattiesburg, then here.

“These guys have lived that this season,” Bianco continued. “They really have. They’ve fallen down, where not a lot of people believed that they were any good anymore, and a lot of people may have been disappointed in them. And I get that. It’s sports, and that’s part of it. But they didn’t let that affect them. They continued to believe in one another. They continued to push.”

Here in Omaha, the Rebels have not lacked for support and encouragement. Probably 20,000 Ole Miss fans were present at Charles Schwab Field, often standing, screaming and waving towels at all the right moments. The crowd fed off the Rebels; the Rebels fed off the crowd. Afterward, players circled the field, high-fiving joyous fans. There were Ole Miss fans reaching over one another to reach over the fence in every section of the stadium. Nearly an hour after the game had ended, Ole Miss fans still stood and cheered.

“This group of young men, I think people have fallen in love with them, their story and where they came from,” Bianco continued. “I’m just very fortunate to have been a part of it and that these guys allowed me to be on the ride with them.”

Heroes were many for Ole Miss, including shortstop Jacob Gonzalez, who was responsible for three of his team’s six hits. He hit a solo home run for the game’s first run in the sixth and then knocked in a crucial, tying run with sharp single in the eighth.

There were so many others, mostly pitchers this day:

• Freshman Hunter Elliott, who is 19 years old and pitches as if he is 29, started on the mound and pitched 6.2 innings of two-run, three-hit baseball. “He’s amazing,” Bianco would say. “… The bigger the stage, the better he gets. That’s what the great ones do. When the stage gets big, that’s when they shine. He’s one of those guys.”
• Senior John Gaddis pitched the Rebels out of a seventh inning mess and gave his team 1.1 innings of nearly perfect pitching. And that set the stage for …
• Closer Brandon Johnson, who went right at the Sooners and recorded three straight strikeouts on 14 pitches to save the victory in the ninth inning. “It was a dream come true,” Johnson said. “Ever since you’re a little kid, you dream of being on the mound in those situations. And when it happened, you just let go of yourself because you realize you did do it.”
• Bianco deserves much credit, as well, and not only for keeping his teams spirits up during the bad times earlier in the season and making all the right strategy calls in the College World Series. There was this: Watching the replay of an apparently successful Oklahoma squeeze bunt in the sixth inning, Bianco noticed the bunter, John Spikerman, running well inside the runner’s lane down the first baseline. Unable to get the umpire’s attention from the dugout because of the crowd noise, Bianco ran out onto the field to ask for a review. Sure enough, Spikerman was ruled out and the runner who had scored, Jackson Nicklaus, was sent back to third base.  

“Thank God for the Jumbotron, huh,” Bianco said. “I just looked up and I went, my gosh, he’s out of the running lane.”

Instead of taking a 1-0 lead and having runners at first and third with just one out, the Sooners were still scoreless and there were two out, soon to be three. There’s another lesson there: To win a national championship you not have to be good, you have to have a little luck along the way.

There were still more Ole Miss heroes: TJ McCants got the three-run, eighth inning rally started with a ringing single to center, and ever-dependable Justin Bench then moved him all the way to third with a line-drive single to right field. Bench later scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch.

Of course, some of the loudest postgame cheers were for Elko, the captain and spiritual leader of these National Champions. 

Said Elko, “There’s just so much to be said about how much we overcame this year, how much we had to fight through, how much we had to pick each other up and never let ourselves get too down. This story of our season is going to be told for years and years and years to come.”

He’s right. This Ole Miss team can provide lessons for Little Leaguers everywhere: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It may sound trite, but it rings true.

These Rebels, unsuccessful for the longest time this season, kept trying, kept believing and, in the end, got the job done.

Their hope sprang eternal. They stayed the course. They prevailed.

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If Mississippi’s political leaders had stuck to their plan, the state would now have a trust fund of more than $4 billion earning about $320 million annually to spend on health care, based on projections made in 1999.

But, as often is pointed out, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Such is the case with the health care trust fund that was created in 1999 with the money from the state’s settlement with the tobacco companies of a landmark lawsuit to collect government funds spent treating smoking-related illnesses.

The settlement funds have been delivered to Mississippi as promised, but the promise of a trust fund was broken long ago.

The lawsuit, which originated in Mississippi, turned into a $365 billion national settlement that was announced by then-Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore and others on June 20, 1997 – 25 years ago.

The lawsuit guaranteed Mississippi $4 billion over 25-years with annual payments of $100 million or more, based on a formula, continuing forever.

“The money is good, but the most important thing is when you look at kids smoking, it was 27% then and it is now less than 4%. We have done a lot of wonderful things in the last 25 years,” said Moore who resides in Madison County near Jackson and remains active in groups combatting cigarette use. “Adult smoking was around 30% and it is now 12%.”

He said lung disease has been cut in half and the prevalence of other diseases associated with smoking also is down. The lawsuit placed restrictions on the cigarette-makers advertising to young people and played a key role in campaigns that have led to significant reductions in tobacco use.

Moore concedes that he is disappointed that the trust fund was fleeting.

“It breaks my heart,” Moore said recently.

Slowly at first, state leaders began removing funds from the trust fund to fill budget holes. In 2005, legislation was passed to take $240 million from the trust fund to plug a Medicaid deficit. At first the Democratic-led House rejected the proposal, touting instead an increase in the cigarette tax – at 18 cents a pack one of the nation’s lowest – to plug the hole. But Republican Gov. Haley Barbour resisted the tax proposal.

In the end, the House agreed to the raid as long as there was a commitment to replenish the trust fund. Each year legislators and Barbour balked at making the repayments to the trust fund while at the same time removing more money to fill other holes.

When Barbour took office in 2004 there was more than $630 million in the fund. When he left office, the fund contained $50 million.

Eventually, the Legislature repealed the trust fund.

The erosion and eventual elimination of the trust fund was bipartisan. It began to a limited degree under Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and accelerated under Barbour. Both Republican and Democrats in the Legislature at the very least acquiesced in the trust fund withdrawals.

Still, it could be argued that the funds were used for important purposes – primarily to evade Medicaid cuts. But it is at least worth pointing out that many of the same political leaders who participated in the trust fund raids have passed tax cuts in recent years that will total more than $1 billion annually when fully enacted. Could some of those funds have gone to restoring the trust fund?

The lawsuit was concocted by Clarksdale attorney Mike Lewis upon visiting a friend – a chronic smoker suffering from cancer. He took the idea of suing the cigarette companies to recoup public funds spent treating smoking-related illnesses to Moore. The AG brought into the discussions Richard Scruggs, a nationally recognized attorney from Pascagoula, Moore’s hometown.

The lawsuit advanced the template of the state contracting with private attorneys. If the state prevailed, the private attorneys won big. If they did not, they received nothing. And the caveat was that the private attorneys had to use their own money. Legislative leaders made it clear Moore should not expend any state funds on the tobacco lawsuit that they viewed as a pipe dream.

“Scruggs spent every penny he had,” Moore said. “If it had not worked out, he would have had nothing left. It turned out the other way. But that is not what people were predicting.”

Of course, years later Scruggs was convicted in federal court in a judicial bribery scheme involving a lawsuit where some of the attorneys involved in the case were bickering about their share of funds from the settlement.

Some have argued that the judicial bribery tainted the lawsuit.

Moore conceded Scruggs made a mistake, but the lawsuit has been good for the state and nation – even though it did not result in a health care trust fund for Mississippi.

The post Landmark tobacco lawsuit settled 25 years ago — what happened to money? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

OMAHA — The Ole Miss Rebels, a team going nowhere in early May, has surged its way to within one victory of a National Championship in June.

And a coach who many wanted to fire two months ago keeps pushing all the right buttons and pulling all the right strings – game after game after game, victory after victory after victory.

Mike Bianco’s Ole Miss Rebels combined excellent pitching from perhaps unexpected sources with a four-home run power show in an 10-3 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners Saturday night. The two teams play again Sunday at 2 p.m. If Ole Miss wins, one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college baseball history will be complete.

You could not make this stuff up.

Surely, you know the story by now: Ole Miss, 22-17 overall and 7-14 in the SEC on the first day of May, has won 19 of 25 since. The Rebels have won 9 of 10 in this NCAA Tournament. And now it seems much of Mississippi has migrated here to see if the Rebels can finish living what once seemed an impossible dream. Ole Miss fans turned Charles Schwab Field into Swayze North.

There were so many heroes on the field Saturday night, but let’s start with one in the dugout, the one who has worn No. 5 for the past 22 years.

Mike Bianco chose sophomore Jack Dougherty to make only his fourth start of 2022, giving freshman sensation Hunter Elliott another day of rest. Hmmm, skeptics wondered, how will this turn out? Dougherty, making his first start in three months, answered that question with five perfect innings.

Then, when Dougherty ran into some trouble in the sixth and with a three-run lead in serious jeopardy, Bianco brought in 19-year-old true freshman Mason Nichols, instead of Josh Mallitz who has been only sensational of late. Hmmmm, again. But Nichols made his coach look like a wizard, working out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam to allow only one run. Then in two innings of heroic work, Mallitz gave up no hits and struck out five after coming in in the eighth inning to finish off the Sooners.

The decision to start Dougherty?

“Oklahoma is such a patient team that takes a lot of walks,” Bianco said. “I thought we needed someone to throw strikes and get ahead and I thought Dougherty was the best option.”

The decision to go with Nichols, instead of Mallitz? “I thought it was a little early to go with Mallitz,” Bianco said. “We still had 12 outs to get. And Nichols was the one up and ready. Mallitz was not ready at that point.”

What Nichols, a just-turned-19-year-old, did came at what was surely the most critical juncture of the game – or as Bianco put it, “That was the game right there.”

Nichols was facing the middle of the powerful Oklahoma batting order. Any butterflies, Mason? “Yes sir, I had plenty of butterflies,” Nichols answered. “I just tried to focus and do my job.”

Mission accomplished.

Thousands upon thousands of Rebel fans, mostly wearing powder blue, cheered every Rebel strike and went bonkers on four home runs, especially the three that were back-to-back-to back in the eighth inning. First TJ McCants, then Calvin Harris and finally Justin Bench all slugged home runs, the first time that has ever happened at Charles Schwab Field. Harris clobbered his 430 feet, by far the longest of the night.

Oh, and did I mention that McCants’ homer came one inning after Bianco inserted him into the game for defensive purposes? It did.

Keep in mind, Oklahoma had won three straight games here at Omaha and none of those were really close. The Sooners had won four straight to win the Big 12 Conference. They won three of four to win a regional at Florida. They won two of three to win a Super Regional at West Virginia. That’s 12 of their last 14 – all against top-shelf competition. They were hot.

So were the Rebels, but Oklahoma seemingly had a clear advantage in that the Sooners had their ace, strapping left-hander Jake Bennett, fresh and ready to go against Ole Miss, while the Rebels had to use their ace Dylan DeLucia to beat Arkansas Thursday night to get to the championship series.

That advantage was negated by Dougherty – and perhaps also by the thousands upon thousands of Ole Miss fans.

“It felt like a football game out there,” Bianco said. “I mean Swayze gets loud but not loud like that.”

Those fans had plenty to cheer from the start. The Rebels went on top 2-0 in the first, added a run in the second and then another in the third on Tim Elko’s 24th home run of the year.

Oklahoma, which was hitting .303 with 19 home runs in the NCAA Tournament, never really stemmed that Ole Miss momentum. Now, the Sooners are in a win-or-else situation on Sunday. Said Sooner coach Skip Johnson, “We woke up today needing two victories to win the national championship. We’ll wake tomorrow needing two victories to win the national championship.”

Ole Miss will wake up Sunday morning needing one victory for a national championship. Said Elko, “We’ve still got one game to win. It’s obviously great to win the first one, but we still have to get one more to win the whole thing.”

The Rebels have their aces Hunter Elliott (Sunday) and Dylan DeLucia (Monday, if needed). Really, they could not be in a better situation.

The post One more win: Ole Miss, Mike Bianco could soon complete an amazing journey appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Becky Currie wrote the Mississippi law that changed the nation.

Currie, a lawmaker, nurse, mom and devout Christian from Brookhaven, said she was “as happy as I can be” Friday, nearly five years after she began writing legislation to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks.

Now, a 50-year-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent giving women the right to abortion is dead. The procedure will be illegal in Mississippi. As for Currie, she said the work has only begun.

Currie, 65, will run for another four years in the Legislature, where she said she plans to fight against a hostile, patriarchal state leadership in order to advance policies that allow women to thrive.

Mississippians have little reason to believe Currie will be successful, she concedes.

“I don’t have faith in the system. Because I have watched it fail time, after time, after time,” she said. “But I can tell you, my next four years, I’m gonna be hell on wheels.”

Mississippi Today spoke with Currie on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Below is a condensed version of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Mississippi Today: Give me a little more of your feel today, being the author of this bill and then seeing this come to fruition.

Currie: Well, you know, we started writing this bill in 2017. It became law in 2018 and then it was immediately overturned, and I went about my regular life for a few years until I heard that it was going before the Supreme Court. You know, for the first time in my lifetime, I felt that there was a chance. That we had some conservative justices on the court, and that we had an opportunity that maybe this could actually be overturned.

Just the fact that they agreed to hear the case was a positive sign, because we hadn’t even had that happen in 50 years. So my hopes were up. You know, I am a Christian and I don’t believe that murder is the answer. And so, I’m very excited about this bill and I know that our work is just beginning.

I’m well aware that we can’t take away this right, and then say, “And good luck to everybody,” and turn around and walk away. And for me, this past legislative session, the work began. When I realized that this could come to fruition, that we had to be there for women.

I got with Rep. Angela Cockerham and together, she and I did the equal pay. And we went to the Speaker and said, “We’re gonna do this.” You know, it had been tried again and again by others to get the equal pay bill done. We let him know, you know, we need to be behind women. And this has got to be done, so we can make sure that these women that are going to have children are paid equally. And it’s a shame that Mississippi was last in the nation to do that, but we got that done. I worked very diligently with other members and talked with the Speaker about increasing the funds for the Children Advocacy Centers. They lost a lot of federal funding this year and they are in desperate need. We met some of those needs, but I will be honest, it was not satisfactory to me. These agencies are the ones that take care of our children, now, that have been abused or neglected or need help. The court systems use them and we failed them by not making sure that funding was where it needed to be this year.

It is imperative that we do that in the upcoming session.

We are in a wonderful position. Our economics are good. Our rainy-day fund is good, but we failed to see some of the problems that we were gonna cause when we decreased the State Health Department budget. And I’m gonna fight and I’m asking other leaders to help me. We have got to make sure that our state health departments are open in every county and that at least one day a week, a nurse practitioner is there to write prescriptions and hand out birth control.

There’s no way that we can take this away — and I’m 100% pro-life — but I want every woman to not feel that they cannot receive birth control.

They need to be able to. Most people, because we don’t expand Medicaid, most people don’t have the money to go to the doctor once a year. They don’t have the money to buy the prescription. And right now, with the economy, and inflation the way it is, there is no way they could go to the doctor and get a prescription to take monthly birth control.

And we, as a people, have to provide that service so we don’t have unwanted and more abused children. We have to make sure that if women want jobs, that we pay them equally, and that we make it a workforce development monies, ‘cause we spend so much on it, that it is making sure that women are getting jobs and having a career so they can raise these children.

MT: We don’t have a good track record of supporting women. And we don’t have a good track record of funding public programs to help low-income people. So how do you commit to me, as a Mississippi taxpayer, that you’re going to do that? How can I trust that you’re going to do that?

Currie: Well, I can tell you that I’m a nurse. And I am a mother and a grandmother.  … I have mostly been a single mother all of my life. And I know how hard it is to raise children. And I know how hard it is to go to work and be the mom and the dad and take care of children by yourself.

I completely have lived that. And I also know that society doesn’t help you. And I struggled to go through nursing school to take care of my children and thank God I did. And thank God my parents helped me during that time, or I wouldn’t have made it. But I understand more than you think how hard it is and, and how much it takes. And look, that was in the 70’s for me, that I was a single mother, so I can tell you it would be much scarier now. I understand that people are struggling day to day to put food on the table and to take medicines and put gas in their car. I understand it’s worse now than it’s ever been.

All I can tell you is that I will not rest until we have places for women to go. And, you know, we’re gonna have to, whether we like it or not, there’s gonna be unwanted pregnancies. We’re gonna have to make sure that adoption is readily available and affordable. And I will say this to you: We don’t want to make it so easy that somebody that’s going to abuse a child is able to adopt, but our adoption rates and foster children, all of these things are going up, and we as Mississippi government has (sic) done a terrible job with DHS. We as Mississippi government has (sic) done a terrible job with collecting child support from deadbeat dads. We as Mississippians have done a terrible job of taking care of pregnant women and giving them the postpartum care that they need. And I am well aware of that.

And I will call everyone out that now does not get on this ship with me and steer this in a right direction. You know, we have been given this gift. We have begged and prayed and asked for this ruling. And I’m telling you, now our job begins. If we don’t take care of what God is asking us to do, you know, because I’m very religious and I will tell you that, God has asked me to write this bill.

We have this, and now he’s telling us to feed his sheep. But I know, if you’re not religious, Anna, that’s not gonna — but anybody with religion understands that the Lord said, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” Well, we have an opportunity to show that we will feed his sheep.

MT: I’ve covered these programs and I’ve seen how—

Currie: How horrible they are. They’re horrible.

MT: Why not fix the programs and then outlaw abortion?

Currie: Well, you know, I wasn’t in charge of all that. And you know what else I will tell you to say: If the leadership, now, doesn’t step up to the plate — and you write this, Anna — we need to vote them out.  Vote them out. Because I have fought and fought and fought with leadership on postpartum care, DHS, and they continue to make women feel like we asking questions — we are a pain. Women in the Legislature are looked down on as, “Oh, those lil pesky women, asking questions again about how things are done.” You know, I’ve raised questions about Young Wells (Young Williams, Mississippi’s child support contractor) and the disaster that that has been. And read the PEER report if you don’t wanna believe a woman.

Because our politicians, our leadership wants to help their friend who’s a lawyer running this program. I am sick to death of all that. I’m sick to death. And write all this. I don’t care. I’m sick to death of politicians who just want to give our Medicaid monies to Mississippi CAN companies to leave the state with it instead of taking care of our citizens and our children and our women. I’m sick of it. And I’m telling you now, either you wanna work through this process, you wanna help the people of Mississippi or get out of the way.

All I can do is fight. You know how they are. They’re gonna be pissed that I’ve said all this, but if you don’t wanna help us, get out of the way and let somebody who wants to.

MT: But so much of what we’re talking about, it just takes money and it takes political will for programs that they see as socialism, Becky, that’s the problem.

Currie: Well, you know, Anna, the deal is, half of what I just said — I mean, I realize expansion of Medicaid, they do — but half of what I just said is easy. We should have done this years ago, DHS, CPS, child support. You know, sending our Medicaid dollars to Mississippi CAN so they can give them under the table cash money. I mean, my God, how corrupt do we wanna be? But now is the time. God has given us this wonderful – what we’ve prayed for for 50 years. And if you don’t want to work to make all of this better, for God’s sake, get out of the way.

MT: What would you say is the number one action? Because I don’t know yet if they talked about very specific policy changes or investments (in the Friday press conference). What would you say is the first step?

Currie: The first step would be, make sure that every county health department is open with the ability to prescribe birth control.

MT: Do you know if crisis pregnancy centers prescribe birth control?

Currie: I don’t think they do. I think it’s the crisis after the problem is there already. I think that’s where they go to help make this decision, am I going to have an abortion.

(Editor’s note: Studies have found the majority of crisis centers do not provide or discuss contraceptives and sometimes provide misleading information about birth control).

MT: I think that — as Tate Reeves has represented a while ago when he gave that $3 million (tax credit to crisis pregnancy centers) — I think the men in leadership think that the crisis pregnancy centers are the solution, whereas when I talk to you, you’re talking about county health clinics. You’re talking about the child advocacy centers.

Currie: I hate to tell you, I disagree 100% that the crisis centers are your first step because that’s after the problem exists. So why can’t we help women as of today? But because today abortion is illegal in the state of Mississippi.

(Editor’s note: Abortion is still legal in Mississippi, but a trigger law on the books means it will likely become illegal in coming weeks).

So today we need to make sure every woman in every county has access to birth control. And that may not sound like the Christian thing to say. That’s the most realistic thing to say.

I’m a Christian, but I never want a woman to have to be in the position of having to decide to abort a child or not. In 2022, a woman should never have to come down to that decision with the technology we have. It’s just plain access, non-access to care.

MT: The Medicaid thing is the best example that you can be like, “Alright, let’s see, so we’re outlawing abortion, so women can’t have abortions if they want them, but then, we’re not going to extend postpartum Medicaid, so they’re going to lose their coverage after (60) days.” Like, that doesn’t seem like we’re supporting women.

Currie: Let’s say you have a 19-year-old. Let’s say she had a baby and she’s gonna lose her coverage. And she’s staying up all night. The baby’s got colic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she didn’t make it in to get her checkup. She’s got postpartum depression and she needs to be on birth control, but she didn’t make it in ‘cause her life is turned upside down right now. But we don’t wanna take care of her and we’re gonna end that.

That was a chance for us to reach out, knowing that this bill, by all accounts, it was gonna go through. And last year, it passed the Senate and it didn’t come up in the House. The Speaker wouldn’t let it out, but the House was prepared to pass it.

And so that’s what I’m saying to you either, either work with us or get out of the way.

MT: How do you explain that though? Like again, to someone outside the state, what happened there?

Currie: It’s very hard to explain unless you know the backstory that he’s (House Speaker Philip Gunn) running for governor and he doesn’t wanna look like he expanded Medicaid.

MT: The feeling is that we know what these policies are. We know things that we can do to help, but men in leadership are standing in the way?

Currie: They are.

MT: While also saying that they’re doing those things, that they support those things.

Currie: Right. And, you know, I think that my number one bill, my number one legislation to work on is that we make sure every county health department is open and staffed. Because … there’s a lot of women already, that have just ended up pregnant because they had no resources. How much more can the state pay for, because you go on Medicaid the day you find out you’re pregnant. You have a positive pregnancy test, you are entitled to Medicaid. There’s no questions asked.

So you’re gonna pay for all of this. You’re gonna pay for whatever comes in that pregnancy, maybe a NICU. Who knows how much that mother and child is gonna cost the taxpayers instead of just giving them the opportunity to go into their local health department and receive the care that they need.

I mean, you have to think of the amount of care that goes undone because the local health departments used to play a huge role in community health services. So, I mean, we could go down the rabbit hole on this, there’s no telling what’s not being tended to.

MT: But Tate Reeves is just really against any government spending. I mean, that’s not a secret.

Currie: They are unless it benefits them. It’s always a soundbite.

MT: But so how are you gonna get them to increase a state budget?

Currie: Well, let me just say this to you: We do all the time. We give pay raises. We gave enormous pay raises this year. We started a new agency. Republicans don’t grow government. You know, we started a new agency this year for broadband. They tried to start a new agency for tourism. And I killed that bill. So Republicans, if they wanna really be Republicans, you know, don’t spend it on the good ole boy system, then let’s do the basic needs of the people.

So if they wanna get into that rabbit hole, I’ll go down it with them. You know, you grow government, you give pay raises, you increase PIN numbers. They give their friends and their buddies pay raises and they leave everybody else off, or they fire ’em if they don’t like them. Not one time has it (removing agencies from under the personnel board) worked. There’s just so many things, but the good old boy system is old and tiring.

MT: Are you worried that — I mean, again, in this day, it’s more crucial than ever that these supports are put in place for women who are facing these decisions. Are you scared what’s gonna happen if those supports don’t come or if the leadership blocks you?

Absolutely. I’m concerned for women. And you know, not just women, children. I don’t know if you remember, our health departments are where I took all my children to get their vaccinations. At one point it was a big place to go for health care. And now, we have left them with nothing.

So, you know, we are spending a whole lot of money on a lot of other things. So let’s put our money where we know it works, where people can get the care they need.

It’s not expanding Medicaid, which they’re so against. If you don’t wanna expand Medicaid, you’ve got to expand access to care.

I think that is the number one issue. If we don’t do that, shame on all of us.

… Look, we’re all wrapped up in the (U.S. Supreme Court) decision, but the work has just begun. And I don’t want someone to feel like I’ve got to go to another state. I want them to feel that they have the support here. You know, I want them to feel that we did everything we could. If you didn’t go get birth control, because we made it easy and free, if you didn’t go do it, that’s not my fault. That’s yours, you know?

MT: Well, I’m just telling you, women do not feel supported in this state.

Currie: Oh no. I don’t feel supported in this state. I just need you to know, I get it. When a woman stands up in the House to ask a question, I see men roll their eyes. Okay? I see their expression, I see the expression on the Speaker’s face. When I push my button, he’s like, “Oh crap.” He doesn’t want to hear from us. But I want people to know that.

MT: How does it feel knowing that you authored this bill that literally everyone in the nation is—

Currie: Talking about.

MT: Talking about and impacted by.

Currie: You know, I knew that this bill was special when we did it. I don’t know if you’ve read my Newsweek article. I wrote why I wrote and picked 15 weeks.

I knew that this was the right thing to do. Look, it’s not fun at my house on Thanksgiving now, let me just tell you.

MT: Why?

Currie: My brother-in-law lives in Boulder, Colorado.

MT: Oh.

Currie: Does that help? He and his girlfriend hate my guts, you know?  But it’s okay. I mean, I’m okay and I’ve had thick skin for a long time. I don’t know how God made me this way. It’s kind of bad though, it’s kind of a Scarlett O’Hara type thing. “I’ll worry about that another day,” you know? But I’ve had thick skin for a long time.

So, you know, I realize that there’s a lot of unhappy people right now. And I just don’t want anybody to think that I’m not aware that we have changed the nation. And that it’s now our responsibility to help take care of women and children. I feel that from the bottom of my heart.

MT: And I just keep coming back to the fact that I don’t foresee that happening.

Currie: And you may be right. But it won’t be because I didn’t fight for it.

Look, I get it. And look, we’ve really never done anything to prove you wrong.

MT: Right. I mean, I feel like I’ve earned my skepticism at this point, you know?

Currie: Absolutely. You have. And look, I have to tell you something: I don’t have faith in the system. Because I have watched it fail time, after time, after time.

… But I can tell you, my next four years, I’m gonna be hell on wheels.

The post Author of Mississippi’s 15-week ban says state leaders must pass reforms to help women or ‘get out of the way’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

While the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday stripping away a woman’s right to an abortion, Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization will continue to provide abortion services at its clinic for as long as is allowed under state law.

“I will tell you this – any patients who contact us we will see them” during the legally allowed time period, said Diane Derzis, the chief executive officer of Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “We will make sure we see them in those 10 days. A woman should not have to leave the state to receive health care.”

A trigger law passed in 2007 makes abortions illegal in Mississippi 10 days after the state attorney general certifies that the Supreme Court had ruled that abortion is no longer a constitutionally guaranteed right nationwide.

On a hot and humid June afternoon, Derzis and others affiliated with the clinic, known as the Pink House, held a news conference located on a busy Jackson street, to lament Friday’s expected but still shocking Supreme Court ruling and to tell Mississippi women that efforts were being made to try to ensure they would still have access to reproductive services.

Speaking via Zoom from New Mexico, Shannon Brewer, the clinic’s executive director, said the anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling had created a chaotic and hectic past week at the Mississippi abortion clinic.

As the ruling was announced, Derzis said the customary number of abortion protesters grew and efforts intensified to prevent patients from entering the clinic. Protesters shouted abortion was no longer legal. A group, known as the Pink House Defenders, helped escort the women to the clinic.

“Today across this country half of the population was stripped of their human rights,” said Derenda Hancock, who has been a defender since 2013. “It is hard to say this, but this is just the beginning … These people are not going to be done until this nation is a theocracy.”

She pointed out that Justice Clarence Thomas opined in the abortion ruling that other issues surrounding privacy, such as contraceptive rights, gay rights and same-sex marriage also should be revisited by the Court.

Derzis said as the situation at the clinic became more chaotic Friday morning law enforcement was called, but there was no response. She did say the FBI recently visited the clinic expressing concern that abortion supporters might commit violence.

Derzis said she had called the FBI multiple times asking for assistance because of concerns that her staff had been threatened and stalked, but got no response from law enforcement.

“We have to go to the polls and take back our rights,” said Derzis as drivers passed by, often hoking their horns, though it was uncertain whether the passers-by were signaling support or opposition for the Pink House.

Speakers at the Friday afternoon news conference said funds were being raised to help provide help for people who might need to leave the state to obtain an abortion. Derzis and Shannon Brewer, the executive director of the Pink House, which is moving to Las Cruces, New Mexico, said the goal is to ensure an infrastructure is put in place to provide aid for Mississippi women who need help obtaining abortions after they are no longer legal in Mississippi. Information on that infrastructure was not available Friday.

The post Mississippi abortion clinic plans to provide services as long as law allows appeared first on Mississippi Today.

OMAHA — So, several folks have asked two interesting questions in the last 24 hours.

Where does making the national championship at this College World Series rank in importance in Ole Miss sports history? Where does Dylan’s DeLucia’s Thursday night shutout of Arkansas rank among greatest individual athletic performances in Ole Miss history?

Good questions, both. Let’s take the question about DeLucia first. Keep in mind, my earliest sports memories go back to the late 1950s. Long-ago legends Bruiser Kinard, Chunkin’ Charlie Conerly and Donnie Kessinger — among others — likely did something to rival DeLucia’s heroics. I cannot speak to that.

In my memory, precious few individual efforts even rival that of DeLucia’s. I’ll give you three: 

1) Archie Manning’s remarkable 540-yard performance in the 1969 Alabama-Ole Miss game, the first nationally televised primetime (night) college football game. Alabama won the game 33-32, but Manning stole the show setting a total offense record that stood for decades. 

2) Gerald Glass’ 53-point effort in a 113-12 overtime basketball victory over LSU in 1989, made all the more special because native Mississippian Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (then Chris Jackson) scored 55 for LSU.

3) Future Major Leaguer Drew Pomeranz, in the 2009 Regional and Super Regional, pitched heroically three times in eight days, striking out 36 batters in 24 innings, throwing 384 pitches, while allowing just 14 hits and three runs.

Just my opinion: DeLucia’s four-hit shutout victory over Arkansas on short rest shoots to the top of the charts. That’s mainly because of the circumstances, including that this was the most important game in 129 years of Ole Miss baseball and the strong national championship implications on the College World Series stage. You know what happened: With the season and national championship hopes on the line, DeLucia never allowed a Razorback runner past second base and went to a three-ball count on only three batters. Ole Miss won 2-0.

I should point out that 25 years ago, a baseball effort would never have even entered into this conversation. A baseball performance, no matter how impressive, would not have been considered. College baseball was once a spring-time afterthought attended by sparse crowds with virtually no television coverage whatsoever. That DeLucia’s performance clearly belongs in this conversation speaks to the growth of college baseball and its relative importance on the Mississippi sports scene. Baseball, more than ever before, matters.

So back to the original question: Where does the Rebels making it to the championship series of the 2022 College World Series rank among achievements in Ole Miss sports history?

I asked a good friend, an avid Ole Miss fan of all sports, who is a couple years into his ninth decade on this planet. “Damned high,” celebrated journalist and inveterate Rebel fan Curtis Wilkie answered. “I think you might have to go back to 1959 for anything that would match it.”

Wilkie speaks of the 1959 LSU-Ole Miss football game on Halloween night and the rematch in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day. Ole Miss lost the regular season game – and the national championship – 7-3 on Billy Cannon’s fabled punt return and then won the Sugar Bowl 21-0. 

Ole Miss has played in Sugar Bowls since, made it to an NCAA Sweet 16 in basketball, beaten Alabama in a couple times in recent years in high-profile college football games. Ole Miss has won a women’s golf national championship, and two individuals, Devin Britton in tennis and Braden Thornberry in golf, have won individual NCAA National Championships.

Again, making the 2022 national championship series very much belongs in the first sentence of this discussion of ultimate Ole Miss sports achievements because of the circumstances. Seven weeks ago, this Ole Miss team was going nowhere and many Ole Miss diehards were calling for a coaching change. Since then, the Rebels have won 18 of 24 games overall and eight of nine in this NCAA Tournament.

You could make the case that the LSU football games in the 1959 season – 63 years ago – were as meaningful. But just the fact that we need to go back that far speaks to the significance of what these current Ole Miss baseball Rebels have achieved.

Yes, and over the next two or three days, these baseball Rebels could put an exclamation point on the end of this discussion. With two more victories, there would be no doubt.

The post A historical perspective: Where does this Ole Miss baseball run rank in school history? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn called Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Mississippi case that overturned Roe vs. Wade abortion rights “probably the most historic day maybe in our lives” and “an end to this evil in our nation.”

Gunn, who helped push the Mississippi Legislature’s 2018 ban on abortions after 15 weeks — hoping at the time that it would result in a high court challenge and ruling — held a press conference from the well of the House on Friday, because “this is where this started.” He thanked members of the state House and Senate for passing the bill, former Gov. Phil Bryant for signing it into law, the U.S. Supreme Court for upholding it and “the millions of people who prayed for an end to this evil in our nation” among others.

Gunn said the high court decision will bring “new challenges” for Mississippi to make sure “those who are born have the resources they need.”

READ MORE: U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, suffers from lack of prenatal and postnatal and all other forms of health care and has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation and one of the highest maternal death rates. It has also for years faced federal court decrees to address its substandard foster care and children’s services system.

Gunn has steadfastly opposed Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor in Mississippi and earlier this year torpedoed a Senate proposal to extend postpartum coverage for millions of Mississippi mothers. On Friday he said he will create “Speaker’s Commission on the Sanctity of Life” to address those resources and other issues for Mississippi mothers and children. He said he also expects churches in the state to step up and help.

READ MORE: Doctors asked Speaker Philip Gunn to extend health coverage for moms and babies. Then he blocked it

When peppered with questions about Medicaid expansion, postpartum coverage and lack of resources by media on Friday, Gunn said “All of those things you’re mentioning are things that will be on the table” with his new commission. But he did say he still opposes Medicaid expansion.

Mississippi has a 2007 “trigger law” on the books set to ban all abortions in the state once Roe vs. Wade protections are overturned. The law provides exceptions for saving the life of a mother and for for rape — if a police report has been made — but not for incest. Gunn said he does not foresee lawmakers revisiting that abortion ban law, for which he voted as a House member before becoming speaker.

Gunn said he does not believe abortions should be allowed in cases of incest.

“Personally, no, I do not,” Gunn said. “I believe life begins at conception … That is my personal belief.”

Gunn cut his press conference off as media asked numerous other questions.

“I want this day to be about Roe vs. Wade being overturned,” Gunn said. “We’re not going to go down that road today. We are not going after contraceptives — I’ve already made that clear — I think we are getting far afield and we can have discussions about those issues another time.”

READ MORE: Doctors asked Speaker Philip Gunn to extend health coverage for moms and babies. Then he blocked it

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who has said he is at least open to discussion about Medicaid expansion and who pushed for postpartum coverage for mothers, in a statement Friday praised the court decision but said Mississippi has work to do in helping children and families. Members of the Senate have been working on the issues since a draft court opinion overturning Roe was leaked weeks ago.

“The Court’s decision today returns the right to protect the unborn to the states. Mississippi is a leader on this critical issue, with a law already in place which will prohibit abortion,” Hosemann said. “I am pro-life. I am also pro-child. In addition to protecting the unborn, we must also focus on other ways to support women, children, and families.”

Gov. Tate Reeves, who presided over the Senate as lieutenant governor when Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban was passed, in a statement called Friday “a joyous day.”

“Tomorrow, we will wake to a new world, enthusiastically prepared to take on the challenges ahead and to take every step necessary to support mothers and children,” Reeves said. “We must remember that our work is not yet over. The pro-life movement must dedicate itself to ensuring mothers and their babies receive the support they both need during pregnancy and after.”

Reeves, like Gunn, has for many years opposed Medicaid expansion despite pleas from hospitals, doctors and advocacy groups and has not offered any major alternative proposals to help the state’s substandard health care.

State Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, who authored the House 15-week abortion ban that led to the Supreme Court overturning Roe, said lawmakers should have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage and should be working to help mothers and children.

Currie said Gunn blocked the postpartum bill from a vote fearing he could be painted as a supporter of Medicaid expansion in future political races.

“Mississippi government is run by three men who want to see who can pee the furthest,” Currie said.

Currie said Mississippi should re-invest in Department of Health clinics — many of which were shuttered or limited years ago during state budget cuts — and provide other programs for women. Considering Mississippi’s track record for policies supporting women’s health and economic security, Currie said she understands people’s skepticism.

“I wrote the bill to end abortion, but I’m fighting just as hard to take care of women,” Currie said.

Staff writer Anna Wolfe contributed to this article.

The post Gunn from MS House well on abortion ruling: ‘This is where this started … an end to this evil’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.