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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.” 

The post Valley State first HBCU to offer prison college program in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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.

The post Prominent 2020 election denier is aiding Mississippi congressional campaign appeared first on Mississippi Today.

It could have been happenstance, I suppose — purely coincidental. But I think not.

I believe the NCAA Baseball Committee knew exactly what it was doing when arranging the brackets and providing so many spicy back stories to the regionals at Miami and Hattiesburg.

First and most obvious, we have a 2021 Super Regional rematch in the first round at Miami. We’ve got 2-seed Arizona against 3-seed Ole Miss, while Miami plays the Canisius Golden Griffins in the other matchup. The Golden Griffins nickname deserves an explanation, and we’ll get to that.

The Ole Miss-Arizona game brings together the two teams that went three games in Tucson last June. Remember? Ole Miss lost the first game 9-3, won the second game 12-3 and lost the rubber match 16-3. 

What you need to know about that is this: That Arizona team last year was much, much better than this Arizona team. Those Wildcats were a No. 5 national seed that came into the Super Regional with a 44-15 record and having won 11 of its last 13 games. This Arizona team goes to Miami with a  37-23 record and having lost five of its last seven. These Wildcats are beatable.

Those 2021 Wildcats were coached by Jay Johnson, who now coaches at LSU — and we’ll get to that, as well. These Wildcats are coached Chip Hale, a former Arizona baseball standout, also formerly the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks and most recently the third base coach of the Detroit Tigers. He is a rookie college baseball coach.

Much of the intrigue in the Mississippi corner of the NCAA brackets are all the possibilities we would have in the Super Regional that follows next weekend. Think about it. You could have Arizona matched up against its former coach, now at LSU. You could have Ole Miss facing Southern Miss in a rematch of last year’s thoroughly entertaining Oxford Regional.

Or you could have Ole Miss playing LSU in a matchup of two of the oldest and most fierce SEC rivals. If that happens, the Super Regional would be played at Baton Rouge due to LSU’s higher seeding. As if an LSU-Ole Miss series would need any more intrigue, you would have Mike Bianco coaching not only against his alma mater, but also against his son, Drew Bianco. Many believe Bianco’s job would be on the line as inconceivable as that sounds to fans across the nation.

Of course, Miami could throw a damper on all those possibilities. Miami, 39-18 overall, finished a league-best 20-10 in the ACC. That’s impressive, but the Hurricanes are none too impressive in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately department. They went two and out in the ACC Tournament and have lost six of their last eight games. Go back another couple of weeks and the Hurricanes have lost 10 of their last 18 games. Compare that to Ole Miss, which for all its shortcomings, has won eight of its last 11 games, including winning three straight against LSU at Baton Rouge. 

That’s why I say Ole Miss, which looks to have gotten the last available at large NCAA berth, could advance from Miami. It would be no great upset — as there were any upsets in baseball.

And should the Rebels advance, they most likely would play either LSU or Southern Miss —and they beat both on the road late in the season.

And what of those Golden Griffins of Canisius, who will make the journey from Buffalo, N.Y.? They are called the Griffins in honor of a ship. The French explorer La Salle claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, and also explored the Great Lakes Region in a ship called Le Griffon. That doesn’t explain why the Golden Griffins have a mascot named Petey. This may be more than you want to know, but Petey is named for St. Peter Canisius, for whom the college is named.

In Hattiesburg, much of the intrigue concerns tickets. LSU fans would probably fill Pete Taylor Park if they could get the tickets. They can’t, unless they are willing to pay black market prices. (Individual general admission tickets were going for $149 and higher on Stubhub.com Wednesday morning.) Reserved seat tickets presumably would go for much higher.

Each visiting school gets an allotment of 200 tickets. That’s it. Bottom line: We’re going to find out how loyal Southern Miss fans are, because if the Golden Eagles play LSU, as the seedings suggest that they will, Eagle fans could make a killing by selling their tickets to eager LSU fans who follow their baseball Tigers in hordes.

The Pete Taylor Park attendance record was set in May when 6,300 showed for a mid-week Ole Miss-Southern Miss. Capacity for a regional game could be as much as 1,000 lower because of NCAA parameters. The demand for tickets will far exceed the availability.

“Saddle up, let’s go, (LSU fans) better be on the tickets already,” LSU coach Jay Johnson told reporters shortly after the pairings were announced. “I’m sure they will be hard to come by. We want them in there and want them loud and proud as they always are.” 

Maybe not this time. We will see. Meanwhile, weather could also be a factor. In Coral Gables, Fla., where a tropical storm approaches, the forecast is for 90% chance of rain Friday and 100% on Sunday. Those Golden Griffins may need a ship to get to the game.

The Hattiesburg Regional forecast is for much drier weather — and hot. Saturday and Sunday afternoon temps could reach the mid-90s.

•••

Hattiesburg Regional Schedule

Friday, June 3
Game 1 — No. 1 Southern Miss vs. No. 4 Army West Point , 1 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 2 — No. 2 LSU vs. No. 3 Kennesaw State, 6 p.m. (ESPN+)

Saturday, June 4
Game 3 — Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 12 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 4 — Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 6 p.m. (ESPN+)

Sunday, June 5
Game 5 — Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 1 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 6 — Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5, 6 p.m. (ESPN+)

Monday, June 6
Game 7 — If necessary, 3 p.m. (ESPN+)

Coral Gables Regional Schedule

Friday, June 3
Game 1 — No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Canisius , 11 a.m. CT (ESPN+)
Game 2 — No. 2 Arizona vs. No. 3 Ole Miss, 6 p.m. (ESPNU)

Saturday, June 4
Game 3 — Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, TBD
Game 4 — Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, TBD

Sunday, June 5
Game 5 — Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, TBD
Game 6 — Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5, TBD

Monday, June 6
Game 7 — If necessary, TBD

The post Miami, Hattiesburg NCAA regionals offer plenty of spicy possibilities appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Department of Health announced on Wednesday that the state’s Women, Infants and Children’s Nutrition Program (WIC) is adding new baby formulas to its approved product list to improve access amid the national formula shortage. 

Typically, only four types of formula can be purchased with WIC benefits in Mississippi unless an infant gets an exemption through a medical diagnosis. Now, eight additional Enfamil formulas have been added to the list.

The new formulas will be available until Aug. 31. A list of the newly approved formulas can be found here.

There were 84,000 women, children and infants who participated in WIC in Mississippi in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Two additional policy changes were also announced that aim to help WIC participants who use medically prescribed formulas or have purchased formulas that have been recalled. 

The USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) waived the requirement for medical documentation to be provided before WIC participants are allowed to change the medical formula their child is prescribed. Instead, they will be able to call the clinic they use to change to another formula that is currently available in stores. 

“Nationwide manufacturers’ shortages means we, too, are experiencing constraints in our ability to order medical formula,” Jameshyia Ballard, Director of Vendor Management at the state health department, said in a press release. “These new options for WIC participants are being used to help meet the needs of families.”

FNS has also provided the WIC program with a waiver that will allow people to return any recalled formulas directly to the store they purchased them from in exchange for cash back, store credit, or another formula product.

The baby formula shortage is having a major impact in Mississippi, which has the second-lowest rate of breastfeeding in the nation.

Supply-chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic are one cause of the formula shortage. Manufacturers are struggling to obtain certain ingredients, and labor issues have affected distribution.

The shortage was heavily exacerbated by the recall of three major baby formula brands manufactured by Abbott Nutrition after a probe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found bacterial contamination at one Abbott facility in Sturgis, Mich. At least four babies were hospitalized and two died after consuming contaminated formula, the Food and Drug Administration said. That facility, which is estimated to produce one-fifth of the U.S. baby formula supply, has been shut down since February.

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