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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Invidious scheme': Supreme Court refuses to hear case challenging Mississippi 'Jim Crow' law</b></font></div><div>
</div><div>Maya Boddie June 30, 2023</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The United States Supreme Court, on Friday, decided not to hear a case against a longtime<b> Mississippi</b> rule denying the right to vote to persons "convicted of certain felonies," CNN reports.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Per the report, and according to critics, the state rule disproportionately impact Black voters.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to NBC, "The court's decision not to hear the case prompted a sharp dissenting opinion from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor," who "contrasted the decision on Friday with the court's ruling a day earlier that" ended affirmative action.</span></div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: Unequal Justice: The Supreme Court’s voting rights ruling is not as good as it seems</div><div>
</div><div>Furthermore, CNN notes<b> both justices "argued that the court had made 'clear and momentous errors.'"</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jackson wrote, "If the court viewed affirmative action as race discrimination, then the Mississippi measure must be seen similarly," adding, "So at the same time that the court undertakes to slay other giants, Mississippians can only hope they will not have to wait another century for another judicial knight-errant. Constitutional wrongs do not right themselves.</span>"</div><div>
</div><div>CNN reports:</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The challengers in the case, Roy Harness and Kamal Karriem, are Black men in the state who have been convicted of forgery and embezzlement, respectively, and have served their time. They are currently barred from voting under state law – Section 241– because of their convictions. They argued that the law is tainted with racial animus.</span></div><div>
</div><div>NBC notes, "In asking the Supreme Court to weigh in, Harness and Kariem's lawyers point to the fact that the court in 1985 struck down a similar measure that was enacted in Alabama in 1901."</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: 10 years after Supreme Court gutted voting rights, advocates urge Congress to reverse damage</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Backing the plaintiffs, the Legal Defense Fund </b>filed a brief that referred to the rule as a "Jim Crow law," according to CNN, that was put in place as a "deliberate and invidious scheme to disenfranchise Black People."</div><div>
</div><div>LDF's assistant counsel Patricia Okonta told the news outlet, "While the state is home to the highest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the country, it has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890."</div><div>
</div><div>The Guardian reports:</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>
</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Sixteen per cent of the Black voting age population remains blocked from casting a ballot, as well as 10% of the overall voting age population</b>, according to an estimate by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit.<b> The state is about 38% Black, but Black people make up more than half of Mississippi’s disenfranchised population.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>Harness and Karriem's attorney, former United States Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., wrote, "Today, in 2022, many thousands of Mississippi's African American citizens are disfranchised by a provision that was enacted in 1890 to ensure 'a home government under the control of the white people of the State.'"</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: 'Jim Crow': Symone Sanders accuses Republicans of waging 'an all-out assault' on Black people</div><div>
</div><div>CNN's full report is available at this link. NBC's report is here. The Guardian's report is here.</div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Supreme Court's conservatives deal historic blow to the Voting Rights Act's last remaining pillar ›</div><div>Conservative group defends Georgia's voter suppression law with $1 million ad buy aimed at businesses ›</div><div>A ‘return to Jim Crow’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fears the US could cease to be a democracy ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Black voting rights and voter suppression: A timeline ›</div><div>Republicans Rewrite an Old Playbook on Disenfranchising Black ... ›</div><div>Jim Crow 2.0: Black voters face new restrictions upheld by Supreme ... ›</div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">fucking brexiteer</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">douglas Carswell was appointed President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy in January 2021.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Since taking on the role, Douglas has helped secure:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The largest tax cut in Mississippi history, with the state income tax slashed to a flat 4 percent.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A universal occupational licensing law, making it easier for people to find work in Mississippi.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A law to combat Critical Race theory which prevents public money being used to divide America.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Previously a Member of the British Parliament, Douglas co-founded Vote Leave, the official campaign that won the Brexit referendum. He played a pivotal role in securing the Brexit vote in the first place, changing parties and calling a Special Election on himself in 2014 (which he won with the largest increase in voter share in any election in British history).</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2022, the State Policy Network awarded the Mississippi Center for Public Policy the “Biggest Win for Freedom” Award for securing historic tax cuts.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/mississippi-gov-reelection-cosplaying-shooting/">https://www.alternet.org/mississippi-gov-reelection-cosplaying-shooting/</a></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx vid tet</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>mississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves, who has the highest firearm mortality rate in the entire country, this week launched his re-election campaign with a video depicting him as Clint Eastwood shooting people of color.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Although the video (below) was released Tuesday, few seemed to notice until a Talking Points Memo article was published Friday afternoon.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Reeves’ face is superimposed on Eastwood’s in clips from the classic Dollars trilogy movies. He’s seen cosplaying the white anti-hero, the Man with No Name, shooting at Mexican bandits with a Colt revolver and puffing on a cigarillo</span>,” TPM’s Emine Yücel writes.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In addition to the inherent racism and violence in the video, there is no policy discussed, and not even any bragging about Reeves’ record.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>There may be a reason for that.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Governor Reeves almost from the start of the coronavirus pandemic – due to policy choices he made – has one of the absolute worst records on COVID in the country.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mississippi ranks 34th in population, yet was 18th in total cases per capita. It gets worse from there: Mississippi ranks third in deaths per capita.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Just one year into the pandemic, in March of 2021, Tate declared, “The governor’s office is getting out of the business of telling people what they can and cannot do,” as he lifted mask mandates and COVID-19 restrictions.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">READ MORE: ‘Major Campaign Finance Complaint’ Filed Against Herschel Walker: Report</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Under Tate’s leadership, Mississippi has suffered a huge health crisis.</b> In September of 2020, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger revealed a “new report ranks Mississippi’s overall health care system dead last. ‘It’s an embarrassment,’ said one health expert.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“Even before the pandemic, Mississippi’s health care system and outcomes were deteriorating under several metrics, </b>according to a new report by The Commonwealth Fund” the Clarion Ledger added. “The health research organization’s ‘Scorecard on State Health System Performance’ ranked Mississippi No. 51 — below every other state and Washington, D.C. — where it has stood for several years. The researchers relied on data from before COVID-19.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">One year later, Politico scored each state on their response to COVID. With a score of 34 out of 100, Mississippi tied for second-worst.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And on overall health, Mississippi is also doing poorly. Forbes in January reported on the “Top 5 Least Healthy States.” Mississippi came in at number two, the second-worst.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In other areas, like education, Governor Reeves’ record is also bad. Mississippi, according to World Population Review, ranks 43 out of 50.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">READ MORE: Clarence Thomas in 2001: Being a Supreme Court Justice Is ‘Not Worth Doing for What They Pay’</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Meanwhile, back to Governor Reeves and his cosplaying video.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On Tuesday, as TPM also reported, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Governor Reeves told supporters, “this is a different governor’s campaign than we have ever seen before in our state because we are not up against a local-yokel Mississippi Democrat, we are up against a national liberal machine.”</span></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They are extreme. They are radical and vicious,” he said of Democrats and the “national liberal machine.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“They believe welfare is success. They believe that taxes are good and businesses are bad. They think boys can be girls, that babies have no life, and that our state and our nation are racist.</b>”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Response to Gov. Reeves’ video has been highly critical.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Former Nettleton, Mississippi mayor Brandon Presley, a Democrat running to unseat Reeves, tweeted: “Mississippi has real problems and Tate Reeves releases this foolishness as his first video of campaign. I guess we will have to wait and see if any welfare dollars were diverted to his buddies for the production of this silliness.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Presley was referring to what CBS News is calling “the largest corruption case in Mississippi state history.” which appears to involve Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who has not been criminally charged.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Gov. Tate Reeves’ first 2023 re-election video features him as an AI cowboy killing a bunch of folks with a gun. Totally normal campaign launch in the state with the highest gun death rate,” noted Mississippi Free Press news editor Ashton Pittman.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“This is what Republican messaging has been reduced to, at least in Mississippi: ‘Watch me, a sitting governor, CGI cosplay as Clint Eastwood and shoot Mexicans,'” wroteHarvard’s Neiman Lab’s Joshua Benton.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Democratic consultant Brannon Miller appeared to agree with Benton.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“I know that Tate Reeves himself didn’t make this, but it’s such a perfect window into the psyche of everyone over in his shop,” Miller wrote. “There’s no message, no policy, no positive good. Just a man, role playing as a tougher man, who is himself role playing an actually tough man.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, a top political strategist, announced, “The only conclusion to come to is that @tatereeves campaign hates him.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Watch Gov. Reeves’ video below or at this link.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">An unlikely city in the South could be home to a public education renaissance ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mississippi’s far-right secretary of state is terrified that Biden will encourage 'woke' college students to vote ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Brett Favre texts reveal Mississippi GOP Gov. was 'on board' with misappropriation of welfare funds: report ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">'You can’t be serious': Gavin Newsom mocks Mississippi GOP gov for challenging him to a gun 'debate' - Alternet.org ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mississippi Republicans Charge Ahead With Jim Crow Redux ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mississippi's governor: Full speed ahead with new abortion ... ›</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi governor signs bill expanding state control over ... ›</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">boing 9 22</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">w<span libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem">hat does</span><span libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem"> </span><a href="https://boingboing.net/2022/09/02/mississippi-gave-1m-of-welfare-money-to-brett-favre-for-speeches-he-never-made-and-has-just-fired-an-investigator-looking-into-it.html" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-weight="font-weight" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">a multi-millionaire professional football quarterback</a><span libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem">, a former professional wrestler, a horse farm and a volleyball complex have in common? Well, in Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S., where the capital city is experiencing a water crisis, all of these entities received money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) fund. How much? For Bret Favre, the payment was for $ 1.1 million in 2017 and 2018 for motivational speeches to young people. None of the speeches were ever given. Neither did the other $68.9 million go to needy families. According to the NBC news</span><span libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem"> </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/nations-poorest-state-used-welfare-money-pay-brett-favre-speeches-neve-rcna45871" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-weight="font-weight" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none"><u>report</u></a><span libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem">, "Favre hasn't been accused of a crime or charged, and he declined an interview. His lawyer, Bud Holmes, said he did nothing wrong and never understood he was paid with money intended to help poor children. Holmes acknowledged that the FBI had questioned Favre in the case, a fact that hasn't previously been reported."</span></font></font></font></font></p><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking of community money and elite graft, with regards to Covid relief funds, of the $800 billion given out, "70% of it—or nearly $370 billion—went into the pockets of business owners and shareholders in the richest 20% of the population," according to this Quartz <a href="https://qz.com/2114758/the-us-paycheck-protection-funds-went-mostly-to-the-richest-20-percent/" style="font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;"><u>article</u></a>. For more on elite capture of public resources, check out this recent <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w29669" style="font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;"><u>study</u></a> from the National Bureau of Economic Research detailing the audits done for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) given out the first year of the pandemic.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 22</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Robert Foster, a Republican former Mississippi state representative and failed gubernatorial candidate Friday night launched an unhinged assault on transgender allies, calling for their death by firing squad.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After online outrage, he doubled down Saturday morning.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://www.mississippifreepress.org/22283/ex-gop-gov-candidate-calls-for-firing-squad-for-trans-rights-supporters-political-foes/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mississippi Free Press</a> reports Foster is “using his social-media platform to call for the execution of political foes who support the rights of transgender people.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Friday night Foster </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RobertFoster4MS/status/1507685940097134602" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: “Some of y’all still want to try and </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">find political compromise with those that want to groom our school aged children and pretend men are women, etc. I think they need to be lined up against wall [sic] before a firing squad to be sent to an</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> early judgment.”</span></b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Saturday morning Foster, a farmer who runs an agritourism business and <b>calls himself a “Man of Faith,” and a “Constitutional Conservative,” doubled down, attacking his foes and defending his hate-filled remarks while trying to claim he was not referring to transgender people.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I see this really set some of the wackos off, let me elaborate for you. First, that tweet says nothing about shooting or killing transgendered people. It clearly says groomers,” he </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RobertFoster4MS/status/1507685940097134602" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Groomers” is a commonly-used word to describe pedophiles or those who establish relationships with children in service of pedophiles, but has been used increasingly by conservatives to demean LGBTQ people with a false claim that equates them with pedophiles.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And in writing, “pretend men are women,” Foster clearly was referring to, at minimum, supporters of transgender people.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He did not stop there.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“To those adults that groom children into dressing like the opposite sex, telling them they can be a different sex, encouraging them to take hormone treatments to ‘transition’ and ultimately have surgery to remove their sex organs, I propose they be given the death penalty,”</b> Foster added.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foster, like many Republicans who attack transgender children and adults, clearly has not done his homework, but he did release a statement to the Mississippi Free Press:</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I said what I said,” he wrote, adding to what he had tweeted. “The law should be changed so that anyone trying to sexually groom children and/or advocating to put men pretending to be women in locker rooms and bathrooms with young women should receive the death penalty by firing squad.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And he <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertFoster4MS/status/1507703554110337024" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a>:</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Adult groomers of transgendered children are all pedophiles. Pedophiles deserve the death penalty.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At around 11:00 AM ET Foster’s original tweet was removed and Twitter stated: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” So far his remaining tweets have not been deleted.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Foster, the Mississippi Free Press notes, “<a href="http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2017/html/HB/0600-0699/HB0638SG.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">authored the state’s current death penalty law in 2017</a>, allowing for executions by gas chamber, electrocution and firing squad.”</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For those who think Foster’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, coupled with his electoral loss have hamstrung his political power, Mississippi Free Press adds:</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Despite winning less than 18% of the GOP primary vote, Foster’s farm venue has become a prime destination for Republicans since 2019, with GOP officials like <a href="https://www.taterecord.com/tate-co-republicans-hold-dinner#sthash.5XBlonGr.oYUoNNKp.dpbs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, U.S. House Rep. Trent Kelly</a> and <a href="https://www.taterecord.com/tate-co-republicans-hold-dinner#sthash.5XBlonGr.oYUoNNKp.dpbs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">House Speaker Philip Gunn</a> attending fundraisers and other events on the property.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/03/new-report-destroys-gop-talking-points-blaming-dems-for-crime-trump-states-have-8-out-of-the-10-highest-murder-rates/">https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/03/new-report-destroys-gop-talking-points-blaming-dems-for-crime-trump-states-have-8-out-of-the-10-highest-murder-rates/</a></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>New Report Destroys GOP Talking Points Blaming Dems for Crime: Trump States Have 8 Out of the 10 Highest Murder Rates</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published on March 16, 2022 By David Badash</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consider these explosive headlines from Fox News over the past several months: “Democrat-run cities overwhelmed by crime surge,” “Murder and crime rates spike in Democrat-run cities – is it a control play?” or, “Democrat-run cities experience record breaking homicide rates.”</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ten days before Christmas last year House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy falsely blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a “crime wave” that’s “spreading across the country.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Speaker Pelosi should look in the mirror to see what caused the ‘attitude of lawlessness’ spreading across the country,” he wrote. “Democrat politicians defunded police, raised money for rioters, and pushed policies that are soft on crime. They own this crime wave.”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And here’s McCarthy just days ago, again lying, claiming crime is “created by Democrats.”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new report from Third Way destroys all these GOP talking points – and points out that “murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About that claim Leader McCarthy made? He should look in the mirror – and at his own district before pointing fingers.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The report notes that “the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In fact, in all of 2020, “per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It gets worse for the GOP.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century,” the report reveals.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The actual facts blow away what an average Fox News watching die-hard Republican voter would think.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Mississippi had the highest homicide rate at 20.50 murders per 100,000 residents</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">,” Third Way reports, “followed by Louisiana at 15.79, Kentucky at 14.32, Alabama at 14.2, and Missouri at 14. <b>The national average was 6.5 per 100,000 residents, but the top five states had rates more than twice that high.”</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These red states are not generating “murder is out of control” national headlines. They seem to generate no headlines at all. The rest of the top ten were filled out by South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee—all states rarely talked about in breathless media reports about rampant crime in Democratic strongholds.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report does not even mention guns, which are a massive part of the problem, exacerbated by red state gun free-for-all policies.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And for those Fox News watching die-hard Republican voters who may say Third Way is a left-wing think tank, it’s actually been criticized by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. And former bank regulator William K. Black has accused Third Way of being a “group that pretends sometimes to be center-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street.”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read the full report here.  <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem">https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem</a></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi Today|7 days ago</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Senate Education Committee passed legislation banning critical race theory in<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Mississippi</span> K-12 public schools and in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">public universities</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.</span></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/tate-reeves-jake-tapper/" aria-label="'Your way’s not working': CNN's Jake Tapper corners Mississippi GOP governor over state's COVID crisis" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Your way’s not working': CNN's Jake Tapper corners Mississippi GOP governor over state's COVID crisis</font></a></font></font></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/elizabeth-preza" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; text-wrap: nowrap; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Elizabeth Preza</font></a></font></font></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2655061176" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A combative Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) battled with "State of the Union " host Jake Tapper on Sunday morning after the CNN host pointed out the massive death toll in his state...</font></font></p></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">state scotus cody f</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a brutal loss for direct democracy in Mississippi, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://courts.ms.gov/Images/Opinions/CO154253.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">state's supreme court</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">struck down a ballot amendment on Friday that legalized medical marijuana in the state. But the ruling didn't stop there. <b>Invoking a technical flaw in the law, the court invalidated the entire process for amending the state's constitution by popular vote</b>.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The killing of our ballot initiative process means that Mississippi is, definitively, the state with the least democracy, the most restricted ballot access, and where voters' voices matter least when it comes to the deciding our future," said <a href="https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1393305096478461952?s=20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ashton Pittman</a>, a reporter at the Mississippi Free Press....</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court</a></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 521</font></font></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">m<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/michael-watson-secretary-of-state/" aria-label="Mississippi secretary of state calls for more Christians to be elected because 'the end times' are here" data-type="text" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ississippi secretary of state calls for more Christians to be elected because 'the end times' are here</a></font></font></font></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; text-wrap: nowrap; position: relative;">David Badash</a> <a class="social-author__name" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; text-wrap: nowrap; position: relative;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></font></font></font></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2652919331" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson is calling for more Christians to be elected to office "today more than ever before," because "the end times" are here.</font></font></p></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p><div class="article-text-wrap" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" max-width="max-width" margin-left="margin-left" auto="auto" margin-right="margin-right"><div class="article-text-grid" style="line-height: 28px; letter-spacing: -0.09px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; max-width: 625px; width: 625px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A modest, practically harmless October Surprise. But it’s typically down ballot where the average Project Veritas video tends to have its most pernicious effects. Less well known than O’Keefe’s blunders on the national stage are the numerous documented instances in which his s<b>tings have been cited to justify new and more onerous voter I.D. laws or other election integrity legislation in state legislatures across the country.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; max-width: 625px; width: 625px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In April 2012, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Chris McDaniel, then <b>Mississippi</b>’s Senate elections committee chairman, cited a Project Veritas voter fraud video as evidence justifying the passage of the state’s “photo identification requirement” bill⁠, which the state’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed that May. Despite <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-voting-rights-act_n_5c75a48ce4b0031d9562ecee?guccounter=1" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">legal</span></a> <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects-shelby-county-v-holder" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">challenges</span></a>, this law is still on the books today. </font></font></font></p></div></div><div class="full-width inserted-dfp ad-container-0" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div class="article-text-wrap" style="max-width: 1210px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="article-text-grid" style="line-height: 28px; letter-spacing: -0.09px;"><p style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; max-width: 625px; width: 625px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also that year, a Republican <b>Minnesota</b> state representative, Steve Drazkowski, praised a locally shot O’Keefe video—in which Project Veritas undercover operatives requested ballot applications for their friends “Timothy Tebow and Thomas Brady”—during a floor debate for his party’s own draconian voter I.D. bill. While Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a strict version of that voter I.D. legislation, and Minnesota voters backed his decision in a ballot initiative later that year, the state’s <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican Party still <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/02/27/voter-id-bill-clears-mn-senate-panel" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">plans to revisit the issue again this year</span></a>. (</span>“We have had a number of studies that have been completed, there’s a lot of new data on this topic, and there are court cases that have been decided,” as Minnesota GOP State Senator Scott Newman ominously put it, “none of which we had in 2012.”) </font></font></p><p style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; max-width: 625px; width: 625px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">O’Keefe’s “Primary of the Living Dead” stunts during the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-uVhhIlPk0" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">New Hampshire</span></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSrcNvJzBQ" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">North Carolina</span></a> primaries in 2012—in which his operatives requested but crucially did not actually attempt to use, the ballots of deceased primary voters—aided <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/voter-id-laws-passed-2011" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">the passage of stringent voter I.D. laws</span></a> in those states. After New Hampshire <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190713074751/https:/www.governor.nh.gov/news-media/press-2018/20180713-bill-signing-hb-1264.htm" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">enacted</span></a> a law in 2018 tightening the state’s voting statutes, partly in response to a new series of Project Veritas videos, <b>Democratic legislators made <a href="https://www.nhpr.org/post/nh-legislators-vote-overriding-handful-sununu-vetoes%23stream/0" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">repeated</span></a> <a href="https://www.wmur.com/article/sununu-vetoes-democratic-passed-voting-bills-says-election-integrity-to-remain-in-place/28543142" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">attempts</span></a> to repeal them, only to be thwarted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu’s veto.</b></font></font></font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx ya cheap bastard</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Los Angeles Times</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">POLITICS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>People live longer in blue states than red; new study points to impact of state policies</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">States that have pursued more liberal policies in education, environment and civil rights have a longer life expectancy. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">States such as California that have pursued more liberal policies in education, environment and civil rights have seen a swifter rise in life expectancy than more conservative states. Above, the California Capitol in Sacramento.(Los Angeles Times)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By NOAM N. LEVEY STAFF WRITER </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AUG. 3, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">WASHINGTON —  Weak environmental protections, safety rules and labor and civil rights protections may be cutting lives short in conservative states and deepening the divide between red and blue states, according to a new study on links between life expectancy and state policy.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report, published Tuesday in the health policy journal Milbank Quarterly, finds that states where residents live longest, including California, tend to have much more stringent environmental laws, tougher tobacco and firearms regulations and more protections for workers, minorities and LGBTQ residents.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Since the mid-1980s, the gap among U.S. states in how long their residents live has widened, reversing decades of progress toward greater equality.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>One group of states, mostly in the Northeast and the West, have seen average life expectancies rise relatively steadily, placing them on par with the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Those states tend to have more stringent regulations</b>.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>By contrast, the life expectancy in states with more conservative health, labor and social policies — concentrated in the South and Appalachia — have stagnated in recent decades, according to the study, which adds to growing research on health and political disparities between states.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>California</b> has among the highest average life expectancies in the country, at 81.3 years. It also had the most liberal policies in the nation in 2014, the most recent year the study analyzed, according to the system the authors developed to rank states.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Although the study’s authors note that they can’t prove that state policies caused the gap in life expectancy, the correlation is a persistent one across multiple states and several decades.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It’s disheartening to see another example of a missed opportunity by policymakers,” said David Radley, senior scientist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who studies differences in state health policies and the effects on people’s health. Radley was not involved in Milbank report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[pix Bakersfield, CA., March 4, 2020 - Jenny Morones, 26, of Bakersfield poses for a portrait on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 in Bakersfield, California. Morones is working mother struggling to raise three children on a low income. Morones fled an abusive relationship and though in her twenties, has dealt with health challenges.Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Morones had health insurance that protected her from financial ruin. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Coronavirus widens healthcare divide between red states and blue states</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">May 25, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The new report may help shape efforts to rethink government policy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed deep structural weaknesses in the U.S. as well as yawning gaps in many state safety nets.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The overarching conclusion is clear: States that have invested in their populations’ social and economic well-being by enacting more liberal policies over time tend to be the same states that have made considerable gains in life expectancy,” the study’s authors wrote.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Even before the current public health crisis, life expectancy in the U.S. had been declining, setting America apart from most other wealthy nations. That decline has fueled tough questions about domestic policy.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The opioid epidemic, which has had a devastating impact on regions of the country already hit hard by economic stagnation, has been the focus of a lot of the discussion about that shift.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the new study, said the impact of opioids may be only part of the story.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“When we look at what is happening with life expectancy, the tendency is to focus on individual explanations about what Americans are doing,” she said, noting obesity and smoking behaviors as well as drug use. “But state policies are so important.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To assess what role these policies may be playing, Montez and other researchers reviewed more than 120 policies enacted by states over the years and assessed whether each policy choice in each state was more liberal or more conservative.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Policies included housing rules such as rent control; health and welfare policies such as Medicaid eligibility and welfare limits; labor protections such as paid sick leave and minimum wages; and civil rights policies such as gender discrimination bans, hate-crime laws and same-sex marriage.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>They also looked at state abortion restrictions, tax policy, education spending, immigration rules and gun control laws.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Each state was ranked by how liberal or conservative its policies overall have been, going back to 1970.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The researchers then compared these findings to trends in life expectancy in all 50 states.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Montez said the trends they saw were unmistakable. They also correlated with important points in the nation’s political history.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Through the 1960s and 1970s, for example, state life expectancies generally converged. That trend began to reverse in the mid-1980s, around the same time that a conservative movement, led by President Reagan and mirrored in many state capitols, became ascendant.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The gap between states accelerated further after 2010, when sweeping Republican victories in state elections shifted policies further to the right in many places.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>By 2017, residents of the state with the highest life expectancy — <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Hawaii </span>— were living on average seven years longer than residents of the state with the lowest life expectancy — Mississippi.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>By contrast, the gap between the best- and worst-performing states in 1984 was less than five years.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The gap is not only about policy: States where people live longer tend to be wealthier and have better educated populations, for example.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>But Montez noted that decisions by state leaders have helped shape those factors.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“States like <b>Connecticut </b>are investing in their population, investing in schools, setting an economic floor for their workers, discouraging behaviors like smoking that kill people,” she explained. “You have other states like </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mississippi and Oklahoma that aren’t doing any of this.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In Connecticut, whose policies have become steadily more liberal over the last half century, life expectancy increased 5.8 years between 1980 and 2017 to 80.7 years.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In Oklahoma, which has become markedly more conservative, life expectancy increased only 2.2 years over the same period, reaching 75.8 years in 2017.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Identifying which state policies may have the most impact on how long people live is difficult, the researchers concede. But the study points to a group of policies that appear to correlate most closely with longer lives.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">These include some unsurprising candidates such as <b>tougher environmental laws, which the authors note may protect people from toxic substances</b>. The authors also found a correlation between longer life expectancy and labor policies that increase economic security, such as a minimum wage.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Tougher gun laws appear to track with longer life expectancies, the study notes, as do stricter tobacco controls.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The authors also point to civil rights laws, which they suggest may protect residents from ill health related to persistent stress.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">And they found a correlation between longer life expectancy and better access to abortion, which the study notes may reflect other research that has linked abortion restrictions to women’s poverty and ill health.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Noam N. Levey writes about national healthcare policy out of Washington, D.C., for the Los Angeles Times. He covered passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and has written extensively about the landmark law and reported on its implementation from around the country. A former investigative and political reporter, he is a Boston native and a graduate of Princeton University. He joined the newspaper in 2003 and has reported from Washington since 2006.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">120 an </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">f<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/far-right-mississippi-governor-predicts-1000-years-of-darkness-if-state-elects-first-black-senator-in-over-139-years/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">ar-right Mississippi governor predicts ‘1000 years of darkness’ if state elects first black senator in over 139 years</a></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson/" title="Posts by Alex Henderson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Alex Henderson</font></a></p><div class="mag-post-box hentry" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; width: 374.545px; overflow: hidden; display: table; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="magcat-detail" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/civil-rights-group-reaches-agreement-mississippi-reinstate-over-100000-drivers"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/civil-rights-group-reaches-agreement-mississippi-reinstate-over-100000-drivers</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">splc suit</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/map-shows-huge-differences-in-educational-attainment-across-us">http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/map-shows-huge-differences-in-educational-attainment-across-us</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem 1.1rem; padding: 0px 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.54; list-style-position: outside;"><li style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">District of Columbia is the best-educated part of the country: 56.8% of its residents have at least a Bachelor's degree.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second is Massachusetts, with 42.7%. While a lot of dark blue clusters on the East Coast, the third-highest score is for Colorado, way out west: 39.9%.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Worst-scoring state is<b> West Virginia, </b>where just 20.8% of the residents 25 and older have at least a Bachelor's degree. That's just over a third of the share of Bachelor's degree holders in DC. </font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">The Mountain State is marginally outperformed by </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mississippi, where 21.8% have completed a college or university education.</b></font></li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Educational attainment is linked to income. In 2016, the average median income as divided per highest attained degree was as follows:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem 1.1rem; padding: 0px 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.54; list-style-position: outside; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$27,800 – didn't finish high school</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$36,700 – high school or equivalent</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$67,300 – Bachelor's degree</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$95,200 – advanced degree</font></li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Map found <a href="http://overflow.solutions/demographic-traits/what-states-have-the-most-people-with-a-bachelors-degree/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit;">here</a> at <a href="http://overflow.solutions/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit;">Overflow Data</a>, via <a href="https://twitter.com/simongerman600" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit;">Simon Kuestenmacher</a>. Additional information <a href="https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/education-81827" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit;">here</a> at <a href="https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/education-81827" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit;">Marketing Charts</a>.</font></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<b>a historic vote this morning, Mississippi state regulators slammed the brakes on the Kemper coal power plant, saying they will refuse to ask utility customers to pay anything for Kemper's non-functional multi-billion dollar “clean coal” gasification technology and will re-designate the plant as a natural gas facility.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a <a href="http://www.psc.state.ms.us/mpsc/press%20releases/2017/Joint%20Press%20Kemper%20Stipulation%20Docket%206.21.17.pdf" title="joint press release" target="blank">joint press release</a> explaining their unanimous decision, the three Mississippi Public Service commissioners said they seek a solution that “eliminates ratepayer risk for unproven technology and assures no rate increase to Mississippi Power customers,” and that they want Mississippi Power, the Southern Company subsidiary that built Kemper, to consider rolling back existing rates.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think it's high time we finally turn the corner on this project and also strongly protect our ratepayers, who should only have to pay for what actually delivers electricity,” said <span class="caps">PSC</span> chairman Brandon Presley in an interview. Presley was, until recently, the lone opponent of a bloated, runaway project that saw costs jump from $2.3 billion in 2010 when work began to $7.5 billion now. </font></p><span class="field-content"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/21/mississippi-regulators-veto-any-more-money-southern-company-s-kemper-clean-coal-plant-stunning-vote"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more</font></a></span><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">upR 7/7/16</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gunDKPPKPpl miss long hist of straw buy pipeline to chicago
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 </font></p><p><a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/schools-poorest-state-become-even-poorer"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.alternet.org/education/schools-poorest-state-become-even-poorer</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/5-most-dangerous-states-live-and-5-safest</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to the study, <b>the five safest states to live in are Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Hawaii. </b>The<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> least safe states to live in are New Mexico,<b> Tennessee,</b> Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Mississippi. </span>Massachusetts is the state with the lowest share of residents who lack health insurance, the second fewest number of fatal occupational injuries, and the second lowest rate of fatal automobile accidents.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 14.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Longtime Sen. Thad Cochran has the Washington ties you'd expect given how long he's been in the nation's capital. But challenger Chris McDaniel is getting lots of help from outside his state's borders, too. </span><span style="line-height: 14.4px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;">» <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://opensecrets.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aa7cf182bf7041258bb250f9d&id=267361aa73&e=44dfb36771" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;">READ MORE</a></span></span></font></b></p><ul style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; line-height: 14.4px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; zoom: 1;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://opensecrets.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=aa7cf182bf7041258bb250f9d&id=300b4d9b71&e=44dfb36771" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;"><b><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">See who else gets most of their campaign cash from out-of-state</font></b></a></li></ul><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forbes oecd:</font></p><p><span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the low end of the scale it’s Mississippi. They rank just 3.81 out of 10 with an average life expectancy of 75, 76% of the student aged population (3-24) are in school and only 12% with a bachelor’s degree. Just 7% of the state have advanced degrees and 19% have less than a high school education. That state is run by Republicans except for one Democrat in the House of Representatives.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">toxic 20 nrdc:  , "<a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/paltman/toxic_power_the_20_most_expose.html" target="hplink">Both senators from eight states of the 'Toxic 20' states</a> -- Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi -- supported a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to repeal the health-protective mercury and air toxics standard."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><h1 class="headline" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi poised to pass ‘Anti-Bloomberg’ bill banning healthy food regs</font></h1><p class="byline" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://grist.org/author/susie-cagle/" title="Posts by Susie Cagle">Susie Cagle</a></font></p><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi is just the kind of place one might expect to find a backlash against the ��organic agenda.” Apparently spurred on by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (<a href="http://grist.org/news/nyc-judge-throws-out-bloombergs-big-sugar-drink-ban/">newly tossed out</a>) pet ban on big sodas, Mississippi is currently on the verge of passing a bill that would bar every local government in the state from requiring that restaurants post calorie counts or cap portion sizes.</font></p><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A far-reaching, big-government bill to counter other far-reaching, big-government bills? Uh, sure, Mississippi.��<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174048623/mississippi-passes-anti-bloomberg-bill">NPR has the full scary deets</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Anti-Bloomberg Bill” garnered wide bipartisan support in both chambers of the legislature in a state where one in three adults is obese, the highest rate in the nation.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill is expected to be signed by Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. It was the subject of<b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>intense lobbying by groups including the restaurant association, the small business and beverage group, and the chicken farmers’ lobby.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">��The chicken farmers’ lobby�� could be a caption for an unfunny<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em>New Yorker</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>cartoon, but in Mississippi it’s also apparently a powerful business group — though hardly the only one with skin in this game.</font></p><blockquote style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Cashion, executive director the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, says the bill is a direct reaction to Bloomberg-style government intervention in public health.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you look at how menus have changed, whether it be in fast food or family dining, you are seeing more and more healthy options,” Cashion says. “Not because of legislative mandates or regulatory mandates, but because of consumer demand. Our industry has always been one to respond to the marketplace.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cashion is on a real free-market trip! But free markets and consumer demands always seem to go hand in hand with business profits, and Cashion’s loyalties are with the restaurants, not with the people who eat at them. The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.msra.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=104">Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association’s website</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>proclaims that the “industry is represented by a team of government affairs experts that is dedicated to protecting you from harmful legislation while promoting legislation that will benefit the industry. We estimate that our Government Affairs victories have saved the average restaurant over $10,000 over the past 4 years.”</font></p><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This isn’t a story about how Mississippians don’t want to know what they’re eating. It��s yet another example of business buying government — the food business has proven to be pretty good at that over the years. And in that way, it’s hardly news at all.</font></p><p style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<a href="http://grist.org/news/mississippi-poised-to-pass-anti-bloomberg-bill-banning-healthy-food-regs/">http://grist.org/news/mississippi-poised-to-pass-anti-bloomberg-bill-banning-healthy-food-regs/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mississippi’s voter identification law might prove literally impossible for some of its residents to adhere to. In the state, a measure written by State Senator Joey Fillingane (R) and approved by a ballot initiative requires voters to have photograph identification, which they can only obtain if they’ve got a birth certificate to present. But they can only get a birth certificate using photo ID. (It is worth noting here that Fillingane is <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Civil_Justice_Task_Force">a member</a> of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is notorious for its <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/17/465775/alec-retreat-non-economic-issues/">voter suppression</a> efforts).</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State officials acknowledge the <a href="http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2012/jul/05/state-facing-voter-id-hurdles/">problem Fillingane’s law might cause</a>:</font></p><blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State officials are running into problems with the new voter-identification law even before the federal government has approved or rejected it. Voters without a photo ID are facing a circular problem: They need a certified birth certificate to get the voter ID, and they need a photo ID to get the birth certificate.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman of the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, today confirmed the catch-22 problem, which the Jackson Free Press learned about from a complaint posted on Facebook. One of the requirements to get the free voter ID cards is a birth certificate, but in order to receive a certified copy of your birth certificate in Mississippi, you must have a photo ID. </strong>Not having the photo ID is why most people need the voter ID in the first place.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law is not yet in place, since the federal government <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/06/mississippi_voter_id_regulatio.html">needs to approve</a> it under the Voting Rights Act. That Act forbids state voting laws that have a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/07/09/264314/sixteen-senators-ask-doj-to-investigate-potentially-illegal-state-voter-disenfranchisement-laws/">discriminatory impact on minority voters</a>, and, because of Mississippi’s sordid history of voter suppression, requires that the state’s voting laws be precleared by the Justice Department or a federal judge before they can take effect.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no good reason why the Mississippi law should survive such scrutiny. Voter ID laws are especially likely to prevent certain historically disenfranchised communities from voting — <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/05/511136/morning-briefing-new-challenges-to-obamacare-on-the-way/">18 percent of elderly voters</a> lack a valid photo ID, as do <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/voter-id-laws-charts-maps">25 percent of black</a> and 20 percent of Asian adults.</font></p>