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25 Mar, 8 tweets, 4 min read
NEW: A year ago today, Gov. @TateReeves still refused to issue a "Stay-at-Home" order.

"We're not going to make rash decisions just because some states have decided to do things,” he said.

Check out our new, comprehensive #COVID19 Mississippi timeline: mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
I worked on this timeline with @nickjudin, which you can use to get a fuller view of the sequence of events and policy decisions that leaders made as the novel coronavirus spread in Mississippi, pushing our hospitals to the brink: mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
Hattiesburg Mayor @toby_barker on March 20, 2020: “The potential for this to carry on for two to three months is real. This alone should be a sobering thought for anyone. We are about to be stretched like never before."

A real time capsule of a comment.
mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
Gov. Reeves finally issued a "Shelter-in-Place" order on April 1, 2020—the same day MSDH confirmed the 1,000th know case and the confirmed death toll hit 22.
mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
April 28, 2020: Gov. Tate Reeves says that COVID-19 spread in Mississippi is at a “plateau” and predicts that the state will not see a “significant spike” upon re-opening.

That prediction did not age well.
mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
May 27, 2020: Gov. Tate Reeves took a victory lap as he relaxed most COVID restictions.

“We learned a lot from this first wave. The one thing that we learned is, unlike the state of New York and the state of New Jersey, Mississippi never had a huge peak."
mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
By late June, COVID-19 was surging in the state. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs warned hospitals would be driven to "crisis standards of care" within weeks due to "widespread abandonment" of social distancing.

That prediction came true.
mississippifreepress.org/9913/mississip…
If you support the work we do at @MSFreePress to provide important, contextual information and hold leadership to account, please consider supporting us with a one-time or recurring donation: mfp.ms/donate

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More from @ashtonpittman

Ashton Pittman Profile picture
26 Mar
When Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith claimed a woman in her home town & the woman's dead father were victims of voter impersonation, she spoke as if it had happened in 2020.

I did some digging. Turns out, it happened in the 1990s.

And it's impossible to prove.
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Back in 2010, Jennifer Jackson wrote this letter to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (then a Democratic state senator), sharing her voter fraud allegations from the 1990s and urging her to support voter ID.

But there was no evidence left then, either. (cont.) mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde… Image
Jennifer Jackson says they let her cast an affidavit vote. She never reported the alleged voter impersonation to police. There was no investigation.

There's no way to check the voter rolls from decades ago bc Lincoln County destroys them after 22 months. mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Read 7 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
26 Mar
NEW: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says the For The People Act would "nullify Mississippi's voter ID law."

But #HR1 only requires states with voter ID laws to allow voters without IDs to vote by sworn affidavit ballot.

Mississippi already does that! 1/
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Another change for states with voter ID laws? Under #HR1, states cannot require voters who vote by mail to include photo ID.

But Mississippi already exempts people who vote by mail from voter ID requirements! 2/
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
The For The People Act seeks to remedy an issue where states have “voter identification laws that discriminate against Native Americans” because they do not recognize tribal IDs for voting.

But Mississippi recognizes tribal IDs! 3/ mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Read 5 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
26 Mar
NEW: While calling #HR1 a "radical" bill that would "nullify" Mississippi's voter ID law, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith told the story of a woman whom the senator said was the victim of voter impersonation—along with her dead father.

I investigated that claim. 1/
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
@SenHydeSmith: "(Jennifer Jackson) called and said, ‘Cindy, I went to vote, they told me I had already voted.' Then, she looked above who signed her name & her deceased father had already voted that day, too. So don’t tell me there is not voter fraud.” 2/
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Sen. Hyde-Smith's office did not respond to a request for comment. BUT I did manage to track down Jennifer Jackson who told me her story, which she said happened decades ago—likely in the late 1990s.

So, I tried to verify Jennifer's claim. 3/
mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…
Read 17 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
25 Mar
Mississippi's senator is flying to the border in Texas to address a "true crisis."

I don't recall her flying to Jackson when residents of her own state's capital city went without clean running water for a month. Some here felt like that was a crisis.
Jackson's water system still is in crisis, btw. There's some duct tape on the crisis for the moment, but it's far from fixed.

Perhaps when Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is done with the Texas performance, she might spare some time to visit her own state?mississippifreepress.org/10153/under-th…
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has offered legislation that she says would address that Jackson water issue, but the details are murky and it's not clear that it would actually fix the problem.
mississippifreepress.org/10321/specific…
Read 4 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
24 Mar
Mississippi Republicans: "Cash-poor Jackson should fix its own water crisis."

Also Mississippi Republicans: "We aren't going to allow Jackson, our capital city, to raise its own sales tax by 1 cent so that it can address its water crisis."
The post-integration destruction of Mississippi's capital city was intentional. This double talk doesn't inspire confidence much has changed.

Why wouldn't lawmakers take pride in Jackson and want it to thrive, if not for its residents, then to draw business/travel to the state?
Perhaps it's that a thriving capital city in a Deep South state is dangerous to entrenched good ole boy power. Look at how Atlanta is transforming Georgia.

But I hope that's not the case. I want to think better of our lawmakers. You gotta love Mississippi to lead Mississippi.
Read 4 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
24 Mar
BREAKING by @nickjudin: A man called Mississippi's vaccine hotline to get an appointment...

"The lady told me, ‘I want you to know that there’s no documentation that the Moderna vaccine is effective.’ [FALSE] She asked if I still wanted to take it.” 1/
mississippifreepress.org/10482/msdh-axe…
Bobby Wayne was undeterred: "I told them I have cancer, and I want to get the vaccine."

After he told his daughter, Dr. Elizabeth Wayne, an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, she shared the story on Twitter. 2/ mississippifreepress.org/10482/msdh-axe…
After @MSFreePress asked @msdh about the issue, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs @TCBPubHealth looked into it.

The culprit, it turns out, was not some saboteur.

It was an outdated script.

It has since been removed. Full story: mississippifreepress.org/10482/msdh-axe…
Read 4 tweets

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