NEW: "There’s nothing that would give any of us up here more honor than...to help you with anything," Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith told families of fallen officers on May 3.
Sen. @CindyHydeSmith claimed that the independent commission, which would've included an equal number of members appointed by each party, amounted to "a politically-skewed exercise that I cannot support.” mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Meanwhile, @SenatorWicker said an independent Jan. 6 commission would "distract" from other Jan. 6 investigations.
"It is my view that adding a new commission ... would inevitably delay & distract from the productive investigations already underway.” mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Wicker claimed “the impeachment proceedings … closely scrutinized the events of January 6.”
But those proceedings did not even include witness testimony. Wicker and Hyde-Smith both voted against convicting Trump. mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Rep. @BennieGThompson: "To be clear, Senate Republicans today voted against finding the truth. They voted against the law enforcement that protect the Capitol every day. They voted against the integrity of our democracy.” mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Rep. @BennieGThompson: "Moreover, it is appalling that after hearing from Officer Brian Sicknick’s mother, Mitch McConnell chose this critical bipartisan homeland security bill as the first measure to be filibustered this year." mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Rep. Thompson: "It is reprehensible to see House and Senate Republican leaders repeatedly move the goalposts and brazenly acknowledge that they want the commission blocked because they fear it would hurt them in the next election." mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Sen. Wicker has opposed efforts to eliminate the filibuster, claiming it fosters “consensus building” by promoting debate and discussion.
Pelosi: "Mitch McConnell asked Senate Republicans to do him a ‘personal favor’ and vote against the January 6th Commission. In doing so, Mitch McConnel asked them to be complicit in his undermining of the truth of January 6th."mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Pelosi: "In bowing to McConnell’s personal favor request, Republican senators surrendered to the January 6th mob assault.”mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy voted for the commission.
After their commission filibuster, he warned, Speaker Pelosi will likely set up a House select-committee, “the nature of which will be entirely dictated by Democrats and would stretch on for years.” mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Sen. Cassidy: "We can be more confident that the independent commission would thoroughly investigate this issue. The investigations will happen with or without Republicans. To ensure the investigations are fair ... Republicans need to be involved.” mississippifreepress.org/12615/after-vo…
Hours after voting against the Jan. 6 Commission, Sen. Hyde-Smith released a statement about Memorial Day, saying that “those who died for us deserve to be honored every day.”
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"So many workers have left an industry that clearly doesn’t value them, whose model is predicated on them being disposable. Frankly,” Weil said, “a lot of industry people are dead. Line cooks had a higher mortality rate this past year than medical workers.”mississippifreepress.org/12527/breaking…
"These establishments chose not to use that PPP money to rehire workers for hybrid models, or to-go models...Industry workers didn’t opt out of work. They were all terminated by places that were happy to operate without them, until the pandemic was over.” mississippifreepress.org/12527/breaking…
THREAD: This is me back in 2010 with my congressman, Gene Taylor. He was a conservative Democrat who I did some tough reporting on in my student newspaper.
I had a black eye at the time (long story, college). I told him we to pretend he was punching me for a tough question.
When I first began reporting for my college paper, I called D.C. asking to interview Rep. Gene Taylor, thinking there was no way he'd make time.
20 minutes later, he called. I interviewed my congressman for 30 minutes. Steven Palazzo unseated him in the Tea Party wave that year.
Since then, I haven't been able to talk to my congressman. He makes no appearances at town halls. He doesn't debate opponents. He basically never answers questions from media unless he knows they're on his side.
•Senate Control
Party A: 123 million votes
Party B: 99 million votes
Result: Party B wins 53/100 seats
What I'm referencing:
•Presidential elections
Hillary Clinton won 66 million votes; Trump won 63 million
•Bills
54 senators voted for the Jan. 6 commission, 35 against; the 35 killed the bill.
•Senate Control
Dem candidates for US Senate won 123 million votes for Senate votes across all races btwn 2014, 2016 & 2018; Republicans won 99 million.
Only in 2014 did GOP win more raw votes, with + 3 million. (Dems won 11 million more in 2016; 18 million more in 2018).
NEW: With ICE failing to vaccinate detained immigrants, COVID-19 cases have exploded at a private prison in Natchez—with more cases confirmed since mid-April than in the prior 13 months combined.
“ICE’s failure to ensure a coordinated strategy for vaccination continues to endanger people in detention nationwide. ICE’s COVID-19 plan...left it to individual facilities to contact their state’s COVID-19 vaccine resource…to obtain vaccines.” —@ACLU 3/ mississippifreepress.org/12579/covid-19…
BREAKING: Will Norton, the former Ole Miss School of Journalism and New Media dean whose emails with a wealthy donor were a central part of my @MSFreePress 2020 #UMEmails exposé, is no longer an employee at UM. mississippifreepress.org/12534/will-nor…
I first reported last August on a trove of emails that revealed that Dean Norton had continued seeking donations from a wealthy white donor who shared photos of Black women students he'd taken, calling them "African hookers" in emails to Norton. mississippifreepress.org/12534/will-nor…
The donor, Blake Tartt, wrote to Norton in September 2018: “You know Oxford and Ole Miss have real problems when black hookers are working on Jackson avenue. ... I happen to know what happens when a place is overtaken by the wrong elements.” mississippifreepress.org/12534/will-nor…