Thread by @ashtonpittman

NEW: Gov. Mississippi will sue the Biden administration to block his federal vaccine mandates and "push back on federal tyranny," says Gov. Tate Reeves.
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“Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates are one of the most shocking attacks on personal liberty in this country during my lifetime,” says Gov. Tate Reeves, who in 2015 presided over the passage of a bill to incarcerate tuberculosis patients who refuse treatment.
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Gov. Tate Reeves: “I am a strong supporter of the COVID vaccines and commend the Trump administration’s efforts to develop it. … The federal mandates, however, threaten every Mississippians’ individual liberties. They are nothing short of tyranny.”
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Gov. Reeves: “I expect that we will have a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by the end of the week to stop this ridiculous overreach. I’ve instructed every branch of government that I control to work in support of this suit and this cause."
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“The best path our founders provided states to push back on federal tyranny is through the courts,” says Gov. Tate Reeves.

But vaccines mandates date back to the founders. In 1777, George Washington ordered a mass military smallpox inoculation.
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Mississippi's childhood vaccination laws for illnesses like measles and mumps are stricter than Biden's federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

While federal law allows medical and religious exemptions, Mississippi only allows verified medical exemptions.
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During Reeves' eight years as Mississippi Senate president, he allowed multiple bills to add religious exemptions to Mississippi's childhood vaccination law to die without a vote.

Mississippi has the strictest childhood vaccination laws in the country.
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Biden on Reeves: “In the midst of a pandemic that has already taken over (748,000) lives, I propose a requirement for COVID vaccines and the governor of that state calls it, quote, ‘a tyrannical type move?’ It’s the worst kind of politics."
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Since last month, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected challenges to vaccine mandates in Maine, New York and Indiana.

Those cases were filed by individual teachers, health care workers and Indiana State University, though—not by the states themselves.
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One out of every 292 Mississippians has now died of COVID-19.

Despite being spared the worst of the pandemic’s early months, Mississippi now has the nation's highest COVID-19 death rate.
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“To date, Covid-19 has killed 10,129 Mississippians and has infected thousands more. Mississippi have the highest death rate in the country,” says U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “The vaccine is about living and not liberty.”mississippifreepress.org/17791/reeves-m…

Just 46% of Mississippians are fully vaccinated for COVID-19, below the national rate of 58%.

Mississippi now ranks 46th in COVID-19 vaccinations, ahead of only Alabama, Idaho, West Virginia and Wyoming.mississippifreepress.org/17791/reeves-m…

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With Tate Reeves as Mississippi Senate president, the chamber unanimously passed the 2015 bill to incarcerate tuberculosis patients who refuse treatment.

But it never became law. It died in the Mississippi House on a 40-70 vote.
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