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Mississippi Governor Signs Bill Limiting Transgender Athletes

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Mississippi Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill Thursday to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls or women’s sports teams.

Mississippi is the first state this year to enact such a ban, after a federal court blocked an Idaho law last year. Mississippi’s Senate Bill 2536 is set to become law July 1, although a legal challenge is possible.

More than 20 states are proposing restrictions on athletics or gender-confirming health care for transgender minors this year. Conservative lawmakers are responding to an executive order by President Biden that bans discrimination based on gender identity in school sports and elsewhere. Biden signed it Jan. 20, the day he took office. (Read more from “Mississippi Governor Signs Bill Limiting Transgender Athletes” HERE)

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Public School Faces Lawsuit Over Ban on Religious Masks

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A Mississippi public school is facing a lawsuit for prohibiting a third-grader from wearing a mask that read “Jesus Loves Me.”

The religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is suing Mississippi’s Simpson County School District because the school forced the third-grader, Lydia Booth, to remove a religious message from her face mask and retroactively changed its masking code.

When Booth’s mother asked for the specific policy that banned free expression on face masks, school officials responded with an updated copy of the school’s coronavirus plan that included a ban on religious messages—which had not been in the original plan.

The new policy prohibits messages on masks that are “political, religious, sexual or inappropriate symbols, gestures or statements that may be offensive, disruptive or deemed distractive to the school environment.”

ADF legal counsel Michael Ross said the school’s policy violates the First Amendment. “Officials simply can’t … arbitrarily pick and choose messages that students can or can’t express,” Ross said. “Other students within the school district have freely worn masks with the logos of local sports teams or even the words ‘Black Lives Matter.'” (Read more from “Public School Faces Lawsuit Over Ban on Religious Masks” HERE)

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Mississippi to Lose Rebel Emblem From Flag

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Mississippi lawmakers voted Sunday to surrender the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, more than a century after white supremacist legislators adopted the design a generation after the South lost the Civil War. . .

Each chamber had broad bipartisan support for the landmark decision. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said he will sign the bill, and the state flag will lose its official status as soon as he acts. That could happen “in coming days,” said his spokeswoman, Renae Eze.

Mississippi has a 38% Black population — and the last state flag with the emblem that’s widely seen as racist. The state faced mounting pressure to change its flag as weeks of international protests against racial injustice in the United States have led to the toppling or removal of Confederate statues and monuments. (Read more from “Mississippi to Lose Rebel Emblem From Flag” HERE)

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After Refusing to Close Down During Lockdown, Church Burned to the Ground

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. . .A church in North Mississippi was destroyed after an explosion caught the building on fire.

What was left of the First Pentecostal Church was still smoldering five hours after the fire started.

Investigators said they picked up multiple spray paint cans that may have been used for graffiti and that there was a large explosion near the back of the building that blew out the front. . .

The church recently filed a federal lawsuit against Holly Springs after the city cited Waldrop for violating the stay at home order by having services in the church instead of a drive-up service on a stormy Easter Sunday.

The church claimed the restriction violates its First Amendment rights. (Read more from “After Refusing to Close Down During Lockdown, Church Burned to the Ground” HERE)

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State Loses Hundreds of Teachers After They Are Ruled Ineligible

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You would think that in the midst of a national teacher shortage, states would be willing to undue some of the stifling regulation tape in order to make it easier for teachers to teach. However, taking the exact opposite tact, Mississippi has decided to begin enforcing licensing regulations more consistently; the end result is that Jackson Public School District is losing 236 teachers. Similarly, school districts throughout the state are finding themselves minus teachers they were expecting for the upcoming school year.

All 236 of the Jackson teachers were first-year teachers holding a temporary license that enabled them to teach. And all 236 are ineligible to teach next year because they failed to meet the licensing requirements for second-year teachers.

No doubt, when squinting at this story really hard the teachers deserve some of the blame. Based on a story in Mississippi Today, though, the lion’s share of the blame lies elsewhere—most notably on the Mississippi Department of Education. Whatever blame the teachers may deserve is most likely for trusting other people tasked with helping them through the licensing process.

Education leaders like district superintendents and college deans of education have said they thought that candidates had three years to meet the licensing requirements, and only had to show that candidates were making progress toward completion in order to renew the special non-renewable license for nontraditional teachers. In years past, this has been the case with teachers using this license.

Mississippi Department of Education officials say that the rules for the license have never changed and that problems are arising now because of a misunderstanding with local school leaders.

(Read more from “Southern State Loses Hundreds of Teachers After They Are Ruled Ineligible” HERE)

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Two Men Open Fire on Soldiers at Jade Helm Training Site in Mississippi

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A sheriff in Mississippi says authorities are searching for two men who fired gunshots from a vehicle at soldiers at a military facility. No injuries were reported.

Perry County Sheriff Jimmy Dale Smith tells WDAM-TV (https://bit.ly/1UlrHi6) that the shots were fired just after noon Tuesday. The soldiers were training at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Hattiesburg.

U.S. Special Forces Command designated Camp Shelby as one of the sites where a multi-state military training exercise, “Jade Helm 15”, was expected to take place, according to The Army Times . . .

A vehicle matching the description of the two suspects’ truck was found near New Augusta off Old Augusta Road, according to WDAM. The suspects were driving a red Ford Ranger with the words “broken arrow” on the windshield.

Conspiracy theory websites have noted that a logo used in a “leaked” slideshow presentation for the “Jade Helm 15” exercise featured broken arrows in its design. In military terminology, “broken arrow” is code used to signal for assistance when a unit or camp is overrun. (Read more from “2 Men Open Fire on Soldiers at Jade Helm Training Site in Mississippi” HERE)

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‘I Know I’m Dying’: Two Mississippi Cops Shot to Death During Traffic Stop Horror

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ms-fb-officers-1024x768Two Mississippi police officers — one a rookie — were shot to death during an evening traffic turned violent, a state law enforcement spokesman said Sunday. Three suspects were in custody, including two who are charged with capital murder.

The deaths of the officers are the first to hit the southern Mississippi city of Hattiesburg in three decades — and come amid a national debate on policing, race and the use of deadly force, following the recent killings of unarmed black men by police in Missouri, South Carolina and elsewhere.

The officers’ deaths also follow by a day the funeral of a New York City officer who was shot in the head while stopping a man suspected of carrying a handgun.

Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, told The Associated Press that 29-year-old Marvin Banks and 22-year-old Joanie Calloway were each charged with two counts of capital murder . . .

“At this point a weapon has not been recovered. However, warrants have been issued to search several properties in the Hattiesburg area. We are hopeful and believe that the murder weapon will be recovered,” Strain added. “At this point, it appears to have been only one weapon.” (Read more from “‘I Know I’m Dying’: Two Mississippi Cops Shot to Death During Traffic Stop Horror” HERE)

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FBI May Have the Wrong Man: No Ricin Evidence Found in Home, Computer or Car of Suspect

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Photo Credit: Dave Robinette

Investigators haven’t found any ricin in the house of Mississippi man accused of mailing poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a local judge, according to testimony Monday from an FBI agent.

Agent Brandon Grant said that a search of Paul Kevin Curtis’ vehicle and house in Corinth, Miss., on Friday did not turn up ricin or ingredients for the poison. A search of Curtis’ computers has found no evidence so far that he researched making ricin.

“There was no apparent ricin, castor beans or any material there that could be used for the manufacturing, like a blender or something,” Grant testified. He speculated that Curtis could have thrown away the processor. Grant said computer technicians are now doing a “deep dive” on the suspect’s computers after initially finding no “dirty words” indicating Curtis had searched for information on ricin.

Through his lawyer, Curtis has denied involvement in letters sent to Obama, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, and a Lee County, Miss., judge. The letters, bearing a Memphis, Tenn., postmark, were detected beginning April 15.

Curtis’ lawyer said in court that someone may have framed Curtis, suggesting that a former co-worker with whom Curtis had an extended exchange of angry emails may have set him up.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Judge Tells Mississippi that it Can't Shut Down State's Only Abortion Mill

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Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Mississippi from revoking the license of the state’s only abortion clinic. U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III extended an injunction he issued several months ago, which blocks the state from closing the clinic while it tries to fulfill a 2012 state law.

The law requires all OB-GYNs who do abortions at Jackson Women’s Health Organization to have privileges to admit patients to a local hospital.

Jordan’s ruling comes three days before the state Department of Health was scheduled to hold a license revocation hearing for the clinic over its acknowledged inability to get the admitting privileges. Now the administrative hearing won’t be held, said health department spokeswoman Liz Sharlot.

Jordan’s ruling says the state cannot close the clinic while it still has a federal lawsuit pending to challenge the 2012 law. A trial date has not been set.

The Department of Health notified Jackson Women’s Health Organization in late January that it intended to revoke the clinic’s license. The clinic was allowed to stay open as it awaited this week’s hearing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mississippi Bill Would Nullify Federal Laws

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photo credit: StuSeeger

JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi defied the union during the Civil War and civil rights era, and at least two lawmakers think it is time to do so again.

Republican state Reps. Gary Chism and Jeff Smith, both of Columbus, filed a bill this month to form the Joint Legislative Committee on the Neutralization of Federal Laws.

Chism said Thursday that the tea party-backed measure is a response to President Barack Obama’s federal health care overhaul and proposals to curb gun violence.

“Certainly, the Obamacare started this,” Chism told The Associated Press, referring to the health care plan, “but then gun show loopholes that the president wanted after Newtown really put an exclamation on that — that we need to do something to stand up for the Tenth Amendment.”

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says powers not specifically reserved for the federal government are reserved for the states.

Read more from this story HERE.