{"id":46862,"date":"2018-06-06T13:49:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T19:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=46862"},"modified":"2018-06-06T14:50:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T20:50:39","slug":"things-we-tolerate-in-mississippi-and-shouldnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/things-we-tolerate-in-mississippi-and-shouldnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Things we tolerate in Mississippi (and shouldn&#8217;t)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There are two insanities we regularly tolerate in Mississippi:\u00a0 Politicians\u2019 convenient post-vote version of truth, and the short memory of voters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The latest ruse claimed by lawmakers with selective memory is that some low-down, dirty trickster snuck language for legalized sports betting into a perfectly good bill about unicorns and rainbows.\u00a0 To this, I say Hogwash!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">During the 2017 Legislative session, House Bill #967 passed with \u201cyes\u201d votes of 92 of 122 representatives and 46 of 52 Senators.\u00a0 So, in light of the recent shock and denials, one of two things is true:\u00a0 1.\u00a0 The bill preparation, drafting, reading, committee passage, floor debate, and 174 elected officials voting, Speaker of the House and staff, Lt. Governor and staff, and Governor and staff, are so out of touch with what is really happening during session that not a single one of these 176 elected officials and scores of staff members realized such a dastardly provision was in the bill; Or 2., Everyone within the Marble Halls, including the elevator operator, knew exactly what was in the bill, and are now not sure how to defend their vote.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">I give the voters far more credit than that.\u00a0 If it were really true that all those elected folks had no clue what was in the bill, then maybe we have just recognized the reason our Mississippi Constitution has a provision to have bills read aloud at a normal rate of speed, instead of the demon chipmunk gibberish that was defended by the powers that be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The only reality is that lawmakers either voted and got this law into place because that is how they were instructed to vote on it, or they voted without knowing what was in it.\u00a0 I took oaths in the Army and as a legislator to support the constitutions of our country and Mississippi.\u00a0 Sadly, some elected officials now interpret them to do so by either voting as you are instructed or voting without knowing what you are voting on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Will Rogers said it best: \u201cWhen you straddle a thing it takes a long time to explain it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Rep. Jay Hughes<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">District 12 \u2013 Lafayette<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">MS House of Representatives<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two insanities we regularly tolerate in Mississippi:\u00a0 Politicians\u2019 convenient post-vote version of truth, and the short<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":41142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7811,12672,4117,1447,1096,5,12673],"class_list":["post-46862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-government","tag-district-12","tag-hogwash","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-jay-hughes","tag-lafayette","tag-mississippi","tag-will-rogers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2017-08-14-JayHughes.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}