WASHINGTON (AP) — Even though President Joe Biden won’t be on the ballot in November, voters still will be weighing his legacy.

As Vice President Kamala Harris moves to take his place as the Democratic standard-bearer, Biden’s accomplishments remain very much at risk should Republican Donald Trump prevail.

How Biden’s single term and his decision to step aside are remembered will be intertwined with Harris’ electoral result in November, particularly as the vice president runs tightly on the achievements of the Biden administration.

Biden will have an opportunity to make a case for his legacy — sweeping domestic legislation, renewal of alliances abroad, defense of democracy — on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. CT when he delivers an Oval Office address about his decision to bow out of the race and “what lies ahead.”

And no matter how frustrated Biden is at being pushed aside by his party — and he’s plenty upset — he has too much at stake simply to wash his hands of this election.

Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he announced Sunday that he would end his candidacy, effectively giving her a head start over would-be challengers and helping to jumpstart a candidacy focused largely on continuing his own agenda.

“If she wins, then it will be confirmation that he did the right thing to fight against the threat that is Trump, and he will be seen as a legend on behalf of democracy,” said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. “If she loses, I think there will be questions about, did he step down too late? Would the Democratic Party have been more effective if he had said he was not going to run?”

What-ifs play out at the end of every presidency. But Biden’s defiance in the face of questions about his fitness for office and then his late submission to his party’s crisis of confidence heightens the stakes.

The last vice president to run for the top job was Democrat Al Gore, who sought to distance himself from President Bill Clinton during the 2000

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Over a month after Jackson, Miss., residents stood in front of the Jackson City Council to decry the condition of the capital city’s overgrown cemeteries on June 4, a short-term solution could alleviate the issue. Staffing shortages have hampered the city’s ability to maintain them in recent years.

In a 4-2 decision on July 16, the council voted to allow PDT Logistics, LLC, to cut and maintain overgrown grass on the properties.

The company had previously voluntarily cut and maintained at least one of the properties, Cedar Lawn Cemetery, on West Capitol Street, WLBT reported on June 26.

“Anything is good, but … the City should have to do it,” James Hopkins, CEO of Reset Jackson, said in a July 17 interview with the Mississippi Free Press.

“It’s an embarrassment, it’s disrespectful, and it’s hurtful to know that I can’t go out to my mother’s grave or my wife’s grave without bringing a weed eater. It’s sad,” Reset Jackson CEO James Hopkins—pictured at a June 12, 2024, wreath laying in honor of Medger Evers—said during a June 4, 2024, Jackson City Council meeting at New Hope Baptist Church. Photo by Shaunicy Muhammad ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?fit=780%2C519&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=780%2C519&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-44919″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=1568%2C1045&ssl=1 1568w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad.jpg?w=2000&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/James-Hopkins_cred-Shaunicy-Muhammad-1024×682.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px” data-recalc-dims=”1″>“It’s an embarrassment, it’s disrespectful, and it’s hurtful to know that I can’t go out to my mother’s grave or my wife’s grave without bringing a weed eater. It’s sad,” Reset Jackson CEO James Hopkins—pictured at a June 12, 2024, wreath laying in honor of Medger Evers—said during a June 4, 2024, Jackson City Council meeting at New Hope Baptist Church. Photo by Shaunicy Muhammad

Hopkins was one of the residents who voiced their concern during a June 4, 2024, Jackson City Council meeting at New Hope Baptist Church over a lack of upkeep and grass covering headstones at the graveyards.

“We take care of our loved ones their entire lives, and when they leave here, if you’re not cremated, they’re going

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• Columnist Sid Salter writes that the choices eventually made by women and independent voters are still the likely margin in what remains a close race.

The easy political comparison to President Joe Biden’s decision to with withdraw from the 2024 U.S. presidential race is to point to incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s decision not to seek the presidential nomination of his party in the 1968 campaign.

While that comparison would be reasonably accurate, it would not reflect the rather stunning differences between the decisions made by those two presidents.

Mired in the national division over the conduct of the Vietnam War and under political attack from both the Republican Party and his fellow Democrats, LBJ was 59 years old when he withdrew from the 1968 campaign. Biden is 81.

While burdened with poor physical health and what biographers and wife Lady Bird Johnson would confirm was a pervasive battle with anxiety and depression (mostly about his physical health and fear of his health leading to incapacitation), Johnson’s cognitive abilities and mental acuity were not in question.

President Harry S. Truman declined to seek re-election in March 1952. The decision was tied to the Korean War and corruption scandals in the Truman administration.

Johnson withdrew months before the 1968 Democratic Convention. The 1968 election was rocked by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis and later Robert F. Kennedy Sr. in Los Angeles. Biden withdrew less than a month before the 2024 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Biden’s decision came just days after a failed assassination attempt on the life of GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

The repercussions of Biden’s withdrawal will evolve throughout the 2024 campaign, but Trump is ahead in the current polls and Democratic Party uncertainty helps his campaign.

Yet the 1968 campaign is not a compelling comparison to our current political reality as a nation. A look at the 1920 presidential campaign reveals compelling, almost startling similarities.

President Woodrow Wilson, a liberal Democrat known for leading the nation through World War I, for the formation of the League of Nations (forerunner of the United Nations) and changed the nation’s economy with the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the imposition of the modern income tax, served as president from 1913until 1921.

While preparing to seek a third term in office, Wilson suffered a stroke in Oct. of 1919 that incapacitated the president. His second wife, Edith, who he married while in the White House, exhibited significant control along with two trusted physicians over access to Wilson and what documents were discussed or presented to him. Many historians, some seriously, referred to First Lady Edith Wilson as “the first female president of the United States.”

The nation’s political climate in 1920 and 2024 is likewise similar. After 116,000 Americans were killed in World War I, fighting continued in a place called Ukraine.

Along with the First World War, Wilson also led the U.S. through a global Spanish influenza pandemic that claimed a reported 675,000 American lives. After WWI, the American economy bounced between recession and inflation. Immigration – an issue tied to health and financial fears – was a divisive issue in presidential politics as it is today.

Despite a desire to run for a third term, Wilson stood down and stepped aside in 1920. The Democrats nominated then-Ohio Gov. James Middleton Cox (father of the Cox Enterprises media empire) and a young New York Navy Department administrator named Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Republicans nominated Ohio U.S. Sen. Warren Harding and Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge. With the Cox-Roosevelt ticket stuck with defending Wilson’s unpopular policies after a war, a pandemic, and dire economic troubles, the Harding-Coolidge tickets won in a landslide despite the presence of the famously un-effervescent “Silent Cal.”

Despite the tsunami of change in the 2024 presidential election in the last 10 days – from the attempt on Trump’s life to Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign – the choices eventually made by women and independent voters are still the likely margin in what remains a close race.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• Columnist Sid Salter writes that the choices eventually made by women and independent voters are still the likely margin in what remains a close race.

The easy political comparison to President Joe Biden’s decision to with withdraw from the 2024 U.S. presidential race is to point to incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s decision not to seek the presidential nomination of his party in the 1968 campaign.

While that comparison would be reasonably accurate, it would not reflect the rather stunning differences between the decisions made by those two presidents.

Mired in the national division over the conduct of the Vietnam War and under political attack from both the Republican Party and his fellow Democrats, LBJ was 59 years old when he withdrew from the 1968 campaign. Biden is 81.

While burdened with poor physical health and what biographers and wife Lady Bird Johnson would confirm was a pervasive battle with anxiety and depression (mostly about his physical health and fear of his health leading to incapacitation), Johnson’s cognitive abilities and mental acuity were not in question.

President Harry S. Truman declined to seek re-election in March 1952. The decision was tied to the Korean War and corruption scandals in the Truman administration.

Johnson withdrew months before the 1968 Democratic Convention. The 1968 election was rocked by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis and later Robert F. Kennedy Sr. in Los Angeles. Biden withdrew less than a month before the 2024 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Biden’s decision came just days after a failed assassination attempt on the life of GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

The repercussions of Biden’s withdrawal will evolve throughout the 2024 campaign, but Trump is ahead in the current polls and Democratic Party uncertainty helps his campaign.

Yet the 1968 campaign is not a compelling comparison to our current political reality as a nation. A look at the 1920 presidential campaign reveals compelling, almost startling similarities.

President Woodrow Wilson, a liberal Democrat known for leading the nation through World War I, for the formation of the League of Nations (forerunner of the United Nations) and changed the nation’s economy with the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the imposition of the modern income tax, served as president from 1913until 1921.

While preparing to seek a third term in office, Wilson suffered a stroke in Oct. of 1919 that incapacitated the president. His second wife, Edith, who he married while in the White House, exhibited significant control along with two trusted physicians over access to Wilson and what documents were discussed or presented to him. Many historians, some seriously, referred to First Lady Edith Wilson as “the first female president of the United States.”

The nation’s political climate in 1920 and 2024 is likewise similar. After 116,000 Americans were killed in World War I, fighting continued in a place called Ukraine.

Along with the First World War, Wilson also led the U.S. through a global Spanish influenza pandemic that claimed a reported 675,000 American lives. After WWI, the American economy bounced between recession and inflation. Immigration – an issue tied to health and financial fears – was a divisive issue in presidential politics as it is today.

Despite a desire to run for a third term, Wilson stood down and stepped aside in 1920. The Democrats nominated then-Ohio Gov. James Middleton Cox (father of the Cox Enterprises media empire) and a young New York Navy Department administrator named Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Republicans nominated Ohio U.S. Sen. Warren Harding and Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge. With the Cox-Roosevelt ticket stuck with defending Wilson’s unpopular policies after a war, a pandemic, and dire economic troubles, the Harding-Coolidge tickets won in a landslide despite the presence of the famously un-effervescent “Silent Cal.”

Despite the tsunami of change in the 2024 presidential election in the last 10 days – from the attempt on Trump’s life to Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign – the choices eventually made by women and independent voters are still the likely margin in what remains a close race.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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• … Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. – 2 Peter 1:4

Banish forever any thought of indulging the flesh if you want to live in the power of your risen Lord. It is incongruous for a man who is alive in Christ to dwell in the corruption of sin. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” said the angel to the women. Should the living dwell in the tombs? Should divine life be imprisoned in the burial ground of fleshly lust? How can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of the devil? Surely, believer, from blatant lusts and sins you are delivered, but have you also escaped from those that are more secret and delusive? Have you left behind the lust of pride? Have you escaped from laziness? Have you given up trusting in earthly things? Are you seeking each day to live above worldliness, the pride of life, and the ensnaring grip of greed?

Remember, it is in order that you might know such victory that you have been enriched with the treasures of God. If you are really the chosen of God, and beloved by Him, do not allow all this lavish treasure of grace to be wasted on you. Pursue holiness; it is the Christian’s crown and glory. An unholy church is useless to the world and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination, hell’s laughter, heaven’s abhorrence. The worst evils that have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her by an unholy church. O Christian, the vows of God are upon you.

You are God’s servant: Act as such. You are God’s king: Reign over your lusts. You are God’s chosen: Do not associate with Satan. Heaven is your portion: Live like a heavenly spirit, and in this way you will prove that you have true faith in Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the heart unless there is holiness in the life.

Lord, I desire to live as one
Who bears a blood-bought name,
As one who fears but grieving Thee,
And knows no other shame.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• … Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. – 2 Peter 1:4

Banish forever any thought of indulging the flesh if you want to live in the power of your risen Lord. It is incongruous for a man who is alive in Christ to dwell in the corruption of sin. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” said the angel to the women. Should the living dwell in the tombs? Should divine life be imprisoned in the burial ground of fleshly lust? How can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of the devil? Surely, believer, from blatant lusts and sins you are delivered, but have you also escaped from those that are more secret and delusive? Have you left behind the lust of pride? Have you escaped from laziness? Have you given up trusting in earthly things? Are you seeking each day to live above worldliness, the pride of life, and the ensnaring grip of greed?

Remember, it is in order that you might know such victory that you have been enriched with the treasures of God. If you are really the chosen of God, and beloved by Him, do not allow all this lavish treasure of grace to be wasted on you. Pursue holiness; it is the Christian’s crown and glory. An unholy church is useless to the world and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination, hell’s laughter, heaven’s abhorrence. The worst evils that have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her by an unholy church. O Christian, the vows of God are upon you.

You are God’s servant: Act as such. You are God’s king: Reign over your lusts. You are God’s chosen: Do not associate with Satan. Heaven is your portion: Live like a heavenly spirit, and in this way you will prove that you have true faith in Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the heart unless there is holiness in the life.

Lord, I desire to live as one
Who bears a blood-bought name,
As one who fears but grieving Thee,
And knows no other shame.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

A for-profit, Texas-based company will reopen the shuttered St. Dominic’s psychiatric unit by the end of the year, though it will not have to provide the level of charity care deemed “reasonable” by the state.

Oceans received pushback from the Mississippi Department of Health and Merit Health Central concerning its plan to spend only two percent of its gross patient revenue on indigent and charity care – or free and low-cost medical care – in its application to open. 

Oceans and St. Dominic’s officials say that reopening the beds is a top priority and that the facility should not be required to provide a higher level of charity care. 

Mississippi’s certificate of need law requires medical facilities to seek approval from the state before opening a new health care center to demonstrate there is a need for its services. 

The State Health Department approved the company’s application last year under the condition it provide 17% free or low-cost medical care to low-income individuals. 

Rather than adhere to the state’s requirement, Oceans and St. Dominic’s Hospital filed for a “change of ownership” in February, bypassing the state’s charity care requirement altogether – and instead qualifying to open under St. Dominic’s existing certificate of need. 

Oceans plans to open the facility in November or December.

Facilities must provide a “reasonable amount of indigent care,” or “…an amount which is comparable to the amount of such care offered by other providers of the requested service within the same, or proximate, geographic area,” according to the state’s certificate of need guidelines. Nonprofit hospitals are required to provide charity care in order to receive federal funding. 

Health Department officials declined to comment when asked how they determine a “reasonable” amount of charity care. 

After the state made its recommendation in December, Merit Health Central, which operates a 71-bed psychiatric health hospital unit in Jackson, contested Oceans’ approval. 

Merit Health Central said that because its mental health unit uses 22% of its gross patient revenue to fund charity care, Oceans providing a lower amount of charity care would have a “significant adverse effect” on Merit by diverting more non-paying patients to its beds. 

Oceans and St. Dominic’s also opposed the state’s findings, arguing that requiring 17% charity care was unreasonable. 

A public hearing was scheduled for early April, but before it occurred, Oceans filed for change of ownership. 

The state approved the change of ownership application 11 days later. 

In response, Merit Health Central sued Oceans, St. Dominic’s and the State Department of Health in Hinds County Chancery Court, seeking to nullify the change of ownership.

The complaint argues that the Mississippi Department of Health should not have approved the change of ownership because St. Dominic’s psychiatric unit was not a separate facility with a separate certificate of need.

“The (change of ownership) filing and DOH approval … are nothing more than an ‘end run’ around CON law,” wrote Merit Health in the complaint. 

It also argues that by circumventing the public hearing process, Merit Health was left without an “adequate remedy at law,” forcing the hospital to turn to the court. 

Oceans, St. Dominic’s and the Mississippi Department of Health have filed motions to dismiss the case. 

Merit Health Central declined to answer specific questions for this article, pointing instead to the complaint and a letter opposing Oceans’ certificate of need application sent to the health department in November.

The Department of Health declined to respond to questions for this article, citing the open court case.

“The state has said, ‘Yes, you can reopen this hospital,’ and that’s what we plan on doing,” Oceans Chief Executive Officer Stuart Archer told Mississippi Today. 

He said the complaint does not bar Oceans from moving forward with its plans to reopen, and that Oceans has begun renovations to the 77-bed behavioral health unit, with six of the 83 licensed beds unused.

Oceans’ mental health unit will offer an intensive outpatient program and 25 geriatric beds. 

Massachusetts-based Webster Equity Partners, a private-equity firm with a number of investments in health care, bought Oceans in 2022. Oceans operates two mental health facilities in Mississippi and over 30 other locations in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. 

Sixty percent of behavioral health care deals since 2018 involved private equity firms, according to Mary Bugbee of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Bugbee’s organization studies the private equity industry and its growing role in health care. 

“It’s not surprising that (Oceans is) trying to limit the charity care they provide because private equity firms are laser-focused on profit, and they’ll be better able to profit if they’re providing less charity care,” she said.

Oceans does not expect to break even in its first year of operation, in part due to renovation costs, but projects it will profit $1.7 million and $2.6 million in its second and third years, respectively, according to its certificate of need application. 

In its third year, Oceans forecasts it will spend $341,103 on charity care.

Bugbee said that her research has shown  private equity-backed health care companies use a variety of methods to increase revenues. “This can look like higher prices, bigger focus on commercial payers versus Medicaid or Medicare, understaffing or relying on untrained or unlicensed staff in certain areas,” she said.

She also noted that the companies often pull out after they get a return on their investment, usually after a period of four to seven years.

Archer, Oceans’ CEO, acknowledged that private equity is “the elephant in the room,” but said Oceans’ track record shows that they do business differently than other similarly financed companies. 

“Our thesis has always been, we’re going to do what’s right for the patient and what’s right for the community and that comes first. We’ve never taken a shortcut because of … our investors.”

Dave Estorge, St. Dominic’s chief operating officer, said the hospital was interested in working with Oceans after hearing about the company’s successes at its behavioral health hospitals in Biloxi and Tupelo. 

“Oceans is going to make a positive contribution to the community. If we didn’t think they would, we wouldn’t be leasing space to them,” he said.  

“…There aren’t a lot of government-owned facilities besides the State that are in the mental health business. And so if you’re looking to provide mental health services, your options are fairly limited. That’s who’s in this space right now.” 

He said that St. Dominic’s opposed the State Health Department’s determination for Oceans’ charity care threshold because of the “dangerous precedent” it set by requiring the hospital provide a particular percentage of charity care. 

“The concern is not the percentage, but just the arbitrariness and capriciousness of the placement of a requirement of uncompensated care that we have not seen (before),” he said. 

Estorge said he did not know the level of charity care the behavioral health unit provided before it closed last June.  

He said he hopes a new law that aims to limit people being jailed during the civil commitment process will help more uninsured people receive care through greater collaboration between crisis stabilization units and state hospitals. 

St. Dominic’s has struggled financially in recent years. The hospital’s most recent tax filing for the fiscal year ending June 2023 showed a loss of $91.6 million. 

Merit Health Central is owned by Tennessee-based parent corporation Community Health Systems, which has also suffered losses recently. In 2023, the company sold eight hospitals. 

In 2019, Oceans bought Merit Health Biloxi’s behavioral health operations. 

Latasha Willis, president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Central Mississippi Affiliate, said she was treated at St. Dominic’s behavioral unit after she attempted suicide in 2002. 

“It was a great experience for me, and I would like to see other people who have been through what I’ve been through be treated as well as I was treated there,” she said. 

She said she is optimistic about Oceans’ mental health unit, but is concerned to hear about the facility’s limited proposed charity care. “The barrier to mental health care is cost,” she said. 

Angela Ladner, executive director of the Mississippi Psychiatric Association, said that though she could not speak to the direct impact of St. Dominic’s mental health unit closing, any facility closure is a strain on the mental health system in the Jackson area. 

“The number of people that need to be served has not changed,” she said. 

“…We certainly welcome [Oceans] to the community and would be happy to see those beds opened and utilized in an appropriate manner.” 

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