By our reckoning, state Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, is the first Democrat to publicly demand that Lee May, the interim CEO of DeKalb County, resign his position in light of the Bowers investigative paper. Jones makes his call at the tail end of this Richard Belcher report on Channel 2 Action News:
Said Jones:
"We've gone through this not very long ago with our current CEO. DeKalb doesn't need to go through this again. And I would hope that the current CEO would do the right thing and resign."
May, by the way, has decided not to attend a town hall meeting in Decatur this evening.
***
Michelle Nunn, the head of Atlanta-based CARE,
was on
on Wednesday to talk about Syria. But at the close of the interview, Denis O’Hayer noted that David Perdue, the Republican who beat her in last year’s U.S. Senate race, was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Have you patched things up? O’Hayer asked Nunn. Her reply:
"I talked to Senator Perdue on the first day that I started at CARE and said that I was looking forward to working with him. He absolutely reciprocated that and has been generous in his response."
***
Speaking of David Perdue, the U.S. senator is keeping the heat on over a disputed State Department training facility by staging a hearing today. The dispute -- more background here -- rests on whether State should build a new facility in Virginia to train its overseas employees in explosives, high-speed driving and firearms, or expand the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick.
Perdue, whose Foreign Relations subcommittee oversees State Department security, is holding a hearing today to examine a recent Government Accountability Office report on the competing proposals. GAO sided with Virginia, agreeing with State that a new facility there better suits the department's needs. Perdue disagrees and says State tilted the process by not giving Brunswick the information it needed.
Among the witnesses Perdue will grill today: Gregory Starr, Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
***
The Democratic Party of Georgia is co-hosting a presidential forum at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., on Friday, Nov. 6. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley will all attend the forum, which is in between the first and second Democratic debates. And MSNBC will air it.
***
In addition to his Sunday event in Gainesville, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has added a Saturday 7 p.m. book signing in Lawrenceville to his Georgia itinerary. That means you can see Donald Trump and Carson -- the top two GOP candidates in many polls -- on the same day without leaving Gwinnett County. Not too shabby.
***
Never mind. Grady Memorial Hospital has decided to take back its last-minute $20.5 million cash bid for the beleaguered Southern Regional Medical Center. Andy Miller at Georgia Health News reports:
"Grady was not originally invited to participate in the acquisition process before Southern Regional's bankruptcy filing,'' said Grady Health System CEO John Haupert in a statement Tuesday. "It was only very late in the process that Grady was made aware of the opportunity to participate.''
***
The company trying to build a controversial pipeline through coastal Georgia is not a company after all. At least that's what Georgia attorneys argued in a motion filed this week in Fulton County Superior Court.
The motion contends that the state's Pipeline Act defines a "pipeline company" as a corporation. But Texas-based Kinder Morgan's Georgia offshoot is a limited liability company. Read more about the dispute over the pipeline, which would cut through a 210-mile swath of Georgia, by clicking here.
***
After a big Senate vote Wednesday, Congress has sent President Barack Obama a defense authorization bill that the president has vowed to veto. From Military Times:
Lawmakers also included language to allow base commanders to set new rules on troops carrying personal firearms while on duty, provisions to send defensive weapons to Ukrainian fighters, and several legal provisions to better protect military sexual assault victims.
But the measure also includes language supporting a $38 billion plus-up in overseas contingency funds, a budgeting move designed to get around mandatory defense spending caps put in place by Congress itself for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
There are a host of Georgia-specific elements to the bill that Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., touted after voting for it. Among them, per Isakson's office:
The bill also includes stronger capabilities and faster acquisition of cybersecurity technologies beneficial to U.S. Army Cyber Command, which will be relocating its headquarters to Ft. Gordon, in Augusta, Ga.
Additionally, the bill supports a more streamlined acquisition for replacement of the fleet of Ohio-class submarines at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Camden County, Ga., and includes authorizations for upgrades to the Stryker armored fighting vehicle located at Ft. Benning, Ga."
***
The overstocked trophy case of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, is about to get another accolade. The civil rights legend will be honored by the family of Robert F. Kennedy as a recipient of the "RFK Ripple of Hope Award" in New York on Dec. 8.
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