Why did the Braves decide to leave Atlanta? They wanted a large piece of the surrounding action that the city and Fulton County couldn't/wouldn't give them. From our AJC colleague Tim Tucker:
See the movie version here:
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DeKalb County's top cop is temporarily on loan to Baltimore. Public Safety Director Cedric Alexander headed to the riot-plagued city Tuesday to advise police on their response to the violence that erupted after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died while in police custody.
"You can't destroy a community — any community, certainly a community that you live in," Alexander told WSB-TV. "Now your grandmother can't go for her hypertension medication."
Alexander in February handled DeKalb's response to questions about an officer who shot and killed a man who called 911 for help in December. Alexander pushed back against critics but said he'd seek an independent inquest by state authorities.
Alexander is the head of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and has lobbied Congress for an overhaul of the criminal justice system in light of events in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.
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U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., weighed in on the events in Baltimore to Channel 2 Action News. Reporter Justin Gray passed along this transcript:
"For that reason alone, I encourage the debate and the dialogue to go on about: Why is the emotion so serious there? We have the rule of law. The law needs to be obeyed first of all.
"Our law enforcement officers aren't the military, so we need to make sure the individuals are protected. We have individual rights in this country. So it's a balance. It always has been."
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Meanwhile, state Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler, D-Lithonia, was there when the city erupted. From her post on Facebook:
So about Baltimore. I flew in the city early Friday afternoon. We, the National Black of State Legislators, held a press conference at 6pm. The protesters were respectful and peaceful. On Saturday night some protestors not associated with B'More or peaceful protest showed up and the dynamics begin to change. By Monday there is mayhem -- not by the protesters but by individuals who have infiltrated a peaceful demonstration.
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Much of the analysis of yesterday's same-sex marriage Supreme Court arguments focused on Chief Justice John Roberts' comments that the bans could amount to gender discrimination.
It was a theory that had gotten only scant attention among all the other legal arguments floating around the case. But one local professor called the shot. From the New York Times:
"Not wanting Justice Kennedy to monopolize the glory," Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, wrote on Monday on the blog of the American Constitution Society, Chief Justice Roberts "will concur in the result striking down the same-sex marriage bans on the basis that they amount to unconstitutional gender discrimination."
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Erick Erickson is luring presidential contenders to Atlanta, starting Aug. 6. for his annual RedState gathering. Politicos and media, mark your calendars:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina and others will be able to share their vision for the country. You will get to hear them tell you what the country should look like after four years of one of them in the White House.
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One long-shot presidential candidate you won't find at Erickson's gathering: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The avowed socialist is will announce his bid as a Democrat on Thursday. From Vermont Public Radio:
Sanders' basic message will be that the middle class in America has been decimated in the past two decades while wealthy people and corporations have flourished.
His opposition to a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (T.P.P.) shows how he plans to frame this key issue of his campaign.
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Medicaid expansion is roiling our neighbors to the south. This morning's Tampa Bay Times lead:
Florida's Legislature collapsed into chaos Tuesday as the House unilaterally ended the annual session with more than three days left, leaving dozens of major bills dead and escalating tensions between the House and Senate over their health care stalemate.
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The appointment of House Majority Leader Larry O'Neal to a plum judicial post indeed was a last-minute thing, according to the Daily Report:
O'Neal's application states that he did not have an active litigation practice for the past 14 years, but in an interview he said he is very familiar with the state's tax laws because he participated in crafting many of them.
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Walter Jones of Morris News Service reports that the new $5-a-night tax on hotel rooms, part of the revenue source for a $900 milillion-a-year transportation funding package, will hit the world outside I-285 the hardest:
The firm did the study on its own and not at the request of any client….
The study found that the impact will be more pronounced in Savannah because more of its hotels are lower prices. An additional $5 is a more jarring 6.6 percent increase when added to a $76 room charge compared to a 3.4 percent rise to a $148 charge in Atlanta, the report showed.
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Sam Griffin, 79, the former publisher and editor of the Bainbridge, Ga., Post Searchlight, died Monday after a battle with cancer. Sam Griffin was the son of the late Gov. Marvin Griffin, and a steadfast defender of open records and freedom of information in Georgia.
Griffin usually backed Republicans, but in 2006 supported Cathy Cox’s Democratic bid for governor. She once worked at the newspaper.
The funeral service for Sam Griffin will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, at the First Presbyterian Church in Bainbridge.
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