In a campaign speech made in his home state of Delaware, Democratic presidential presumptive Joe Biden said Tuesday that he's prepared a list of women of color for consideration to be his running mate and that he's on track to announce his decision in early August.
Here’s what Biden said of his decision-making process:
"Almost all of the women I'm considering have had some exposure to foreign policy and national defense issues, security issues, but that is not a minimum requirement. A requirement is that they have the intellectual capacity as well as the temperament, as well as their leadership qualities that lend everyone to believe that they would be ready on day one to be president of the United States of America."
We think those remarks mean that experience in foreign affairs would be valuable, but that it's not a deal-breaker. This is good news for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, an early Biden supporter who gained national attention for her authoritative approach to the demonstrations that erupted in her city following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25.
Trial balloons are being raised for many of those under consideration, including Bottoms. Slate gives the Atlanta mayor a boost today with a piece that includes these words:
In her public appearances, she's what Biden wants to be, and maybe used to be, but isn't: a compelling and charismatic off-the-cuff speaker. She's able to speak to the challenges and opportunities of this moment with clarity, humility, and warmth. Biden is prone to dubious, unprompted self-glorification and has rarely finished a train of thought.
She can hold up actual policies she's enacted, such as eliminating cash bonds for nonviolent crimes, as national models for criminal justice reform. Biden is about as far from a progressive reformer as you'll find in the Democratic Party.
Biden hasn't been directly accountable to a constituency since 2008, but as a current elected official, Bottoms has a very recent record of decisive leadership for voters to judge—both the good, like her swift response to a recent instance of police brutality, and the bad, like what progressives have deemed her inadequate protection of Atlanta residents displaced by gentrification.
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President Donald Trump has spent the last several days churning out Twitter messages that condemn those who would remove or vandalize statues In DC and elsewhere.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., has picked up on the theme.
The latest digital ad from Doug Collins opens with an image of disappearing faces on Mount Rushmore, followed by the disintegrating visages of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
“When will it stop? When is enough enough?” the four-term congressman asks -- then promises to “make sure your history isn’t erased by the left-wing radicals.”
By and large, the ad depicts American leaders who have not been the target of recent street protests. A statue of Jefferson was torn down in Oregon, and there's a fight over the Emancipation Memorial featuring Lincoln.
But most of the attention has been focused on relics that honor Confederates or those with ties to white supremacy.
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On a similar note, today's print column in the AJC focuses on Confederate Gen. John Brown Gordon, whose statue on the grounds of the state Capitol has become a focus of protest.
Much of the material is drawn from a 1993 biography of Gordon by Ralph Lowell Eckert, who documented a five-hour appearance by the future U.S. senator and governor before a congressional committee examining KKK activity and the suppression of Black voters in the South.
Gordon’s tenure as governor (1886 to 1890) is considered rather lackluster, but Eckhert did unearth one gem. It seems as if the state governing board overseeing examinations at both the University of Georgia and Atlanta University had discovered a case of racial commingling, of unauthorized integration.
It didn’t happen at UGA in Athens. It was at Atlanta University, where white students were matriculating with Black ones. When AU officials refused to turn away those white students, Gordon ordered the institution’s state funding cut off.
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And another thing: Our AJC colleague Arielle Kass reports that the Gwinnett County solicitor has filed a request to have a Confederate monument removed from the Lawrenceville square, calling the statue a "public nuisance."
The move comes after a DeKalb County judge ordered a Confederate monument in Decatur be removed because of the risk to public safety. That monument was taken down June 18.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has threatened a lawsuit in the Decatur case, calling it a violation of the state law that prohibits local communities from touching the monuments.
But we're getting the distinct impression that certain parties would welcome the court action as an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of that state law.
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You know that Marjorie Taylor Greene is in a GOP runoff with neurosurgeon John Cowan for Georgia's 14th District congressional seat. She now has more company. Another promoter of discredited QAnon conspiracy theories has advanced in a congressional race. On Tuesday, Republican Lauren Boebert upset U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton in a Colorado GOP primary.
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But given that President Donald Trump just held a rally there, this may be the real Tuesday ballot shocker. From the Associated Press:
Oklahoma voters narrowly decided on Tuesday to expand Medicaid health insurance to tens of thousands low-income residents, becoming the first state to amend its Constitution to do so.
With 100% of precincts reporting unofficial results, State Question 802 passed by less than 1 percentage point. The question fared well in metropolitan areas, including Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but was overwhelmingly opposed in rural counties.
Idaho, Maine, Nebraska and Utah have all expanded Medicaid through ballot questions, but did so by amending state statutes, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Amending the Oklahoma Constitution will prevent the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has resisted Medicaid expansion for a decade, from tinkering with the program or rolling back coverage. Missouri voters also will decide on a constitutional amendment on Aug. 4.
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It's not everyday a source tips you off to a story with these words: "I don't want to send you porn. But it's news."
Indeed, an outlet called AVN reported that U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s “awkwardly constructed” proposal targeting major technology companies could allow a “new explosion of porn on the internet” as well as a wave of spam.
The provision would restrict protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which critics say could make it harder to delete obscene online material and spam. Loeffler’s campaign dismissed the argument.
We'd point you to the website, but our corporate server restricts access and we don't want to subject our delicate dear readers to unfamily-friendly content. So instead, here's the analysis from the TechDirt outlet cited in the piece.
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A federal appellate judge in D.C. has upheld the criminal conviction of David Bowser, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, Politico reports.
Bowser was found guilty in 2018 of three counts of making false statements, one count of obstruction of proceedings in an ethics investigation of Broun and one count of concealment of material facts. The investigation centered on whether Broun used taxpayer funds via his House office to pay for a debate coach that should have been a campaign expense.
Broun, R-Athens, attempted to make a comeback this year but lost in the GOP primary for the Ninth Congressional District.
Politico says that U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with Bowser's lawyer on one fact — that a law prohibiting obstruction of Congress doesn't apply to its Office of Congressional Ethics — but still found that other aspects of the case were valid and ruled that he should face sentencing on the remaining felony counts.
Bowser now faces a four-month prison term. His attorney indicated she may seek additional review of the case or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The National Democratic Redistricting Committee — a pro-Democratic PAC led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — has endorsed 22 candidates for the Georgia House and contributed a total of $103,200 to their campaigns.
Nationwide, the PAC is spending more than $1 million on a roster of 102 candidates in Georgia, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin who have promised to pursue fairness in the redistricting process that will follow completion of the Census.
