Late Sunday afternoon, in a Facebook announcement that appeared over the signature of superintendent Grant Rivera, the Marietta city school system announced that it would not punish students who participate in a 17-minute walk-out on March 14 intended to protest fatal school shootings. A taste:
"In the event students in Marietta City Schools choose to exercise their voice through a walkout, we want you to know we will respect and empower their choice. And, at the same time, we will do everything possible to maintain safety, order, and discipline.
"We are not going to assign disciplinary consequences to students who engage in peaceful and respectful activism; rather, we will take a common-sense approach that allows us to resume a normal school schedule."
Look for other school systems to follow with decisions of their own.
The March 14 protest would come one month after the Parkland, Fla., massacre that took the lives of 14 students and three adults. This one has been organized by the same groups that organized the January 2017 Women’s March.
A second, all-day walkout has been called for April 20. That one’s being organized by groups associated with Parkland, Fla., students. The Marietta announcement didn’t cover that one.
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MORE: A lesson from 1969: The price paid for a high school protest
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Clearly, Delta Air Lines is attempting to find neutral ground in a gun debate that has very little. On Sunday, the airline made a second attempt to explain its decision to end ties with the National Rifle Association. In Georgia, a tax break on jet fuel could be at stake. This paragraph didn't break new ground:
Delta's decision reflects the airline's neutral status in the current national debate over gun control amid recent school shootings. Out of respect for our customers and employees on both sides, Delta has taken this action to refrain from entering this debate and focus on our business. Delta continues to support the 2nd Amendment.
But this paragraph was new – intended as evidence that Delta has rejected the extreme left, too:
Last year, Delta withdrew its sponsorship of a theater that staged a graphic interpretation of "Julius Caesar" depicting the assassination of President Trump. Delta supports all of its customers but will not support organizations on any side of any highly charged political issue that divides our nation.
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Delta's assertion that it cut ties with the National Rifle Association because it wanted to stay out of a "politically and emotionally charged issue" prompted plenty of snickering from Georgia conservatives.
It was the Atlanta-based airline's involvement in a series of public debates in 2014 that earned the ire of GOP lawmakers -- and prompted them to target the airline's tax exemption on jet fuel in a 2015 bill that also raised $1 billion or so for road and bridge repair.
There was, of course, the airline’s opposition to “religious liberty” measures that offered legal protection to those who didn’t want to do business with same-sex couples. That opposition continues.
Then there was the airline’s support for President Barack Obama’s executive order offering sanctuary to millions of kids brought illegally into the country by their parents.
Finally, there were the remarks that then-Delta CEO Richard Anderson made as chairman of the Metro Chamber, about the aforementioned transportation bill. “We can’t get chicken about it. We have to step up,” Anderson said. “If that means raising taxes to fund our roads, it means raising taxes to fund our roads.”
Anderson said “we.” Lawmakers heard “they” and took offense.
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Every now and again, it's worth noting how the outside world sees us. Below is the opening paragraph of a look at last week's CPAC appearance by the top guy at the NRA. It appeared in Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper:
Longtime National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre Thursday addressed criticism of his organization following the Florida school massacre, and his combative defense included expressions of dog-whistle anti-Semitism reminiscent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," with descriptions of a powerful plot to destroy America's freedom by "European-style Socialists" who he said had taken over the Democratic Party.
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Earlier this month, we told you of the plea from chairman of the Gwinnett County GOP for more candidates. State Rep. David Casas, R-Lilburn had announced he would not seek re-election, and Mike Siegle warned that another House member from Gwinnett might follow. And now he has. From the press release:
State Rep. Brooks Coleman, R-Duluth, today announced that he will not seek re-election to the Georgia House of Representatives. Rep. Coleman will retire at the end of his current term after serving 26 years in the Georgia General Assembly.
This is a big one. Coleman is the much-respected chairman of the House Education Committee.
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The Georgia Senate's passage of a bill that would allow adoption agencies to use their religion as a justification to deny doing business with gay couples has begun to gain attention in Hollywood.
Ben Wexler, producer of "The Michael J. Fox Show," "Community" and other TV shows, tweeted out this message: "To my fellow showrunners: if this dumb bill becomes law, let's be done filming television shows in Georgia."
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Secretary of State Brian Kemp added his voice to a range of conservatives pushing to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census.
In a Friday letter to Ron Jarmin, the U.S. Census Bureau’s acting director, the GOP candidate for governor said the question will help federal authorities “conduct a more accurate enumeration of our population and better estimate citizen voting-age figures.”
Critics say the move could lead to less participation from immigrants worried the government could use the information against them.
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Mr. Kemp has people telling him how to do his job, too. A morning message from John Barrow, the former congressman who is now a Democratic candidate for secretary of state:
"I support the bipartisan legislation in the Georgia House that will require the use of paper ballots and optical scanners before the next Presidential election.
But we shouldn't have to wait that long to make sure that the only votes that get counted are the votes that are actually cast by duly registered voters.
The Georgia Secretary of State has the authority right now to insist on paper ballots — in 2018, not 2020. I call on the Secretary to do what the law already allows — and to do so now."
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Former Georgia congressman Mac Collins has endorsed state Sen. David Shafer of Duluth in his Republican bid for lieutenant governor.
Collins joins five other former Republican congressmen from Georgia in backing Shafer, including Newt Gingrich, John Linder, Bob Barr, Ben Blackburn and Fletcher Thompson.
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At least one Georgia congressman will be serving on the new House-Senate panel created to study the federal budget process and make recommendations about ways to improve it. Rob Woodall of Lawrenceville was one of four House Republicans tapped by Speaker Paul Ryan to serve on the bipartisan committee, which was created as part of the budget deal Congress passed earlier this month. Woodall is a member of the House Budget Committee and made an unsuccessful run to lead the panel earlier this year.
