USA Today is under fire for requesting that Stacey Abrams amend an opinion article that ran before Major League Baseball’s decision to yank the All-Star Game from Georgia. Here’s what we know:
In the March 31 column, Abrams wrote that she doesn’t believe boycotts are necessary “yet,” a sentiment she echoed in an interview with your Insiders. In the column, she went on to write:
“Until we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition.”
After baseball’s decision, Abrams revised her column in USA Today at the publication’s request to make several changes for the print edition, including some revisions that reflected the All-Star game development. She also removed the above line and replaced it thusly:
“Rather than accept responsibility for their craven actions, Republican leaders blame me and others who have championed voting rights (and actually read the bill).”
Republicans have accused her of a “stealth edit” and slammed USA Today for allowing the changes, which are now reflected in an editor’s note that shows the story was updated after MLB’s move.
“We regret the oversight in updating the Stacey Abrams column,” a spokesman for the outlet told Fox News. As soon as we recognized there was no editor’s note, we added it to the page to reflect her changes. We have reviewed our procedures to ensure this does not occur again.”
Some conservative outlets accuse her of trying to change her position on the boycott movement. Abrams’ camp notes that she was on the record repeatedly ahead of baseball’s move, and says that both versions of the op-ed make her stance clear. Said Abrams spokesman Seth Bringman:
“While Georgia Republicans make it harder for people of color to vote and chase dollars and jobs out of our state as a result, Stacey Abrams continues to encourage events, productions and businesses to come to Georgia and stay in Georgia -- as she did in both the online and the print editions of the USA TODAY op-ed.”
Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans are playing it up.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” he tweeted. “The left spends weeks spreading lies and promoting boycotts, and their pals in the national media cover their tracks. Stacey Abrams can’t have it both ways. Hardworking Georgians deserve the truth.”
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President Joe Biden will make at least two stops in Georgia Thursday when he travels here after his first address to a joint session of Congress.
In addition to a drive-in rally in Atlanta, the president and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Plains to visit with former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter.
More:
Biden and Carter have a long and fruitful relationship. Biden was a first-term U.S. senator from Delaware when Carter took office, and the Georgia Democrat said he was his first and most effective supporter in the upper chamber...
Carter didn't attend Biden's inauguration, the first time he had missed the ceremony since his swearing-in in 1977. During his inaugural address, Biden said he spoke to the former president and saluted “his lifetime of service.
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Credit: Wire
Credit: Wire
The audience tonight at President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress will be smaller than normal due to pandemic-related social distancing.
But we’re told U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock will be one of the faces in the crowd for the Wednesday evening address. His office said he expects to attend the event in-person.
Whether Warnock and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff will join Biden when the president comes to Atlanta Thursday is more of an open question. Senate votes may keep the senators in Washington while the POTUS hosts a drive-in rally in their hometown.
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Another invited guest for tonight’s address will be state Sen. Michelle Au, D-Duluth. But instead of sitting in the House chamber, Au has been invited by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath to be her “virtual guest” for the event.
House members are typically allowed one guest each for major speeches, when guests sit in the visitors’ gallery overlooking the House floor. That tradition, along with many others, are on hold for now, but that hasn’t stopped House members from keeping parts of the custom going.
Like McBath, Au includes gun safety as a priority for her work in the state Senate. McBath noted that, along with Au’s work as a physician administering COVID vaccines, in a press release announcing Au as her guest.
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The Georgia Historical Society and students at Decatur High School dedicated a new historical marker on Sunday to mark the place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was sentenced to four months hard labor for protesting segregation at the Rich’s Department Store dining room.
While Civil War markers are plentiful throughout the South, the Georgia Historical Society has been working since 2015 to more thoroughly commemorate the Civil Rights movement throughout Georgia.
The new marker sits at the corner of McDonough Street and Trinity Place at the site of the former Dekalb Building. It reads in part:
“(King’s) arrest violated parole conditions set by Judge J. Oscar Mitchell, who had convicted King of driving without a Georgia license, even though he carried a valid Alabama license. Mitchell’s harsh sentencing of King’s parole violation energized Civil Rights activists and amplified demands to end racist laws and policies.”
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POSTED: Bluestein writes about the growing frustration in GOP ranks that U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock hasn’t drawn a big-name challenger for his race in 2022 yet:
While I respect those who have raised their hands thus far, the fact that there's not a household name announced yet in the Republican race is nothing short of astounding," said John Watson, a longtime Republican operative and former chair of the Georgia GOP.
He chalked it up to two reasons. The first is that increasing scrutiny and attention on political races in Georgia, one of the nation's premier political battlegrounds, has made it more forbidding for potential candidates to seek high-profile office. The second one is just as important: Trump's influence still reigns supreme in the state GOP.
Politico picks up on that theme, writing that Warnock, along with Arizona freshman Sen. Mark Kelly, is one half of “Democrats’ surprising two-man team to hold the Senate.”
Both will face election in 2022 in battleground states that Biden won in 2020. Although Republicans still believe Warnock can be easily defeated, this note of concern caught our eyes:
“You couldn't have a better test" of GOP viability than Kelly and Warnock's races, said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who fretted that Georgia and Arizona soon could start resembling Democratic strongholds like New Mexico and Colorado as the states' demographics change. “You scratch your head about how we're going to overcome that in the long run."
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In more 2022 news, state Rep. Matthew Wilson, D-Atlanta, has announced his run for Georgia Insurance Commissioner.
Wilson will challenge incumbent Republican John King, who has already announced that he’s running for election in 2022. Gov. Brian Kemp appointed King, a former Doraville police chief, to the post in 2019 to succeed Jim Beck.
Wilson is among a growing list of Democratic state legislators coming out of the General Assembly to run statewide.
It's time to start organizing for 2022.
— Rep. Matthew Wilson (@mwilsonGA) April 28, 2021
I'm running for Insurance Commissioner to fight for all Georgians no matter who they are or where they come from. We can choose lower monthly bills and better coverage, if we choose leaders who work for us. pic.twitter.com/DoFAYUl40P
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Races for prosecutor positions have become more hotly contested recently. Yesterday Gwinnett Solicitor General Brian Whiteside got a new challenger for 2022- Lisamarie Bristol.
Bristol is a former prosecutor and public defender in both Dekalb and Gwinnett counties.
Whiteside, a Democrat, recently made news when he said he won’t be prosecuting Georgians for distributing food and water to voters in line at the polls for future elections. Georgia’s new election law makes that distribution a misdemeanor.
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The Washington Post has an eye-catching story about a Miami private school called Centner Academy that warned teachers they wouldn’t be welcome in classrooms unless they skipped the coronavirus vaccine.
The school’s leaders, David and Lelia Centner, are described in the Post as “health freedom advocates” who have invited anti-vaccine advocates to speak.
They’re also political donors: Records show the couple gave $20,000 to the Georgia GOP in July 2020.
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If you are easily triggered by press accounts casting U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff as a hero, and we know some of you are, we cannot let you read this article in The Forward about Ossoff’s time on his high school ultimate Frisbee team.
But if you would like to read more about his “hard work, infectious ambition,” and “painfully charming wink,” then enjoy.
We did learn a few important facts about the senator in the piece, however. Notably, while the focus of the article is on Ossoff’s athletic ambitions, it was his wife, Dr. Alisha Kramer, who was the captain of the team at Georgetown University.
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As always, remember that Jolt readers are also some of our favorite tipsters. Send your very best political tips, scoops and gossip our way to patricia.murphy@ajc.com.
