When historians go back to sort out how the political establishment sleep-walked into the 2016 presidential election, Gov. Nathan Deal’s comments last week should stand out. Days before the South Carolina Republican presidential primary that everybody knew Donald Trump was going to win, as Jeb Bush was gasping his last air, Deal got grumpy about the water wars.
Tag: politics
Business leaders speaking out against religious freedom bill
Concerned business leaders are stepping up their efforts opposing the “religious freedom” legislation that passed the Georgia Senate on Friday.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber gave a letter to every Georgia senator – stating that it had signed the Georgia Prospers pledge, an initiative led by former Republic Senate Majority Leader Ronnie Chance.
Danger: Political leaders putting Georgia in reverse
By Guest Columnist BRIAN TOLLESON, a Georgia native who is the founder and owner of BARK BARK, a branded entertainment firm headquartered in Atlanta with offices in New York and Los Angeles
I’m a proud Georgian and a third generation entrepreneur here.
Legislation to block Palmetto Pipeline pending Feb. 23 in South Carolina, Georgia
The coming days could tell a lot about the potential of the Palmetto Pipeline being built across sections of Georgia and South Carolina.
Moores Mill Road shopping center to break ground, could mark area’s upswing
The back-and-forth at Atlanta City Hall over the fate of a road project in northwest Atlanta has ended with the announced groundbreaking for a shopping center along Moores Mill Road.
Hank Thomas: ‘I’m a Freedom Rider and Buffalo Soldier’
Hank Thomas is a legendary civil rights activist and a pioneer Black fast food franchisee multi-millionaire, but few people know he is also among Black America’s foremost African American art collectors. The 74 year-old Thomas is the only surviving Freedom Rider aboard the infamous Greyhound bus that was set on fire on Mother’s Day in 1961, and he may be the only Atlanta art aficionado who owns so many Black art paintings he can’t count them all.
Ga. Water Coalition urges legislators to protect Georgia’s water
By Guest Columnist CHRIS MANGANIELLO, policy director for Georgia River Network
More than 150 conservation advocates from the mountains to the coast are making sure their voices are heard at the Capitol – urging legislators to cast votes for clean water. In the wake of the Flint, Mich. drinking water crisis, nothing could be more important than securing clean water for all Georgians.
Antonin Scalia and the splintering of the conservative movement
It says something about the current fragility of our political system that the death of a 79-year-old man with a lot of health issues and a penchant for the good life should have caught so many people completely off guard, and spurred so much talk of constitutional crisis and political war.
Georgia’s reaction muted on delay of Obama’s climate change agenda
Georgia is among the 25 states that prevailed in their effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court delay the centerpiece of President Obama’s environmental agenda.
Atlanta takes aim at scrap tires; latest clean-up effort spurred by Zika virus
The Atlanta City Council pressed ahead Tuesday with an effort to remove scrap tires, which serve as breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes, as social media displays pictures of workers in another country ladling water by the cupful from scrap tires.
Mayor Reed to work to keep city ‘equitable’ in 2016
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on February 5, 2016
Building an equitable Atlanta will be a central theme of Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration in 2016.
Reed disclosed his commitment to making “sure Atlanta is a place for all us,” during an editorial board meeting with Atlanta Business Chronicle on Feb. 2.
“It’s not going to be just a traditional race conversation,” Reed said. “It’s going to be about the future conversation. How do millennials afford to live in the city of Atlanta? How does anybody afford to live in the city of Atlanta? How do you learn from London, New York, San Francisco … that are dealing with real issues around equity?”
Georgia’s coastal marshland buffer zone again protected by state rules
Georgia has a new set of rules to govern development along the Georgia coast, and they provide the state with statutory authority to enforce a 25-foot salt marsh buffer.
The Spotification of political music
Perhaps it isn’t Puccini, but you can learn a lot about political campaigns from the music which bubbles up from them.
Vacant houses cost Atlanta millions a year, solutions not easy or cheap: Ga. Tech report
Blighted and vacant properties in the city of Atlanta come at a great cost in terms of services such as police and fire, lost property taxes, and the way they pull down values of neighboring properties, according to a new report by a Georgia Tech professor.
Securing students’ academic future shouldn’t be a crap shoot
By Guest Columnist TAIFA BUTLER, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute
People pushing proposals to bring casinos or horse tracks to Georgia are hitching their chances to the gold-plated brand that is the state’s HOPE Scholarship. Not a bad play.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed agrees to transfer 10 property deeds to APS
Given the new spirit of cooperation between the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Public Schools, Mayor Kasim Reed said he is willing to transfer 10 property deeds to the school system.
Reed, speaking at the State of the City business breakfast Thursday morning at the Georgia World Congress Center, said he would ask the Atlanta City Council to transfer those deeds “right away.”
Georgia Ports Authority names new leader, who will serve as harbor is deepened
The board that oversees the Georgia Ports Authority on Wednesday announced the appointment of a new executive director, just a week after announcing that 2015 was the ports’ busiest year ever.
Mayor Kasim Reed seeks to remove mystery on Bobby Jones land swap deal
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed called the possibility of the State of Georgia getting ownership of the Bobby Jones Golf Course in Buckhead as the “biggest false crisis that I’ve seen.”
In an editorial board meeting with the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Tuesday morning, Reed said he wanted to remove the mystery around the possible land swap between a state-owned parking facility at Underground Atlanta and the city-owned Bobby Jones course. The swap has been tied to the closing of the sale of Underground to WRS Realty.
Iowa produces an election-year first: Trump, the loser
Donald Trump, after dominating the polls and the media up to the beginning of the campaigns, comes away from his first contest with the most third-place second-place finish imaginable.
Every election matters: Go vote
A favorite event of voters is to ignore a special election. So it’s no surprise the recent election for state House District 58 barely registered in the hearts and minds of the electorate.
A January three-way race generated a measly 2.78 percent turnout. In a district of 30,162 voters, only 838 took a few minutes out of their day to cast a ballot, excluding provisional ballots – if any.
