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      L. Lin Wood, Lawyer Who Tried to Overturn Trump’s 2020 Loss, Gives Up License

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      Mr. Wood wrote that the Georgia State Bar had “agreed to drop the disciplinary cases” against him if he retired from the profession.L. Lin Wood, one of the key lawyers who sought to overturn former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election loss and faced potential disciplinary action in Georgia as a result, opted to give up his law license in the state.Mr. Wood officially requested that the State Bar of Georgia transfer his attorney status to “retired” on July 4, according to a letter he posted on the messaging platform Telegram. The request was approved, and two pending disciplinary charges against him were dropped, according to a letter from Georgia’s Office of the General Counsel that Mr. Wood also posted to Telegram.Mr. Wood, a former libel lawyer who became an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump, has faced his own series of legal troubles since he joined Mr. Trump’s crusade to use the court system to overturn the 2020 results, echoing falsehoods that there was widespread voter fraud.The Georgia State Bar wrote in documents filed with the state’s Supreme Court that Mr. Wood’s retirement had “achieved the goals of disciplinary action, including protecting the public and the integrity of the judicial system and the legal profession.”Mr. Wood wrote on Telegram that the bar had “agreed to drop the disciplinary cases” if he retired from the profession. In an interview with The Times, he said that he had wanted to retire sooner, but that legal proceedings from cases filed around the 2020 election prevented him from doing so.“I wish I had been able to do it two years ago,” he said. “I was tired of practicing law. I’d had enough.”The letters Mr. Wood posted on Telegram specified that his request was “unqualified, irrevocable and permanent” and that Mr. Wood could not practice law in any state. He is, however, allowed to represent himself in future cases so long as he does not present himself as a lawyer.Mr. Wood had been a licensed attorney in Georgia since 1977. His status is now listed as “retired” on the State Bar website, with no public discipline on record.Mr. Wood brought a federal lawsuit seeking to halt Georgia’s certification of the election in November 2020, which was blocked by a federal judge that year. His name subsequently appeared in lawsuits challenging election results in various other states.The State Bar opened an investigation into Mr. Wood for disciplinary action in 2021 and held a disciplinary trial earlier this year. Mr. Wood sued the association after it sought to obtain a mental health exam as part of its investigation, but he lost in a federal appeals court.He was one of several attorneys who faced $175,000 in sanctions and a recommendation for possible suspension or disbarment in Michigan for filing a lawsuit that a judge determined in 2021 “threatened to undermine the results of a legitimately conducted national election.”Mr. Wood claimed that he was not involved in that lawsuit but that another lawyer had added his name to documents filed in that case and several others.Last year, Mr. Wood was asked to testify in the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. There have been signals that charges related to that inquiry could be issued in August. More

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      Georgia elections official downplays cybersecurity threats despite report

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      Georgia’s top election official is disregarding a recently released report that identifies serious vulnerabilities in Georgia’s computerized election system, instead siding with a conflicting report and claiming that scientific findings about cybersecurity threats are no more than conspiracy theories.The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, charged with overseeing elections, announced that despite the report’s findings, he will not update software to protect against the vulnerabilities before the 2024 presidential elections.The dueling reports were released by a federal court as part of a lawsuit. One, a 96-page report prepared by J Alex Halderman, and Drew Springall, computer science professors at the University of Michigan and Auburn University, respectively, is based on tests of the equipment used in the increasingly important swing state. The report, which had been sealed for two years by the court, found “vulnerabilities in nearly every part of the system that is exposed to potential attackers” which could allow votes to be changed, potentially affecting election outcomes in Georgia, according to a summary by Halderman.The other was prepared by Mitre, a research and development company, and paid for by Dominion Voting Systems, manufacturer of the state’s electronic voting system. Mitre did not have the same access to test Georgia’s voting equipment, and claimed the vulnerabilities are unlikely to be exploited on a wide scale.In justifying his decision not to update the state’s voting system, Raffensperger pointed to the Mitre report, which says the potential attacks Halderman identifies are “operationally infeasible”.Halderman called Raffensperger’s decision not to address the system’s vulnerabilities “irresponsible and wrong”. Raffensperger has made several statements in recent weeks calling the computer scientists’ conclusions “theoretical and imaginary”, and conflating their warnings with “Stop the Steal” efforts post-2020 – leading Halderman to label the state’s officials as “vulnerability deniers”. Computer scientists from many of the US’s leading universities signed a letter decrying the standoff, and urging Mitre to retract its report.The scenario lands Georgia in a situation where top computer scientists and Trump-aligned election deniers appear to be sharing the same or similar concerns, even while one relies on groundbreaking research, while the other has been discredited by courts and election officials alike.US district judge Amy Totenberg had sealed the Halderman report since 2021 because of cybersecurity concerns, as part of a lawsuit that started before the most recent presidential election and rise of election deniers. But an agreement was reached earlier this month to release a redacted version, together with the Mitre report.Halderman, who has researched digital elections equipment for decades, said court-ordered access to Georgia’s election equipment, manufactured by Dominion, allowed them to do “the first study in more than 10 years to comprehensively and independently assess the security of a widely deployed US voting machine, as well as the first-ever comprehensive security review of a widely deployed ballot marking device”.“The most critical problem we found,” Halderman wrote, is a “vulnerability that can be exploited to spread malware from a county’s central election management system to every ballot-marking device in the jurisdiction. This makes it possible to attack the ballot-marking devices at scale, over a wide area, without needing physical access to any of them.”Mitre’s countering report not only lacks any testing of voting machines, it also relies on a key premise, stated in a footnote on the first page: that no one besides election workers have access to the state’s voting hardware and software.But records obtained by the Coalition for Good Governance – the group behind the ongoing lawsuit against Georgia’s election system – show that people associated with the effort to deny the 2020 election results visited rural Coffee county’s election department in early 2021, and the Trump attorney Sidney Powell was able to copy Dominion software and other data. These records, including surveillance video, were reported by the Washington Post and are now under investigation by the Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI).The Coffee county security breach and other issues led a group of 29 computer scientists from MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Georgia Tech and other US universities to write a letter last week urging Mitre to retract its report, calling the company’s conclusions a “dangerously misleading analysis”.“Mitre embarrassed themselves,” Richard DeMillo, a computer science professor at Georgia Tech and one of the letter’s signers, told the Guardian. The report is “based on representations from the secretary of state about physical security, when right before our eyes, we can see video of people marching into Coffee county’s election department”.Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Raffensperger, pointed to the GBI investigation when asked about the Coffee county incident and whether people other than election workers can access voting equipment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHassinger also said that the “vulnerabilities identified in a lab are not real vulnerabilities, and do not pose risks” to the state’s election system. But DeMillo, who has worked in cybersecurity at Hewlett-Packard and the US Department of Defense, said: “If Alex Halderman can discover the system’s vulnerabilities, then nation states like North Korea and Russia can as well.”DeMillo has testified as part of the lawsuit, now in its sixth year. In 2019, the Coalition for Good Governance’s efforts led Judge Totenberg to order the state to scrap its previous statewide computer election system, made by Diebold Election Systems, due to vulnerabilities – a first in election integrity court cases. Diebold no longer makes voting machines, and coalition plaintiffs have continued their efforts to force the state to use paper ballots filled out by hand for voting instead of touchscreens, as is done by nearly 70% of voters across the US, with computers available for people with disabilities.“Ballots filled out by pencil and paper are non-hackable,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the coalition. Georgia’s current system prints out a ballot after voters use touchscreens, and the ballot has a barcode that scanners read to record each voter’s choices.In the months leading up to Georgia’s 2019 decision to change its election system to Dominion’s machines, a committee formed to advise the state on the decision ignored the recommendations of its lone computer scientist, Georgia Tech’s Wenke Lee, who urged the state to move to paper ballots marked by hand.But the state ignored the recommendations and purchased machines from Dominion, another digital system, instead. “You can see that pattern of negligent, vulnerability denialism – of not facing facts,” Halderman said.In a statement released on 20 June, Raffensperger said that “critics of Georgia’s election security” are probably either “election-denying conspiracy theorists or litigants in the long-running … lawsuit. These two groups make ever-shifting but always baseless assertions that Georgia’s election system is at risk because bad actors might hack the system and change the result of an election.”The statement conflates conspiracists like Cyber Ninjas – the now-defunct company that performed discredited “audits” in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election – with cybersecurity experts who have decades of research to their names at leading universities. Asked about the researchers’ claims, Hassinger dismissed the line of inquiry as an “appeal to authority fallacy” and said in an email that “election denialism comes in many forms”, again conflating researchers with conspiracists.Halderman told the Guardian he found Raffensperger’s 20 June statement “offensive”.“Can they actually not tell the difference?” he asked. “Are they so incompetent? Scientists can’t sit quietly while a state like Georgia continues to ignore these issues.” More

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      Doctors urge ‘Macon Bacon’ baseball team change its name: ‘You wouldn’t have Team Asbestos’

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      A Georgia summer baseball team named the Macon Bacon has found itself at the center of a porcine polemic as a group of doctors is urging this outfit to change its name and promote vegetarian “alternatives”.The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes plant-based eating, is advocating for the team to be renamed “Macon Facon Bacon”, according to a local CBS affiliate. This medical organization has posted a new billboard urging Macon Bacon fans to “keep bacon off your plate” to prevent cancer, and committee leadership has written to team management requesting a name change.“Macon Bacon’s glorification of bacon, a processed meat that raises the risk of colorectal cancer and other diseases, sends the wrong message to fans,” the committee nutrition leader Anna Herby reportedly wrote to team president Brandon Raphael. “I urge you to update the team’s name to Macon Facon Bacon and promote plant-based bacon alternatives, such as Facon Bacon or Mushroom Bacon, that will help your fans stay healthy. As for Kevin, Macon Bacon’s mascot, he can reveal that he is actually plant-based bacon.”At Luther Williams Field, where the Macon Bacon play, concession items include “Bacon Wrapped Bacon, Steak Cut Bacon, Bacon Cheeseburger, Bacon Dog, Bacon Loaded Cheese Fries, Bacon Loaded Mac N Cheese and Bacon Chips,” the CBS affiliate notes.In a statement to the news station, Raphael expressed disappointment that the group had expressed “disapproval of our branding” and said there was a “plant-based option” on the ballpark’s menu.“The Macon Bacon do not view ourselves as a glorification of an unhealthy lifestyle; rather, we pride ourselves on being a fun-natured organization focused on bringing families and communities together of middle Georgia and beyond,” Raphael’s statement reportedly said.“We take great pride in the Macon Bacon naming rights (which our fans voted on in 2018), as we get to witness the smiles and laughter from our fanbase – who have supported our branding since our inception – that stems from the brand’s lighthearted and playful nature. We are a family-friendly organization and we are extremely grateful for our fans.”Raphael also insisted: “The Macon Bacon will be sizzling forever and will not consider a name change. Ever.”Raphael expanded on this in an interview with the Guardian on Saturday.“At first I thought it was joke when I got the letter,” Raphael said, but as he kept reading, he realized it wasn’t a cheeky missive from a fan. “This one had a serious tone to it.”Raphael had no intention of responding, thinking “good for them”, that they had reached out and taken a stance, even if he vehemently disagreed with the anti-bacon platform.“When they went after our mascot,” a lifesize strip of bacon named Kevin after Footloose star Kevin Bacon, “That was kind of it.” A plant-based Kevin was out of the question.“Our mascot is just so well beloved in our community,” Raphael said. “It’s supposed to be fun – we’re here for the right reasons. We represent our community. We represent middle Georgia, we represent our league.”Raphael added: “We’re disappointed that they think that we are glorifying bacon in the eyes of our fans. By no means was it meant to become a national topic.”Raphael insists bacon is here to stay. “We’re not going to change our name,” he said. “Why should we?“We’re just a sports team – we’re just hanging out in Macon, Georgia, doing our thing.”Dr Neal Barnard, who heads the committee, didn’t see the humor in the team’s name.“It’s not debatable, bacon causes cancer,” Barnard claimed. Colorectal cancer rates, he said, are rising amount younger persons, including in Georgia.“Here’s the problem: A guy brings his child to a ballgame, the child is six years old and there’s a mascot, a person in a bacon costume, and they’re selling, I am not making this up – bacon wrapped bacon, steak-cut bacon, bacon-loaded cheese fries, bacon chips,” Barnard said. “The child learns to associate this food with fun, with America’s favorite sport, with his family, and that child grows up with a taste for food that causes intestinal cancer in exactly the same way that cigs cause intestinal cancer.“You would never call this team the Macon Cigarettes or Team Asbestos because people know that [they] cause cancer.”The Macon Bacon’s first season was in 2018 after supporters voted for its name. The Coastal Plain League team has gotten support from Kevin Bacon, who according to the Associated Press donned a Macon Bacon cap on an Instagram post. The league is a summer league whose participants play college baseball. More

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      Two Georgia election workers cleared of wrongdoing in 2020 elections

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      Two Atlanta election workers who were the subject of an outlandish conspiracy theory amplified by Donald Trump were formally cleared of all wrongdoing by the Georgia state election board this week.Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss were at the center of one of the most persistent lies spread by Donald Trump and allies after the 2020 election. Using selectively edited video footage, Trump and Rudy Giuliani claimed that Freeman and Moss removed ballots from suitcases underneath tables after counting had ended on election night and counted them. Georgia election officials immediately debunked the claim, saying security footage showed that counting had not ended for the evening when Freeman and Moss removed the ballots from secure ballot transport boxes.A 10-page report released on Tuesday affirms that conclusion and offers one of the most thorough debunking of the claim to date. It officially marked the closure of the state election board’s investigation into the matter.“All allegations made against Freeman and Moss were unsubstantiated and found to have no merit,” the report says.Investigators with the FBI, Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI), and secretary of state’s office interviewed election officials, Republican poll watchers, as well as Freeman and Moss to reach that conclusion. Workers had begun packing up around 10.30pm and planned to resume scanning ballots the next day, but were subsequently told by Richard Barron, then the director of elections in Fulton county, that they needed to keep counting until complete or the state advised them to stop. Ballots that were stored in secure ballot containers underneath tables were then taken out to continue counting.Republican poll watchers were never told that counting was over and that they needed to leave State Farm Arena, the report says. Instead, they left around 10.30pm when they were under the impression that counting was ending, telling investigators they had heard an election employee telling workers they were done for the night.Investigators also examined a social media post purporting to be from Freeman in which she confessed to election fraud. They found that the Instagram account was created by someone else who was impersonating Freeman. The report does not reveal who created the account.“This serves as further evidence that Ms Freeman and Ms Moss – while doing their patriotic duty and serving their community – were simply collateral damage in a coordinated effort to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election,” Von DuBose, a lawyer representing both women, said in a statement.Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, who drew Trump’s ire for defending the election results in Georgia, praised the report.“We remain diligent and dedicated to looking into real claims of voter fraud,” he said in a statement. “We are glad the state election board finally put this issue to rest. False claims and knowingly false allegations made against these election workers have done tremendous harm. Election workers deserve our praise for being on the frontlines.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFreeman and Moss both faced vicious harassment because of the claims. They received death threats and Freeman, who is in her 60s, fled her home. Moss would only leave her home for work because she was so scared, she told Reuters in 2021. Her son, a teenager, also faced harassment and began failing in school.Both women testified to the US House committee investigating the January 6 attacks about the horror of the harassment.“I won’t even introduce myself by my name any more. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about people listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me,” Freeman said. “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”Joe Biden awarded both women the presidential citizens medal on January 6 this year.“Both of them were just doing their jobs until they were targeted and threatened by the same predators and peddlers of lies that would fuel the insurrection. They were literally forced from their homes, facing despicable racist taunts,” he said at the ceremony. “Despite it all, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss found the courage to testify openly and honestly to the whole country and the world about their experience to set the record straight about the lies and defend the integrity of our elections.” More

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      Brian Kemp Does the Climate Policy Tap Dance

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      Quick quiz: Which popular governor has been sweet-talking electric vehicle industries and developing E.V. infrastructure in his state, with an eye toward making it “the electric mobility capital of America?”If you guessed Brian Kemp of Georgia, give yourself a high five. Maybe even a high 10. Because on the face of it, there’s no reason to guess that an ultraconservative leader of a reddish-purple state is a green-vehicle revolutionary. The issue remains a favorite culture war cudgel for Republicans, slamming Democrats as a bunch of bed-wetters wrecking the economy over an inflated threat that, as Donald Trump scoffed, “may affect us in 300 years.”Except, as Mr. Kemp tells it, electric vehicles aren’t about combating climate change. His political team may not flatly deny climate change as fiercely as it once did, but Mr. Kemp still says babble like this: “Look, I think man causes all kinds of problems every single day, whether it’s violent criminals — I’m sure there’s effects on the environment from people that do things the right way and people that don’t.”Instead, he frames things in terms of Georgia’s economic future and, most especially, jobs. “I believe this is a unique moment of opportunity for our state and for the thousands upon thousands of hard-working Georgians who will benefit from great jobs and incredible innovative companies for generations to come,” he proclaimed during his inaugural speech in January.Tap-dancing around a pressing global danger may frustrate many climate change advocates — as does Mr. Kemp’s smack talk about green-energy mandates and consumer incentives. But it is savvy politics and a useful template for making progress in this sharply and narrowly divided political … climate. It’s another example of what makes the governor an interesting player in today’s G.O.P. — one who some Republicans still hope will jump into the 2024 presidential pool.Whatever its motivations, the Kemp administration has gone all-in on growing the state’s “e-mobility ecosystem.” Battery plants, vehicle assembly factories, parts manufacturers, charging-system providers — Mr. Kemp has been hooking them all. Since 2020, the state has scored more than 40 E.V.-related projects, which are expected to yield around 28,000 jobs and $22 billion in anticipated investment, according to the governor’s office.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockE.V. infrastructure is a priority as well. Last September, the state got federal approval to start a network of charging stations, with fast-charging stations to be located every 50 miles along major highways and interstates. And in April, the governor trekked out to Tallulah Gorge State Park to unveil the first E.V. charging station operating inside the state park system. A half dozen parks will have them by year’s end, he boasted. (Hey, it’s a start.) “This is an economic development tool for us,” he said. “This is something that sells our state. It brings visitors to our state, and it’s a place where our citizens can stay and enjoy the good Lord’s beauty.”Strategic political framing is crucial in polarized times. Republican voters tend to rank climate change low on their list of concerns, far below jobs and the economy. Even among party leaders who acknowledge the reality of climate change, there is little stomach for pushing reductions in the burning of fossil fuels. Republican officials will quietly ask people who work in this space not to shove the green revolution talk down their throats.“It is important, I think, when you’re dealing with Republicans to lead with economic development, saving money, as opposed to something like climate change or global warming that Republicans kind of push back against,” Tim Echols, the vice chair of Georgia’s Public Service Commission and a Republican, recently mused to NPR.When pressed, Mr. Kemp seeks to distinguish his efforts from those of tree-hugging progressives. He insists that he opposes meddling in the market through measures such as green-energy targets or consumer incentives. “I believe the best way to let a market develop is to let the consumer drive that,” he has asserted. “The Biden administration has been forcing the market on people, much like the vaccine was forced on people and it turned some people off it.”This is a pretty rich claim for a guy whose state benefits from federal policies aimed at fighting climate change. And clearly Mr. Kemp is not shy about using the tax code and other tools to woo E.V. business to the state. Two Korean conglomerates set to build a $5 billion battery plant in Northwest Georgia could receive “more than $640 million in grants, tax breaks, free infrastructure and other incentives,” according to a new analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Still, by sticking to policies and messaging that cut across partisan lanes, Mr. Kemp has made Georgia a force in the E.V. transition, while also creating a base of support for that transition — a self-interested, self-identification with it — among the state’s work force. All this without getting tangled up in the high-profile political cage fights that, while great at generating headlines and partisan outrage, tend to serve the public poorly. (See: Ron DeSantis v. Mickey Mouse.)It’s not that Mr. Kemp is averse to culture warring. In 2021, he got into a nasty brawl with Major League Baseball over its decision to move the All-Star game out of Georgia in protest of the state’s new voting restrictions. The governor painted himself as a brave combatant against the forces of wokeness and cancel culture.But unlike some Republican leaders, Mr. Kemp hasn’t bet his political future on being the most in-your-face troll in the MAGAverse. Not every move he makes has to be aimed at stirring up his party’s base. Some can be about serving the interests of his state even at the risk of irritating that base.The ability to thread such delicate needles has helped make Mr. Kemp a comer in a Republican Party struggling to figure out its path forward and to find the right person to lead the way. Mr. Kemp’s infamous clashes with Mr. Trump, who unsuccessfully targeted him for defeat in 2022, have given the governor an almost mythic status. In Harry Potter parlance, he is “the boy who lived” — a previously unremarkable figure who faced down He Who Shall Be Named and emerged stronger.As the 2024 Republican presidential field takes shape, Mr. Kemp has stayed on the sidelines, even as some big donors have quietly nudged him to jump in. He is not expected to join the fray, but neither has he entirely ruled it out. Just last week, he mused to CBS News that “in politics, there’s always doors opening and closing and everything else”— causing ears to prick up in political circles.The governor knows that keeping himself in the national discussion will serve him well, whatever his future ambitions. It also gives him more juice at home to push his agenda. Even — or especially — the parts, like his E.V. obsession, that bump up against Republican orthodoxy.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Activists push for referendum to put ‘Cop City’ on ballot in Atlanta

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      A broad coalition of groups in Atlanta has launched a referendum to give voters a chance to say whether they want the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” built in a forest south-east of the city.The effort requires organizers to collect about 70,000 signatures from Atlanta registered voters in 60 days. Then the question of the city canceling its agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the $90m center can be added to municipal election ballots in November.The push comes after an estimated thousand people who showed up at City Hall on 5 June proved insufficient to stop Atlanta’s city council from approving about $67m for Cop City. Meanwhile, machines have already begun clear-cutting trees on the project’s 171-acre footprint in South River Forest.The referendum faces what one organizer called “an atmosphere of repression” – including two activists being charged with felonies last week while putting up fliers, bringing total arrests since December to 50.The largest group of arrests, on 5 March in a public park in the forest near where the project is planned, was followed by local government closing the park, in effect shutting off tree-sitting protests by “forest defenders” that had gone on for more than a year.“We’re at the stage where they’ve pushed people out of the forest, they’ve arrested people … they’ve fenced off the forest, they’ve even begun clear-cutting,” said Kamau Franklin, founder of local group Community Movement Builders. “We’re at the stage where the most direct, legal mechanism to stop this project is by referendum.”Cop City came to global attention after police shot dead Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental protester, in a January raid on the forest – the first incident of its kind in US history. The state says Paez Terán shot first and a special prosecutor is evaluating the case.Meanwhile, the movement opposing the project has drawn a wide range of people locally, nationally and internationally who oppose police militarization, urban forest destruction amid climate change and environmental racism. Most residents in neighborhoods surrounding the forest are Black.Most of the organizations driving the referendum are also Black-led, including the regional chapter of Working Families Power, Black Voters Matter and the NAACP. Officials from the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, down to the mayor have consistently referred to opposition against the center as the work of white “outsiders”.“That narrative is false,” said Britney Whaley, regional director of Working Families Power. “This has been national, but it’s also been community-grown for a few years now.”Ashley Dixon, an Atlanta-area organizer, has led canvassing efforts to inform neighborhoods around South River Forest about the center for nearly a year. Her team has spoken to more than a thousand people. About 80% opposed the project once they knew about it, she said.The only academic poll on the issue to date, from Atlanta’s Emory University, showed slightly more Black respondents opposed the project than supported it, with the opposite being true for whites. Atlanta’s population is 48% Black.The idea for the referendum came from one that succeeded in stopping a spaceport from being built in coastal Georgia, said Will Harlan, founder of Forest Keeper, a national forest conservation organization. “To me, Cop City is the most important issue in conservation in the south-east,” Harlan said. “A referendum is the smartest, most democratic solution … [and] a way to find resolution and closure.”Although the 2022 spaceport referendum affected a county of only 55,000 people, similarities between the two controversies point to the role voters can play when other efforts fall short.In that case, local officials “dug their heels in” and stopped responding to press requests or providing transparent information to the public, said Megan Desrosiers, who led the referendum. In the case of Cop City, the Atlanta Police Foundation has stopped answering press requests for at least a year, and the city of Atlanta was recently discovered to be understating the project’s cost to taxpayers by about $36m.The project is planned on land the city owns that is located in neighboring DeKalb county. Because of Atlanta’s ownership, only Atlanta voters can participate in the referendum.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlthough the city’s voters haven’t seen an effort like this before, California has a long record of asking voters to decide on environmental issues, said Keith Mako Woodhouse, author of The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism.Over time, industry and political opponents have wielded tactics ranging from creating competing propositions to airing ad campaigns to discredit environmentalists, he said.“There’s always going to be scary counter-arguments. It’s a matter of coming up with clear messaging” to be successful, he added.Organizers of the Cop City referendum pointed to the state’s heavy-handed approach to protesters as a primary concern. There have been 42 domestic terrorism charges to date. A bail and legal defense fund’s members were also arrested and the state added fundraising to its criminal description of the training center’s opposition.In that context, it took about a dozen attempts at finding a legally required fiscal sponsor for the referendum, which may need as much as $3.5m to reach success, said spokesperson Paul Glaze.Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter – one of two organizations that agreed to take the sponsorship role – said the recent Atlanta Solidarity Fund arrests were done “to send a message, in hopes it would have a chilling effect. We’re not naive about what the threats are – but we believe our community cares about this issue.”Getting into Atlanta’s communities will take a massive campaign, said Mary Hooks, national field secretary for Movement for Black Lives and part of the team overseeing the signature gathering. Hooks hopes to get canvassers into at least 200 of the city’s 243 neighborhoods, and said more than 3,000 volunteers had already signed up.“This is an opportunity to protect direct democracy … when so many people are being left out,” she said. More

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      ‘I will never be detained’: Trump defiant in first speech since federal indictment

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      Donald Trump delivered his first public address following the announcement of his federal indictment this week in Columbus, Georgia, on Saturday.The former president took the stage at the state Republican convention in Georgia in the afternoon where he lashed out against the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Biden administration, called his recent indictment “a travesty of justice” and repeated unsupported conspiratorial claims that Joe Biden had stashed secret documents in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington DC.“We got to stand up to the … radical left Democrats, their lawless partisan prosecutors … Every time I fly over a blue state, I get a subpoena,” said Trump at the onset of the meandering speech that attempted to bridge his legal troubles with campaign promises.“I’ve put everything on the line and I will never yield. I will never be detained. I will never stop fighting for you,” he added.He went on to launch a tirade against federal officials, saying, “Now the Marxist left is once again using the same corrupt DoJ [justice department] and the same corrupt FBI, and the attorney general and the local district attorneys to interfere … They’re cheating. They’re crooked. They’re corrupt. These criminals cannot be rewarded. They must be defeated. You have to defeat them.“Because in the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you and I’m just standing in their way,” he said.Trump accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the justice department, calling the recent indictment “ridiculous and baseless” and “among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country”.He went on to add that “the only good thing about [the indictment] is it’s driven my poll numbers way up”.Trump repeated his baseless attacks against his former opponent Hillary Clinton, whom the state department investigated for several years over her use of private email before it found “no persuasive evidence of … deliberate mishandling of classified documents”.He also lashed out at Joe Biden over the classified documents from his time as vice-president and senator which were found in his office in Washington and his Delaware home.“Nothing happened to Crooked Joe with all that … He has so many classified documents … This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately,” said Trump as the crowd cheered fervently.Trump also brought up his former vice-president and now presidential opponent Mike Pence, who also had marked documents discovered in his Indiana home.“They looked at Mike Pence. He had classified documents, no problem,” said Trump.While Biden and Pence turned over the marked documents as soon as they were discovered and allowed their lawyers to look through their properties, Trump has been accused of deliberately concealing boxes of records from his attorney, the FBI and the grand jury, according to the latest indictment.Trump’s two speeches had been planned before the justice department indicted him on Thursday evening with 37 criminal charges regarding his alleged illegal retention of classified government documents after leaving office in 2021.The sweeping indictment which was unsealed on Friday accuses Trump of mishandling classified documents as well as obstructing justice, making him the first US president to be federally indicted.According to the indictment, Trump stored classified documents in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.It also added that Trump directed Walt Nauta, his valet and aide, to move boxes of records to “conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury”. Nauta also faces a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, said the indictment.The documents that Trump allegedly possessed “included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” said the indictment.Thursday’s indictment comes just two months after a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump for his alleged role in a hush-money payment scandal involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels.Trump, who has repeatedly maintained his innocence, lashed out against the latest indictment on Thursday night. In a video released on his social media platform Truth Social, the GOP’s most popular presidential candidate said, “It is election interference at the highest level … I’m an innocent man, I’m an innocent person … we’ll fight this out.”He then turned to his supporters for money, writing in an email on Friday morning, “Please make a contribution to peacefully DEFEND our movement from the never-ending witch hunts – and together, even during these darkest of times, we will prove that our movement is truly UNBREAKABLE.”Trump is expected to appear in a federal court in Miami on Tuesday and may face prison if convicted. More

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      Trump to Speak at Georgia and North Carolina Republican Conventions

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      Donald J. Trump will speak on Saturday at the state G.O.P. conventions in Georgia and North Carolina, as his federal indictment dominates the political landscape.In his first two campaign stops since facing federal charges, Donald J. Trump on Saturday will begin publicly prosecuting the case against the prosecutors prosecuting him.Mr. Trump’s two speeches at the Georgia and North Carolina state G.O.P. conventions were planned before he was indicted on Thursday. The appearances on Saturday afternoon and evening will allow the former president to rally support before throngs of activists and elected officials as the most popular Republican in the country and the front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination.Mr. Trump’s indictment, the details of which were unsealed on Friday by the Justice Department, has dominated the political landscape, forcing many of his rivals into the sometimes uncomfortable position of defending the politician they are trailing in the polls. In the unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors revealed for the first time how Mr. Trump had remained in possession of some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, showing them off to visitors.“This indictment will be another political Rorschach test in that what you see depends on where you stand,” said David Urban, a former top adviser to Mr. Trump in his 2016 campaign.The papers Mr. Trump kept included plans for retaliating to a foreign attack and details of American nuclear programs, according to the indictment. One image displayed boxes stacked next to a toilet in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.“Secret,” he bragged in a taped conversation, according to the indictment. “This is secret information. Look, look at this.”Several people close to Mr. Trump and his team privately acknowledged the facts in the case were damaging. But they were uncertain it would have any more impact on Republican voters than a number of other scandals that did little to change public opinion.Mr. Trump’s team is preparing to march forward, claiming he is being victimized.The former president, who was already said to be angry on Thursday night in the first hour after the indictment, was enraged when the charges were unsealed and shared with him on Friday, according to a person who spoke with him. He returned from the golf course in time to watch Jack Smith, the special counsel bringing the charges, speak on television, the person said. The indictment was filled with information from people who work with him, and Mr. Trump had already been skeptical of some aides who might have revealed certain details to the special counsel, the person said. He was especially focused on a photo of documents spilled out over the storage room floor at Mar-a-Lago, according to another person who spoke with him.Kari Lake, the failed Arizona candidate for governor who headlined a Georgia Republican Party dinner on Friday, said that no one in the G.O.P. base trusts the charges.“We see it’s just a bunch of bogus lies,” said Ms. Lake, who clings to the falsehood that her own election was stolen in 2022, in addition to Mr. Trump’s in 2020. “He’s the front-runner and they have to constantly throw things in front of his path to stop him.”Ms. Lake said Republican mistrust of the nation’s institutions runs deep. “We’ve learned that the F.B.I. is corrupt, the C.D.C., the F.D.A., the C.I.A.,” she said. “We’ve just learned a lot over the past few years.”Mr. Trump has attacked Mr. Smith, the special counsel, as “deranged, a “psycho” and a “lunatic.”Even more aggressive Trump pushback is expected in Georgia and North Carolina. The Trump team is hoping for live television coverage, which has been a rarity in his 2024 run, and sees the two appearances as a valuable opportunity for free coverage.While many leading Republicans snapped in line behind Mr. Trump the moment he revealed that he was being indicted on Thursday, party strategists have concerns about how the charges will shape any potential general election matchup with President Biden. The last two midterm elections and Mr. Trump’s own 2020 loss show that his combative approach to politics — and the accumulation of allegations against him, including his indictment in April by a Manhattan grand jury — has turned off independent and swing voters.Michael Caputo, a former senior Trump adviser who is now an executive at Americano Media, a new conservative Hispanic media outlet, said the charges “virtually assure” that Mr. Trump will win the Republican nomination in 2024.But they could have the opposite effect in a general election contest with Mr. Biden, he said, even as he dismissed the charges as part of a Democratic conspiracy.“It will be the new ‘Russia collusion hoax,’” Mr. Caputo said, using a phrase that Republicans have used in deriding the investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russian officials and whether he obstructed justice. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. It’s to have him under investigation.”In Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump reacted to his indictment with a sense of angry defiance, according to two people who interacted with him. He still made time for the golf outing on Friday, joined by a Republican member of Congress from Miami, where he is slated to appear in court on Tuesday. Cable coverage included helicopter shots of Mr. Trump making his way down the fairway.“It’s not really a different day for President Trump,” one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys, Alina Habba, said on Fox News in the hours after his indictment. “This is something he’s gone through before.”Maggie Haberman More