The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it will place poll monitors in 67 jurisdictions in 28 states for tomorrow’s election. Here in Georgia, the department will have personnel in Fulton, Gwinnett and Hancock counties. The department’s monitors will be fluent in Spanish and Asian languages, and will look for cases of racial or
Attorney General Sam Olens annnounced today that Georgia has joined with 20 other states in opposing a new federal Labor Department rule that doubles the salary an employee must earn in order to be exempt from paying overtime wages. Under the new rule, anyone who makes $913 per week or less is entitled to overtime
Recognizing that Georgia’s public safety officers have difficult and dangerous jobs for which they are not adequately compensated, Governor Deal announced a two part law enforcement initiative this morning, including a 20% pay raise for the state’s law enforcement officers and additional training programs designed to improve officers’ skills and effectiveness. Flanked by Lt. Governor
A Texas court has granted a temporary injunction in a case brought by a 13-state coalition and two schools districts. At issue is a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education that purports to require schools to offer restroom facilities consistent with the self-expressed gender of the students, rather than the gender assigned to
Civil asset forfeiture just might be the most anodyne name ever concocted for an outrageous government practice. Maybe if we started calling “letting law enforcement steal your money and stuff” people might pay attention to it. The practice is used by law enforcement to take property from a person if they think it is connected
Following the recent announcement of reduced prison sentences for 214 convicted felons by President Barack Obama, junior Senator David Perdue issued a statement condemning the action. All of the inmates affected by the clemency are serving time in federal correctional facilities and a large majority of the inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses that
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the snafu in North Georgia’s Appalachian Judicial Circuit. Under intense public pressure, Appalachian District Attorney Alison Sosebee had just dropped the fraud charges she had filed against Fannin Focus publisher Mark Thomason and his attorney Richard Stookey. The charges were related to an open-records-request Thomason and Stookey had made
The Georgia Court of Appeals’ newest judge is breathing new life into court opinion writing by breaking with tradition and using a prose style that is simpler to read and gets straight to the point. Judge Nels Peterson of Cobb County graduated from Kennesaw State University with a Bachelors in political science and a minor
In an article published in the Macon Telegraph on Tuesday, it was described that as the next legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly inches closer, Speaker of the Georgia House David Ralston and other Georgia lawmakers are looking into language that would clearly criminalize the practice of taking secret, invasive pictures for the purpose of
Don’t say that nothing exciting ever happens outside Atlanta. The Appalachian Judicial Circuit, which includes Fannin, Gilmer, and Pickens Counties, has been at the center of a First Amendment and public corruption controversy ever since Mark Thomason, the publisher of the Fannin Focus, and his attorney Russell Stookey were arrested and indicted on charges of
