"In the span of two years, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has gone from one of President Joe Biden’s most prominent surrogates — important enough to get vetted as a potential VP pick..."

"... to abandoning what once was considered a shoo-in re-election bid.... [A] 60% spike in homicides and accusations that she had become disconnected from the community seriously complicated her chances.... [Bottoms's statement] lacked... any sort of explanation about why she isn’t running. So her allies are filling the void. They say she genuinely believed she could have won a second term, but passed because she felt her motivation sapping.... Will she run for another office? Bottoms didn’t rule it out, and several statewide offices are up for grabs next year. Your Insiders are skeptical of this possibility. If she faced a tough citywide re-election bid this year, a statewide race with a more conservative electorate would objectively be an even heavier lift."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. 

Here's an AJC article from January: "Atlanta’s deadliest year in decades has city on edge and demanding change": 

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was hailed after her response to destructive rioting in May after protests over the death of George Floyd devolved into chaos. Glamour featured her in its Women of the Year issue....

Former APD investigator Lakea Gaither said Bottoms has “lost the confidence of the officers.” An 18-year veteran saluted as Officer of the Year in 2013 and Investigator of the Year in 2015, Gaither was one of 37 officers who either retired or resigned in a single month, August of last year. More than 200 officers quit in 2020. Many left after Erika Shields stepped down as chief in June, shortly after former Officer Garrett Rolfe shot Rayshard Brooks after a scuffle in a Wendy’s parking lot near downtown.

After Bottoms quickly announced that Rolfe had been fired and then-Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced criminal charges, hundreds of officers staged an unofficial “blue flu” in protest.... 

Bottoms says pinning blame on her for Atlanta’s historically high homicide tally is “misplaced frustration.” One 2020 shooting left a man dead near her southwest Atlanta home even as a patrol car sat outside her house, she noted. “Even if we had officers on every single corner — and in this instance an officer was literally on the block — homicides can happen,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Wherever people would like to place blame, (that) doesn’t get us any closer to the solution. This is a challenge across the country and we’re all trying to wrap our arms around it.”

"We are seeing again and again this version of Jim Crow in a suit and tie..."

"... because it is designed explicitly for the same reason as Jim Crow did, to block communities of color from active participation in choosing the leadership that will guide their democracy... In the last two election cycles, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of voters of color who voted by mail, the number of young people who used early voting, the number of African Americans who voted on Saturday and Sunday.... We saw unprecedented levels of turnout across the board. And so every single metric of voter access that has been a good in Georgia is now under attack.... This is entirely driven by the existential crisis of a Republican Party that has decided that rather than adapt to the changing needs of the populace, it is easier to stop the people from participating."

Said Stacey Abrams, quoted in "Georgia Republicans Pass the Most Restrictive Voting Laws Since Jim Crow" (Mother Jones).

Chris Wallace Grills Mercedes Schlapp On Failed Tulsa Rally: 'You Guys Look Silly When You Deny Reality'

Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged Trump 2020 campaign spokesperson Mercedes Schlapp for making "campaign speeches" during an interview on Sunday.

On his Fox News Sunday program, Wallace noted that President Donald Trump's Tulsa rally on Saturday had been sparsely attended despite the fact that the president claimed nearly a million people had requested tickets.

"We all saw the pictures last night," Wallace explained. "The arena was no more than two-thirds full. And the outdoor rally was cancelled because there was no overflow crowd. What happened?"

"The key here is to understand," Schlapp replied, "there were factors involved, they were concerned about the protesters who were coming in."

"He talks about how he can fill an arena," Wallace said, referring to the president. "And he didn't fill an arena last night. You guys were so far off that you had planned an outdoor rally and there wasn't an overflow crowd."

"Protesters did not stop people from coming to that rally," he added. "The fact is, people did not show up."

Schlapp disagreed before attacking presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for holding virtual events during the ongoing pandemic.

"Mercedes, please don't filibuster," Wallace interrupted. "Frankly, it makes you guys look silly when you deny the reality of what happened."

"I don't know why you are saying that," Schlapp complained.

"There are empty seats there," Wallace replied. "At least a third, if not half of the rally was empty. You can't deny it."

"Joe Biden has been a failed politician that has done nothing but support failed institutions," Schlapp opined. "This is in contrast with President Trump who has a strong record and is rebuilding this economy."

"Hours after the Fulton County district attorney announced felony murder and other charges against the former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks... a number of Atlanta police officers called in sick just before a shift change Wednesday evening."

"The city was left scrambling to cover absences as the Atlanta Police Department tried to tamp down rumors of a mass police walkout that spread widely on social media.... 'We do have enough officers to cover us through the night,' Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) told CNN. 'Our streets won’t be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out.'... 'This is not an organized thing, it’s not a blue flu, it’s not a strike, it’s nothing like that,' Vince Champion, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, told NBC News. 'What it actually is is officers protesting that they’ve had enough and they don’t want to deal with it any longer.'... Champion added that many officers felt prosecutors had not publicly shared sufficient evidence to back up the charges leveled against Rolfe, in part because the district attorney only released a video still that appears to show the former officer kick Brooks rather than the full video itself.... Although the quick action in Atlanta has been praised by civil rights advocates and hailed as a victory for activists, some in the police department have decried the quick process. Bottoms said that morale in Atlanta’s police department was at a low.... 'The thing that I’m most concerned about is how we repair the morale in our police department,” Bottoms.... 'and how do we ensure our communities are safe as they interact with our police officers.'"

WaPo reports.

In the comments over there, somebody says:

They harassed the guy for 45 minutes and when he panicked and grabbed their taser, they shot him when he was running away. Then kicked him. Sorry guys, if you think that's what policing is, you should be calling in sick.

Why do these cops think someone like Dylann Roof should be gently apprehended (and given a cheeseburger) but a black guy should be harassed? And that he isn't expected to panic? And that those cops couldn't let him run, and go after him later?

That draws this sarcasm:

Cops should wait until 0.1 milliseconds before the stun gun barb pierces the cornea of the eyeball before shooting the perpetrator in the kneecap of their non-dominant leg to slow him down and then snuggle him into compliance.