Political expedience

Two presidential candidates:

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, now running for president, has been added to the list of speakers for the state Republican convention June 9-10 in Columbus. Hutchinson is one of the GOP’s most prominent critics of former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House and is also scheduled to speak at the state convention.

Airport upgrades: U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock announced $12.3 million in federal grants to be divided among four regional airports in Georgia. The money will be used for improvements at Cherokee County Airport in Canton, Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport in Gainesville, Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah and Thomasville Regional Airport in Thomasville. The funds are coming from the Airport Improvement Program created by the bipartisan infrastructure law that Congress passed last year. The bill included roughly $619 million for Georgia airports.

A flat-out challenge of consensus: Kandiss Taylor, the new GOP chair for Georgia’s 1st District, gave an interview that appeared this past week on Right Wing Watch that offered some things to think about on the horizon, although they came out flat. Taylor indicated she’s not 100% certain, but she’s questioning whether Earth is round. “Everywhere there’s globes. You see them all the time. It’s constant,” Taylor told David Weiss, the host of the Flat Earth podcast. “My children will be like ‘Mama, globe, globe, globe, globe’ — they’re everywhere.” She then added: “That’s what they do to brainwash. For me, if it’s not a conspiracy, if it is real, why are you pushing so hard everywhere I go? Every store, you buy a globe, there’s globes everywhere. … Why? More and more I’m like, it doesn’t make sense.”