October 23, 2017 8:05 AM
HomePoliticsMorning Reads in Numbers — October 23

Morning Reads in Numbers — October 23

By  Politics  20 Comments

Happy Monday, everyone! Did you know the slinky was born when a World War 2 naval engineer dropped a torsion spring and watched in awe as it “walked” across a table? The creator’s wife said in a 2001 interview that she knew it would be a success because “children love simple things.”

The News in Numbers

$2 billion – The amount of money reported by Oath, Verizon’s subsidiary company that includes AOL and Yahoo!. Facebook and Google have long dominated digital marketing. Verizon is positioning itself to challenge the digital behemoths through acquisitions and data. Experts agree it’s a long shot.

11 years ago – Tarana Burke created the #MeToo movement that swept across social media last week to give a voice to women — particularly women of color — who survived sexual assault. No, it didn’t start with a celebrity’s tweet. You can read the heartbreaking backstory here.

3,000 employees – “There is no air conditioning in the summer, no heat in the winter.” That describes the working conditions of state employees whose offices are at 2 Peachtree St. The Georgia Building Authority has been pushing for upgrades for years and only recently won the backing of lawmakers.

1994 – The year the United States and North Korea almost went to war. Jimmy Carter, against President Clinton’s wishes, went to North Korea to smooth it over. He succeeded.

$108 million – Dept of Revenue Commissioner Riley has stepped up efforts to block fraudulent tax returns. The results have been worthwhile it appears.

114 million people – Will watch Justin Timberlake perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. 14 years ago he and Janet Jackson’s infamous show stirred controversy.

About Author

Will Kremer

Will is an active member of the Georgia Republican grassroots. He previously served as Chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, 2nd Vice Chairman of the 7th District Republican Party, and Treasurer of the Forsyth County Republican Party. Promise Land = Forsyth County.

20 Comments
  1. Noway2016

    Dow 23,000! Impressive! Thanks, Mr. Prez! Five trillion in new value!

    • evergreentree

      Hmmm. Partisan Republicans were much less impressed with Dow Jones going from 7,949 the day that he was elected – and the low of his administration 6,450 – to 19,732 when he left office. Back then that crowd called the stock market and the unemployment numbers what is now referred to as “fake news” and they alleged some conspiracy on the part of the government, the media, the big banks etc. to cook the books. Then the instant Trump gets elected – before he was even inaugurated – those very same numbers became true and legitimate.

      The truth: Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depresssion. Trump inherited the second longest peacetime economic expansion in history, and one that wasn’t the result of the dot.com/real estate bubble like the Clinton economy.

      This column’s title does the best job of explaining it: “Bull market is 103 months old. Trump owns 11 of them”

      http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/11/investing/trump-obama-bull-market-stocks/index.html

      By the way, I did not vote for Obama, nor did I support him in any way. I am just calling the GOP on their nonsense. Especially when the GOP spent years claiming that Obamacare would not only wreck the economy, but was an Obama plot to do it on purpose in order to create chaos and implement an authoritarian socialist state to “restore order.” Repealing Obamacare absolutely had to be done in order to have a good economy again! Well, this “Trump economic boom” is taking place with Obamacare still on the books! I wonder what Sean Hannity has to say about that? No one will ever ask him so I guess we won’t find out. (No, I do not support Obamacare either.)

      Seriously, you guys are no different from the neo-cons who still haven’t owned up to “Iraq has WMDs and is an imminent threat to attack us!”/worst economic collapse since the Great Depression are what gave us Obama and Trump (who is not a neo-conservative or even much of a conservative at all … Trump subscribes to none of the strains of postwar conservative thought, not even Rockefeller Republicanism) in the first place.

  2. evergreentree

    Hmmm … war with North Korea in 1994 BEFORE we made huge cuts to military, exhausted the military’s manpower and resources with over 15 years of quagmire in Afghanistan and Iraq, and NK completed both their nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a warmonger or anything. Just something interesting to think about.

  3. evergreentree

    I wish the Democrats would end this talking point because they are clearly only talking to themselves. You pretend as if the GOP would have accepted Obamacare – with its massive increase in spending and large expansion of the role of government over the private sector – had it been proposed and enacted by Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. They would not have. The GOP even objected to a GOP written and introduced (by Charlie Norwood) patients bill of rights that would have been slightly more regulation of HMOs.

    The GOP healthcare “agenda” has been the same for going on 30 years.
    1) healthcare savings accounts (tax shelters for upper income people)
    2) tort reform to drive down liability insurance costs (to hammer their enemies the trial lawyers)
    3) the ability to buy insurance across state lines

    Claiming that they would have ever supported anything beyond that no matter who was in the White House is simply reverse southern strategy politics. Why not go ahead and claim that had John McCain won in 2008 instead of Obama the GOP would have embraced single payer?

    • evergreentree

      1) Never said it was a good idea. Only that it was part of their proposal, along with tort reform (with nothing to make sure that insurance premiums would be reduced as a result, or that HMOs would pass the results of any lowered premiums off to the consumer) and healthcare savings accounts (which pretty much already exist anyway)

      2) “The GOP had no problem with a “massive increase in spending and large expansion of the role of government over the private sector” back in 1993 when Hatch, Grassley, and Lugar were pushing the HEART Act.” The GOP proposed that back when the Democrats had huge majorities in the House and Senate and a newly elected president (back when president-elects actually had influence the first year or 2) as a compromise to blunt HillaryCare. After HillaryCare failed and the GOP won Congress in 1996 we haven’t heard squat about healthcare. Claiming otherwise is sophistry.

      3) Again, arguing with yourself. Well you have two choices.
      A) Either you are wrong and the GOP is just as uninterested in either a Canadian, British, Australian, Japanese (or some combination of the four) style healthcare system as they were in 1994 when HillaryCare couldn’t even pass an overwhemingly Democratic controlled Congress, and in the 23 years since when every single health care proposal – including those made by other Republicans – have failed to win a majority of GOPers in Congress
      B) either you are right and the voters don’t might Orval Faubus style politics nearly as much as you. Despite the fact that these same voters elected Obama in 2008 and 2012 by much larger margins than Trump or Bush (in 2 elections) or even southern strategy-light Bill Clinton won.

      Which is it?

    • rickday

      You misspelled RomneyCare™. What was your issue, again?

  4. evergreentree

    So a rogue, oppressive, totalitarian criminal regime using the threat of nuclear weapons to gain legitimacy and respect from the world’s leading superpower – and therefore the same on the international stage – is a good thing? Especially when you consider that this won’t be a one shot deal. North Korea is going to keep going back to that well so long as there is water in it, and they know it.

    • evergreentree

      Let me just say that you are rar more optimistic concerning our ability to actually influence what goes on in North Korea than I am.

      • evergreentree

        1) agreed

        2) agreed

        So … why send Carter or anyone else to “negotiate with” and legitimatize that rogue regime again?

    • Will Durant

      We don’t have to like them but please remove your focus on all the dog wagging. Saddam Hussein’s regime fit all of your adjectives as well. Our military intervention there did serve to remove a tyrant but he was their tyrant and ultimately posed little to no threat to the average US citizen. What it did do was destabilize the country and region further, exacerbate the Sunni/Shiite turmoil, and therefore fomented the formation of ISIS. This has led to more terrorism that has ultimately had large effect on not only our citizenry but the world’s. Plus the loss of American soldier’s lives and the smaller matter of a trillion or so added to the national debt to transfer to General Dynamics, Boeing, Halliburton… The Shah of Iran also fit all of your adjectives but he was OK by us since he played ball with our oligarchs. Look where that got us.

      Speaking loudly when the big stick is not an option serves no good purpose at all.

      • evergreentree

        @Will:

        Seems to me like you are shadowboxing. I never said go to war against North Korea. Instead, I desire that we try our level best to economically and politically isolate them. Negotiating or even talking with them removes their political isolation, which gives them far more avenues to skirt their economic isolation.

        Of course, it is impossible to totally isolate North Korea. America has plenty of enemies that willing to maintain relations and perform some trade with them merely to spite the U.S. of A. But that’s no reason to give North Korea what they want. And yes, there is nothing wrong with reminding them as frequently as possible that no, they are never going to actually fire their nuclear weapons just as we aren’t, but that we are actually capable of staging a large scale invasion of their homeland should we ever want or need to. And even if we do stage a large scale invasion of their homeland they still are never going to actually fire their nuclear weapons at us (or even if they did, they know that there isn’t that much of a chance of the missile actually reaching us … missile range and missile targeting are two different things … and they haven’t even proven their missile range yet).

        I just say there is nothing to be lost by continuing to deny them the respect that they badly want and some could even say need. If South Korea and/or Japan want to engage North Korea in dialogue, let them. But I don’t see why America has to or should want to.

  5. Ellynn

    While Georgia wants more concrete for cars…

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/style/the-end-of-freeways.html

  6. chamblee54

    Sixteen people were killed by police in the United States last week. https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/killed-by-police-october-22/

    • rickday

      “the cut dot com” sounds like solid journalism sourcing. I would shudder to see the ‘suggested sites’ generated on your facebook algorithm.

      • Noway2016

        Don’t use any social media. Never have. Never really seen the point of vomiting out personal information. Now, about this toxic masculinity….

  8. ScottNAtlanta

    How much further does BETTY PRICE have to step in it on HIV before we see it acknowledged here. Why are you ignoring a story about a GA Lawmaker thats hitting national publications… SAD!
    Will, Ginny, Jessica??? who is going to step up?

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