September 30, 2019 6:56 AM
Morning Reads for September 30, 2019
It’s Election Eve if you live in House District 71. Be sure to get out and vote tomorrow.
- A Georgia hunter was shot and killed after being mistaken for a deer.
- Sweet story of a 5 year old Georgia boy saved by an Indiana State Trooper.
- This could make 2020 even more interesting.
- 20 deaths linked to violations in senior care centers.
- Georgia 4-H offers ways for teens to help during disasters.
- You cannot make this stuff up…
- Did you know that the most popular Halloween candy in Georgia is Jolly Ranchers, with nearly 143,000 pounds sold in the state in 2018?
- A Georgia fiscal economist says there is a 50-50 chance of a recession next year.
- Man gets 140 years in prison for restaurant arson.
- Tyler Perry won’t be part of a Georgia boycott over “Heartbeat” abortion law.
About Author
Theresa Garcia Robertson
Wife. Mama. Foodie. Political Junkie. Southern Enthusiast. Taco Lover.
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From the Twitty Pulpit:
Sep 29, 2019 08:11:53 PM “Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats can’t put down the Impeachment match. They know they couldn’t beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and they’re increasingly aware of the fact that they won’t win against him in 2020, and Impeachment is the only tool they have to get….
Sep 29, 2019 08:11:54 PM ….rid of Donald J. Trump – And the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process. I have never seen the Evangelical Christians more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this President from office, overturn the 2016….
Sep 29, 2019 08:11:54 PM ….Election, and negate the votes of millions of Evangelicals in the process. They know the only Impeachable offense that President Trump has committed was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s the unpardonable sin for which the Democrats will never forgive him….
Sep 29, 2019 08:11:55 PM ….If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews [Twitter for iPhone]
Desperate? Delusional? Even at its horrendous cost, the abolition of slavery warranted a civil war. But a sitting president even suggesting one over a political squabble his own actions precipitated is beyond irresponsible.
I wonder what inspired that lament? It couldn’t be the Twit in Chief himself could it?
“The Democrats want to take away your guns, they want to take away your health care, they want to take away your vote, they want to take away your freedom, they want to take away your judges. It’s all very simple: They’re trying to stop me, because I’m fighting for you.”
“How do you impeach a President who has created the greatest Economy in the history of our Country, entirely rebuilt our Military into the most powerful it has ever been, Cut Record Taxes & Regulations, fixed the VA & gotten Choice for our Vets (after 45 years), & so much more?…”
“The conversation with the new and very good Ukraine President, who told the Fake News, at the United Nations, that HE WAS NOT PRESSURED BY ME IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, should by and of itself bring an end to the new and most recent Witch Hunt. Others ended in ashes!”
Going to be blunt here, but post this as a comment before it becomes a Publisher’s directive.
The comments here most days are junk. They’re junk because it’s generally the same people who are holding their “I hate ____” du jour article that have nothing to do with Georgia politics, and are instead reaffirming their view of the DC echo chamber.
You have plenty of places to air your grievances about what you don’t like in DC. GeorgiaPol.com isn’t it. I remind you this site is dedicated to State and Local politics, and Georgia specific topics.
Despite removing some of the worst offenders, those of you who remain continue to talk past each other and are not adding value to the topics on the site.
Going forward, the Morning Read space will remain “Open Thread”, but those of you who can’t talk about anything but things/those you hate in DC need to move on. Do it voluntarily so we don’t have to.
(And yes, this applies to a much greater universe than those who have found the site this morning, and no one here is being singled out -yet. Y’all know if I was I wouldn’t be shy about doing that)
A police detective friend once noted that many of their suspects are guilty, and one quick way to determine if they were guilty is that they just can’t shut up. The officer and suspect would be sitting at a desk while the officer was writing up a report, and the suspect would just continue continuously talking. At one point, Bob looked over at a particularly guilty suspect and stated: “You have the right to remain silent, and I would appreciate it if you took advantage of that right.”
Charlie:
Thanks for the reminder, definitely needed. Unfortunately I think there is a fine line between what is relevant to state v. national politics especially when we have posts about and quotes by our House and Senate representatives in DC. I, and others, feel the need to correct ‘facts’, refute lies and call out ridiculous campaign slogans and hypocrisy made by our elected and campaigning aspirants. Some of the congressional topics are in the morning reads, others posted as single topics.
I’ll admit to have taken the bait when something is just too absurd not to correct. Guilty. I also agree that some folks are never going to accepts facts or discuss issues with respect to another person’s opinion. They simply come here to bash a preconceived notion about some derogatorily labeled group.
I think it will be difficult to separate state and national politics issues and opinions from all morning reads and the other posts. But I do see your point about avoiding just throwing in national issues without state relevance. I will aim to do better. Thanks.
Your board, your rules. I’ll try harder to restrain myself.
Just to clarify, where are the lines drawn? Can one respond to the latest offerings of Doug Collins or Tom Graves, to pick two, or is that off-limits too?
They are fine, BUT they cannot be used as a springboard to bash someone else at the federal level. People get creative here to draw in federal issues by piggybacking a local/state official.
Perhaps your future posts may reduce campaign PR releases of federal senators that are of questionable facts? Sorry but those just beg for a reality check.
The way the Falcons are going, being a monday morning quarterback is a tall order. You can always be a monday morning reader. This guide to last week’s internet will help.
Danny Merritt’s “key motivation” in challenging Buddy Carter that “representatives are using their positions to enrich themselves, to improve their own lives or the lives of their family members” and federal overreach what is to be expected of “a strong supporter of President Trump.”
Your Georgia tax dollars at work…
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/georgia-ports-authority_the-first-main-girder-for-the-rail-mounted-activity-6583464649809813504-2n6Q
This is a reminder that the railroad business has changed significantly in the last 25 years. In the earlier era, “loose car” railroading dominated the business, where trains made up of individual cars arrived at terminals, were broken up, switched to various tracks, then joined back together into trains that continued on to their destinations.
The giant girder pictured above is part of the long-term move toward “intermodal” trains, where the individual containers move as part of a larger block of cargo items that have been quickly unloaded from ships, and containers that ultimately will be transferred to trucks for the final mile delivery to their destination.
One side effect to this transition has been that railroad facilities themselves are either being renovated (as in this case), or completely removed, as in the case of CSX’s huge Tilford Yard in NW Atlanta. Tilford was a monument to loose-car railroading, covering acres of land. Now no longer necessary. Tilford has been razed and will become a residential development.
While some see Tilford’s demise as an indication of failure, it really is an indication of the success and efficiency of intermodal traffic. This delivery of a girder for a newer, larger container crane, is further proof.
Reply to NoParty & XDog:
First, as stated, this is a general guideline, not an absolute rule. The ones that couldn’t help themselves on round one were removed. Hopefully there won’t need to be a round two.
As for how to separate the two, the suggestion I make to new contributors is that any topic should be Georgia-centric/specific. If the post they are contemplating is “here’s an issue in Congress and Georgia’s delegation is going to have to vote on it one day”, that falls short. Is a Georgia member sponsoring or actively involved in the debate (with their quote in that debate the focus)? Then it likely passes the test. (I’ll note that contributors are also offered an 80-20 rule: If 80% of their posts are on-topic, 20% can be “moments of personal privilege.)
Back when we were more discussion focused and had higher post volume, I would encourage the occasional post on DC specific topics, with the urge that they be infrequent and either be important to the contributor or a true top story of the month/quarter. I have no interest in piling on of the talking points of the day, as Facebook/Twitter are the appropriate venues to those that must have a daily fix of echo-chamber smugness.
The niche we continue to strive to fill and the reason I keep doing this is the dwindling state-local niche. Local papers do a better job than we can for each county & municipality, though just today there’s news of a local paper in city of respectable size giving up:
https://thebrunswicknews.com/news/local_news/waycross-journal-herald-ceases-publication/article_7ac58d42-09f4-5096-88c1-5cf5339ca149.html?fbclid=IwAR2t7JkahOpWvyzpE1VcA7p-zJo7FG7r6yvf3PMK5_99LL_iHVBQL6dlucQ
The numbers of the state capitol press corps are about 1/3 of what they were when I first got started in this space, and the business model for what they cover/don’t cover continues to limit some outlets to narrative over news. We don’t have advertising/ratings pressure, so I try to step outside of what everyone else is covering and get into sometimes tedious & boring topics, but still items people need to know.
So with that, if you and others want to add value, bring items that affect Georgia and tell us how they affect Georgia/Georgians specifically. That will draw a lot more attention from the audience you have here, rather than yet another lukewarm take on whatever the twitter crowd is fighting over today.
Duly noted. Glad to see a focus narrow to state and local issues. I guess I missed the most recent purge. I may miss some commenters, others not so much.
Your federal taxes at work.
https://www.sas.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/Article/1974348/deepening-the-inner-savannah-harbor-begins/fbclid/IwAR05hLEJV_S8Ntx7KT3TV9wz4YiCH3sqGpyyG6PJwhyufSx8THJnr0PoOlM/
Anyone know if there is an oversight organization / watchdog group / support group for Gwinnett based law enforcement? I don’t have an immediate topic but I do have an interest in helping us have top-notch services both from a well-trained/supplied/supported perspective as well as a ensure-we-have-appropriate-policies/get-rid-of-the-bad-apples perspective.
The short answer is … not one I would consider gold standard. The ideal would be the equivalent of a Gwinnett chapter of the ACLU — legitimately nonpartisan with a national footprint. The ACLU is probably your best bet, but its a statewide organization with a limited footprint in Gwinnett.
The Gwinnett chapter of the NAACP was a train wreck up until Penny Poole took over late last year. She’s solid, but the organization itself is still fairly weak — a serious problem across the state, frankly. Younger people aren’t interested in its hierarchy.
I say this as a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement: there are two local groups to Atlanta and only one of them is legitimate. Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta is a front organization for a fellow who was drummed out of the national group. Unfortunately, it has a more prominent social media presence, which gives it the appearance of legitimacy. (Tell me you haven’t seen that problem before.)
If you need help, you should start with Mary Hooks, Co-Director of Southerners On New Ground.
Thanks. I appreciate the info. That helps.
(This part isn’t directed specifically at you but more in general – per Charlie’s suggestion that we address local/state things more.)
I don’t have a specific issue right now except that I would like to have a degree of confidence that the Gwinnett Police department did an internal review after the McDonald/Bongiovanni incident to determine whether or not Bongiovanni’s attitudes were held by others in the department. The combination of his claiming this was appropriate behavior together with his stature within the department rang some warning bells with me. I emailed at the time to ask but it was bad timing on my part. The upcoming leadership change reminded me of my concerns.
I’ve been watching the national policing discussion for years and realize that while I can’t really make a difference at all at the national level, I do vote in Gwinnett and that it is ultimately my and my neighbor’s responsibility to ensure that we do things properly here.
It has been difficult to find decent information because most of the local sources I’ve found seem to be all-police-are-bad or police-are-God-and-can-do-no-wrong. I don’t want to make their jobs more difficult but I do want to know that we are doing things the right way and improving things where we can.
On a related note, one thing that has definitely made a difference is the policy to call GBI to investigate all officer-related shootings. If anyone has any contacts in the District Attorney’s office (or in the legislature to do this state-wide), I think that we need to do the equivalent at the DA level for determining charges and prosecuting officer-related shootings. I think Danny Porter has been good about things but I keep thinking about the Caroline Small shooting in South Georgia and the political decisions made in that case. I don’t know how to handle the mechanics ($$) but I think that if the DA job for these cases was done by an outside credible group, it would help improve the perception of integrity.
Finding balance is increasingly difficult. I displayed both “Black Lives Matter” and “Back the Blue” in windows at home in the lead up to 2016. The Chip Olsen trial underway in DeKalb has been interesting. Certainly mistakes made, but it has highlighted the difficulty in determining culpability and what should be done as concerns Olsen.