August 20, 2021 7:00 AM
Morning Reads for Friday, August 20, 2019
Standing in for the incomparable Ginny.
- Georgia bars local governments from enacting mask, vaccine mandates
- Georgia jobless rate dips below 4% as payrolls again leap
- How the Apple lobbying machine took on Georgia
- Georgia public health agency issues new advice for school quarantines
- Almost all eligible Georgians are registered to vote, data show
- Georgia’s Sen. Warnock focuses on jobs amid Afghan questions
- Metro Atlanta hospitals give ‘urgent’ update on state of COVID
- 3 sentenced for illegal gambling operation in Georgia
- Did thousands of COVID-19 vaccines expire and get tossed out in Georgia?
- Leader of Macon meth distribution ring with ties to Georgia prison system sentenced to Federal Prison
- Georgia non-profit working to help fleeing Afghan refugees
- Ex-county clerk, 7 others indicted in $467K Georgia fraud case
About Author
Theresa Garcia Robertson
Wife. Mama. Foodie. Political Junkie. Southern Enthusiast. Taco Lover.
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The Georgia State University Library has a collection of photographs made in downtown Atlanta before the viaducts were built.
You think something will happen like this in Georgia because of the cost ? How much more over the initial estimate will it cost? https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/ex-westinghouse-executive-charged-failed-nuclear-project-2021-08-19/
Southern Company passes out a lot of money to a lot of state legislators and state government department heads. They have enormous political power in Georgia.
Westinghouse hid the upcoming bankruptcy so their executives can be charged with fraud.
So does executive order 08.19.21.03 https://gov.georgia.gov/document/2021-executive-order/08192103/download mean schools can’t require mask? I am confused.
The schools can require masks. The executive order only pertains to sports events and businesses right now:
Gov. Brian Kemp signed an executive order Thursday that bars local governments from forcing private businesses to enact vaccine requirements, indoor capacity limits and mask rules aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kemp framed the order as a way to “protect” businesses as a growing number of cities impose mask mandates during a fourth wave of the disease. Georgia recently surpassed 1 million confirmed coronavirus infections since the pandemic’s start, with most of the recent cases involving residents who refused to get vaccinated.
Under the order, private businesses could still choose to require vaccines or masks, or limit capacity to reduce the spread of the virus. But Kemp said it aims to ban local governments from enacting ordinances that require them to do so.
The first-term Republican said it was an effort to prevent a “lockdown mode” from local officials, specifically mentioning new coronavirus restrictions in Atlanta and Savannah.
Thanks for the info.
Stacey Abrams made “voter suppression” a fever pitch campaign issue. Now, we find out that GA has one of the highestvoter registration rates in the country. Something does not add up here.
The math problem must be on your end.
“Voter suppression” refers to shutting down polling places, removing ballot boxes, prohibiting drive through voting, and restricting the hours of polling places.
So although a voter may be registered when they go vote, they find not a short line to vote but lines going for several blocks, or they have to drive more than 20 miles to vote, or they get off work at 6 and the polling place closes at 7.
When Stacey made her charges, she focused on voters who were “purged” from the voting rolls. Ballot drop boxes did not exist. They were a “temporary measure” in response to the pandemic. I have never heard anything about drive through voting. When was that allowed anyway? I certainly never saw a drive through voting facility at my neighborhood precinct.
According to the fishwrapper, the big increases in registration occurred between 2016 and 2019. Brian Kemp was SOS for three of those years. He probably had little to do with voter registration anyway, but it was politically expedient to say he stole the election.
Stacey knew a hot button issue when she smelled it, and played it for what it was worth. I thought it was fishy at the time. Today’s story does not make me change my mind.
It’s true that during his eight-year tenure in that role, Kemp’s office canceled over 1.4 million voter registrations, with low-income and minority Georgians most likely to have their registrations removed, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Over 668,000 of those registrations were canceled in 2017.
Kemp’s office told the Associated Press in 2018 that the process is “voter roll maintenance” aimed at protecting Georgia’s elections against voter fraud.Bullock noted that maintaining the accuracy of voter lists is permitted under law, which often means removing voters, though states cannot remove voters simply for the act of not voting.
It’s also true that 214 polling places closed during Kemp’s tenure as secretary of state. A report released by the Leadership Conference Education Fund found that after a 2013 Supreme Court decision allowed certain states and cities to change voting laws and practices without federal approval, there was a surge in poll closures.
A spokeswoman for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office told USA TODAY in 2019 that state law allows individual counties to independently “determine the appropriate amount of polling locations for their jurisdictions, whether decreasing or increasing depending on several factors, including geography and cost.” The report cites a 2015 memo from Kemp encouraging county officials to merge polling places, though, citing the Supreme Court case, USA TODAY previously reported.
And, it’s true that about 53,000 voter registrations were put on hold by Kemp a few weeks out from the 2018 election. Those applications were flagged as a part of the state’s “exact match” verification process, which requires that voter information must precisely match the information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration, according to the Associated Press. The Associated Press found that nearly 70% of those voter registrations on hold were Black people, despite the state’s population being about 32% Black. ..
Abrams lost to Kemp by nearly 55,000 votes in 2018. In her concession, Abrams said the outcome reflected voter suppression. Kemp has denied efforts to suppress voters on numerous occasions, USA TODAY previously reported.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/18/fact-check-partly-false-claim-gov-brian-kemp-and-2018-election/6327447002/
If Georgia didn’t prevent people from voting in a supposed democracy it wouldn’t be an issue Abrams and others had to address in the first place…
Bottom line – more people were registered to vote and showed up, overwhelming Georgia’s suppression efforts. Now, instead of running on better ideas against right wing Dems, the far right GOP, who with no irony refer to themselves as patriots, are doubling down on suppression. Not a good long-term strategy for success, which I assume is why they seem so gung ho about killing the planet before they lose all power. If we can’t have it, nobody can.
All the folks who refuse the vaccines, this is on you. I hope you do not get sick:
As cases soar, hospitals and staff once again describe treating patients in meeting rooms, hallways and any available space. Yet they are having to scale back services for lack of staff. Hospitals from Piedmont Henry County to Phoebe Putney in Albany to Augusta University Health have halted elective surgeries. Wellstar Kennestone regularly closes sections of its emergency department simply for lack of nurses, according to staff. Wellstar says it is doing what it can to manage capacity, as its emergency department, like those at every other hospital, is swamped.
When replacement nurses can be found, they’re often new graduates or temps from other states or countries like the Philippines, as desperate hospitals pay top dollar to staffing companies scouring the globe.
https://www.ajc.com/news/coronavirus/georgia-nursing-shortage-at-crisis-levels/G37X6GW2HRDEXGWB6OS6OBA5KE/
It’s a shame, people don’t get the vax. I know four people who have died from covid. Three were before the vaccine were out. I don’t understand it. I know very learned people that won’t get it. It doesn’t matter if you show them statistics they won’t get it. I continue to scratch my head on this one. When I heard my elderly neighbor at my farm caught it I was scared he was going to be the next. He’s one of the biggest conspiracy theory people I know. When I called him he was encouraging me to get the vaccine. Told me he was glad I was vaxed and that he felt he might be dead if it wasn’t for the vaccine. I figure the Army gave me so many vaccines I glow in the dark, what’s another.
I’m vaccinated too but the hesitancy of people to get vaccinated isn’t surprising. The USA government has lied to people, experimented on them, allowed big pharma and others to poison them, and now hey, please we forget that we did all this (as we supposedly end a 20 year invasion that we lied to start and kill tons of people). Pretty, please, take the shots. Another example of the USA reaping what it sowed