13 posts tagged “georgia”

• In 2004 41.4% of Georgia voters voted for Obama John Kerry. Those voters will go Obama.

• Most of the newly registered will vote Obama. The state Democrats are working hard to register new voters and get them to the polls.
  

• Most independents will vote Obama.

• At least 5% of the GOP will vote for Georgian (Libertarian Party Candidate) Bob Barr or stay home.

• Then there are the Obamacans...Republicans for Obama.
  

It’ll be close. We have our right wingnuts here who want you to believe it can't happen. Who are they trying to fool? Themselves maybe.

If you in the Atlanta area or live in Georgia, the New Georgia Encyclopeia is a good resource.

Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 - New Georgia Encyclopedia

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/ng...

During the Atlanta race riot that occurred September 22-24, 1906, white mobs killed dozens of blacks, wounded scores of others, and inflicted considerable property damage. Local newspaper reports of alleged assaults by black males on white females were the catalyst for the riot, but a number of underlying causes lay behind the outbreak of mob violence....

Tom Price once again voted against even the majority in his own party against a bill to help communities improve their wastewater systems. Tom Price: too far right for his district. [Previous post] [Washington Post U. S. Congress Votes Database]

Water Quality Investment Act - Vote Passed (367-58, 8 Not Voting)

The House passed this $1.7 billion bill intended to help communities modernize their wastewater systems.

Rep. Tom Price voted NO

Tom Price is the elected Representative from my Georgia district in suburban Atlanta. He almost always votes with the very far-right of the Republican Party. I have decided to start posting his key votes that depart from the Republican majority opinion because I think most people don't know how extreme he is. This is the first major vote so far in the new Congress.

Vote 32: H R 5: This bill would lower the interest rate on student loans. The legislation would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 and decrease the interest rate on federally subsidized student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent in stages over five years. It would impact undergraduate student borrowers in the Federal Family Education Loan and Direct Loan programs....The House passed the bill on Jan. 17, 2007, with a vote of 356-71. All House Democrats voted for the bill, joined by 124 Republicans. [Washington Post]

Price voted No.

Have you ever met any celebrities? Any interesting stories?
Submitted by Tasha.

I met Jimmy Carter before he was elected President or even Governor of Georgia. He spoke at Mercer University in Macon to a small group of students. I found him interesting and asked him a question though I forget what about.

Cobb County Georgia USA has eaten crow and given up fundamentalist Christian pandering (just on this issue) by agreeing that the county should actually teach science in its public schools. Thank you, Georgia ACLU for fighting and winning. I'm cooing that I am a member.

The Cobb County School board has agreed to settle the long-running legal fight over its 2002 decision to place anti-evolution stickers in high school biology textbooks. In an agreement announced today, Cobb school officials said they will not order the placement of any "stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action." School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.

The settlement puts an end to a nationally watched case that has raised questions of local authority over schools and whether Cobb's sticker —- which called evolution "a theory, not a fact" —- runs afoul of the First Amendment. [ajc.com]

Elected officials in the county in which I live, Cherokee County, Georgia USA, passed a law about two weeks ago that would make it a criminal act for anyone in an unincorporated area of the county to rent a home or other housing to an undocumented alien. The county commission is made up of five white male Republicans, and the vote was unanimous.

I believe the only way to end the immigration from Mexico is for there to be economic justice in Mexico so that people there do not have to choose between staying with their families or feeding them. Our policies with Mexico only benefit the oil and other corporate interests. Our nation's entire history with Latin America has been one of colonialism and military or economic imperialism. Why do you think Hugo Chavez has such a negative view of our government (but not of our people)?

As an American, however, I would like secure borders. I do not like porous borders that make it easier for criminals and terrorists to slip through. But building a fence...all I think of is the Berlin Wall, the Jewish Warsaw ghetto, and the fence that Israel is building on the lands of Palestine. I want no walls or fences. I want security instead. How best to achieve that is the crux of the issue. Which is cheaper and also the real solution?

• Spending huge sums of money on fake security (that make you feel secure) but don't do much else except waste our money --or--
• Changing our economic and foreign policies with Mexico and the rest of Latin America to help bring economic stability to that region?

More on the solution to the big issue later. As a Christian, I ask is there room at the inn for all of our neighbors, especially during this holiday season? Whatever I think of immigration policies in this country, politics aside, there has to be room at the inn. What would Christ do? Yet here is what I am faced with. Not only do I live in a county that offends my religion, but I have to pay for it too. I've been considering moving from this very RED suburban county to the BLUE oasis in Atlanta proper. It's coming up with the cash now that prevents that, but in time, that is one of my possible plans.

Commissioners in Cherokee County vowed this week to defend a controversial ordinance that seeks to prevent landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. They dug in days after a California city withdrew a similar law due to costly litigation.

"We're prepared to carry through for a while," said Commissioner Jim Hubbard.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund plan to sue "in the next few weeks" to challenge the constitutionality of an ordinance the Cherokee County commissioners approved 5-0 on Dec. 5, said Jamie Hernan, a metro Atlanta lawyer who is helping draft a lawsuit.

On Wednesday, the City Council in Escondido, Calif., killed a law that made it illegal for landlords to rent to illegal immigrants. A judge had blocked enactment of the ordinance after a lawsuit challenged it last month.

A city statement said the council acted because "continuing the present policy approach would be unnecessarily costly." The city estimated that it could have had to pay its attorneys more than $1 million to defend the ordinance if the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, the city said, it faced the prospect of having to pay plaintiff attorneys' fees. [ajc.com]

If these laws are upheld, they be coming to a location near you. Write letters. Make phone calls. Pray. Get mad. Do something. I wrote my commissioner. I spoke up at church. The church social justice group, oddly named Matthew 25, is going to have dialog on this issue in new year.

If I were a landlord in the county, I believe I would openly violate the law as a civil protest. I just have to think what Jesus would have done. That belief guides me.

Mercer

When I was a Mercer student in the late 1960s, there was considerable tension between Mercer and the Georgia Southern Baptists, then over racial integration, dancing on campus, the F word quoted by Dean Otto during chapel service, Unitarians meeting on campus, and Mercer's acceptance of federal aid to colleges.

Despite all of those sometimes highly charged issues, it was LGBT issues that finally sealed the split, almost 40 years later.

Convention members had voted last year to sever ties with the Macon, Ga., institution. Tuesday's second vote finalized the split, which means Mercer must seek Baptist funding from individual churches rather than the convention.

Mercer also has control now over choosing its trustees.

Mercer had prepared for the funding loss by cutting $8.5 million from its more than $171.5 million dollar budget this year. The convention funded $3.5 million in scholarships and another $2 million for the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing on Mercer's Atlanta campus.

The convention already has transferred $25.5 million in endowment and trusts to Mercer.

Convention members were disturbed last year by a National Coming Out Day program on campus - called the Mercer Triangle Symposium - sponsored by a gay student group and supported by faculty and staff. [Macon Telegraph]

Thanks to my friend Keith for alerting me to this story. I would have missed it probably.

How many years have we been fighting the so-called "war on drugs," and how many years has it been nothing but a money and human life-draining campaign?

Now let me be clear. I do not advocate that people use more drugs or any street drugs, but aren't we hypocritical as a nation when we sell alcohol, tobacco, and prescription pharmaceuticals without penalty of law? Wouldn't all the money that we waste in law enforcement and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders be better spent in education campaigns NOT to use drugs. It has been pretty successful with tobacco, since tobacco use is way down in the US. We could also spend more money for drug rehab. In my state of Georgia, if you want to go into drug rehab and cannot afford private rehab, you must be arrested and sentenced by a judge to rehab. What a shame! Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars from law enforcement and incarceration that could flow instead into free programs to help people quit using drugs!

Because we don't decriminalize drugs, it is hugely profitable. Why do you think al-Qaeda encourages poppy production in Afghanistan? Huge profit to support their murderous goals. Of course, then again oil profits do much the same thing, but that is another post.

Over the next week or so, I will post ten steps (maybe more) that we can take to stop the drug war and move to a more humane and sensible policy. But one thing is certain, if you remove the profits from the illegal drug trade, criminal activity in this area will vastly decline.

These steps are from drugsense.org:

Step 1: Grant agronomist Lyle Craker a license to grow medicinal-grade cannabis at the University of Massachusetts.

Effect: End the federal government's monopoly on growing marijuana to meet the FDA's requirement for an independent, high quality cannabis supply for approved cannabis-based research and product development.