I can't grapple with Coulter either. I assume it's an act. But it could be an act that has become so internalized it has become her. Poor, lost soul.Substitute "Erick Erickson/him" for "Coulter/her" and I believe you would still be accurate.
This is our one chance to get away from a department of highways and have a meaningful department of transportation. With this new MARTA financial data, any reasonable person must conclude that Fulton and DeKalb can no longer carry this burden alone. I would hope Fulton and DeKalb representatives and senators would agree with me and insist that MARTA be folded into any comprehensive transit solution.Talk of the state taking over the beleaguered transportation system always makes Fulton and Dekalb nervous. Much like last years "Grady Wars", it is easy to feel resentment from shouldering the burden for decades only to have the Legislature ride in and say "we'll show you how it's done" (looking your way Rep. Ehrhart).
It will be an outrage if National Football League owners reject a group’s bid to buy the St. Louis Rams football team because commentator Rush Limbaugh is among those making the offer. “I, myself, couldn’t even consider voting for him,” said Baltimore Colts owner Jim Irsay. “When there are comments that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive … it’s something that we don’t need.” As with political endorsements, that declaration tells us more about Irsay’s politics than about Limbaugh.Let's talk about the free market Jim so adores. In any market there are two critical factors - product and brand. The NFL arguably has the most successful product in sports. This product is supported by branding which is guarded with the zeal of a lioness tending her most beautiful cub. Pull a sharpie out and sign a ball after scoring a touchdown? Penalized. Wear your socks too low? Fined. Get caught acting the fool in a strip club? Suspended.
They called on the sergeant at arms to investigate whether, as Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) put it, a group that "is connected to or supports terrorists [and] is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices."Nary a word is heard.
I’m going to ship this 5 pound bag of rock salt to her office in Maine. It’s only $3.00. You should join me.As Outside The Beltway points out, there's more than just a few problems with this plan.
The latest sign that the “consensus” about global warming is falling apart: The BBC is finally reporting that global temperatures have leveled off since 1998, and that there maybe, possibly, perhaps, conceivably, theoretically, hypothetically, probably-not-but-you-never-know, could be explanations for changes in temperature that don’t involve mankind and carbon dioxide.Welcome to the right's favorite stalking horse. The tactic goes a little like this - you can't trust the press/science because they have an agenda, therefore you must trust us, because unlike them, we only care about the truth.
Global warming (and indeed science itself) is not based on individual pieces of evidence. It is always based on the story all the evidence tells. Scientists look at everything and they usually look at it over a long time. Pundits, on the other hand cherry pick what is convenient, spin up a tale of fancy, then move on to the next target.In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling...What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.
I am confident that Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R-Dachau), who considers Obama to be too "uppity" for his taste, had a similar reaction.Dachau? Really?
We called the Deal campaign and asked spokesman Harris Blackwood if he could explain under what circumstances a reference to “ghetto grandmothers” could be considered proper and in the correct context...Blackwood declined comment.
That was exactly the right question.
One wonders how it is possible at this late date for anybody not to know how AIDS is transmitted despite the extensive public awareness campaigns of recent decades. And then we read that Lawrenceville Mayor Rex Millsaps had no idea that voting to give city business to a company that employed him was wrong. It’s only been wrong since the beginning of time.You might think Millsaps runs some public relations firm promoting AIDS awareness. You would be wrong. He runs an architectural firm.
In what is surely a first in Decatur, if not metro Atlanta, Decatur Metro will host an online debate/forum on this site between the four city commission candidates on wednesday, October 21st from 8p-9:30p.... DM will use the same live-blog “Cover it Live” program that was employed during the Decatur Book Festival to host an interactive live debate between candidates Fred Boykin, Patti Garrett, James Radford, Kyle Williams and the community
| Date: | Saturday, September 19, 2009 |
| Time: | 12:00pm - 3:00pm |
| Location: | City Hall Downtown |
| Street: | 68 Mitchell Street |
| City/Town: | Atlanta, GA |
Our intent is to show the City of Atlanta and the APD the vast number of community members who are concerned about what happened & that we want answers to valid questions:
-Is typical protocol for these type of charges normally a citation and not arrest?
-Was this high number of APD officers the best use to address such minimal charges with Atlanta crime concerns skyrocketing?
-Why was intervention by City Council candidates necessary for the release of the staff after 19 hours in jail on no bond?
-Why does APD have an LGBT liaison if that position is not utilized?
-Who is to be held accountable for the formal filed complaints of mistreatment?
-Where has Mayor Franklin been and why hasn't she made a statement?
APD LGBT liaison Officer Dani Harris will be present Saturday and will be speaking to the community. Please keep in mind, she cannot address any specifics regarding the case as it is an on-going investigation. Her position IS to serve as a bridge directly between the LGBT community and the APD.
No, it’s true that President Obama is not “ignoring calls for tort reform and changes in medical malpractice laws.” Trial lawyers are a key constituency of the Democratic Party, which largely explains why party leaders have chosen to ignore this potential cost savings.Free market conservatives are for the free market except when they're not. Free market conservatives are against regulation except when they're not. Bottom line is tort reform is regulation. Free market pretenders are a key constituency of right wing pundits, which largely explains why Jim has chosen to ignore this cognitive dissonance
Anybody seen ACORN? The organization may be off to Afghanistan, where the main headline reports “Karzai’s vote lead clouded.” A smaller headline explains: “Fraud suspected in more than a quarter of all Afghan votes.”ACORN has never been convicted of voter fraud. The accusations were limited to voter registration fraud. There used to be a time when facts mattered - even in an opinion column. It would seem like a good issue for the Public Editor, but why bother. And just to prove my point...
This is a group that helped elect Barack Obama, is widely accused of voter-registration fraud, and would have grown richer and more powerful off public money in this administration. It would have had a prominent role in the 2010 census before exposes caused the feds to sever the relationship.There it is. At least he got it right this time. Here is how myths are made - take a grain of truth, cover it with manure then claim it was a boulder all along.
Maybe it’s just for a single day, but rejoice that the Standard Language of the South is back! This was the ajc.com headline over a story about an advocacy group’s push to impose a tax of one-cent per ounce on what the wire service reporter referred to as “sodas and other sweetened beverages”: “Group pushes tax on soft drinks.” Yes!Copy Editor Jim returns. I bet I know one group who is happy he no longers roams the newsroom.
In Houston County, the District Attorney is filing charges against parents from other counties who enroll their children in Houston schools. Don’t put me on this jury. The money should follow the child and parents should be able to enroll their children in schools near where they work, near a caregiver or near any other more convenient place.A supposed "law and order" conservative argues for jury nullification. This is "common sense conservatism".
You’re old Atlanta if you remember when the city’s mayoral race was the talk of metro Atlanta and even of Georgia. Now Dunwoody’s suburban neighbor prepares to pick a successor to Mayor Shirley Franklin and the candidates are almost as anonymous as those who vie to run the cities on the perimeter.Jim lives somewhere in middle Georgia now, right? Apparently the AJC's decision to cut back on delivery to certain areas has unintended consequences. Their poor former Associate Editor doesn't realize the Mayor's race has been this town's top political story for the past two weeks.
The Joe Wilson flap, taken nuclear by former President Jimmy Carter and others on the left, is a reminder that liberals really do believe that they and their policy positions are morally superior. By demonizing opponents as racists, they claim quite sanctimoniously that those who oppose them have no legitimate basis for their arguments...The race card is the liberals’ Saturday night special – a cheap weapon to pop off into a crowd they don’t like.And we end with this. I would like to explain how words are being twisted. I would like to explain how the statements of the few are being twisted to cast shadow on the many. I'd like to go on a long rant about the Republican's perfecting the process of myth-making.
"The heaviest hitters in the Republican party, and in the conservative media have loudly and proudly called for Obama's failure. Liberals who even softly criticized Bush were roundly shamed and called terrorist-loving-America-haters"The entire piece is a little heavy handed but it is worth the read.
An employee who lives in an apartment over the Eagle, who said he was not working that night, said someone started pounding on his door. He opened the door to two cops who asked if anyone was having sex there. They asked why there was a bed and he said it was because he lives there. He was made to come downstairs and was arrested with the other employees.There seems to be many details missing here (apartment attached to a nightclub?), but if true, how will you answer the next time the cops knock on your door and ask if anyone is having sex and why do you have a bed?
The conflicting interpretations about whether illegals could gain coverage and about whether federal funds would be spent to cover abortions, are examples of why news organizations and supposedly non-partisan public interest groups should avoid the temptation to declare political assetions to be “fact or fiction.”Once upon a time, they were considered the truth-tellers.
The Libertarian Party of Atlanta is deeply disturbed by the actions of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) when they raided popular Atlanta gay bar, The Eagle on September 10th. . In June 2009 according to statistics published by the APD, 331 crimes against persons were committed and there were 3,379 crimes against a property reported. The APD should be using their officers to protect the citizens of Atlanta, not raiding a private club containing a group of consenting adults.A+ for consistency.
At approximately 11:30pm on Thursday, September 10, 2009, a gay bar in Atlanta, the Atlanta Eagle, was raided by the Atlanta Police Department (APD).My editor (i.e. the inner voice) tells me Friday is a terrible time to attempt an in-depth on any story, so look for more next week.
The reaction to Obama on the part of some of his partisan foes is now making Bush derangement syndrome look like a hot and heavy Dawson’s Creek romanceOur own Erick "The Witches Hammer" Erickson calls Joe Wilson, he who screamed "you lie" during the President's speech, a great American hero.
You forget what a lot of us conservatives have said. We actually agreed with youSomebody pull the tape! I'm willing to bet a large sum that somewhere there's footage of Phil Kent defending warrantless wiretapping.
that freedoms were being eroded under George Bush.
"We must balance at all times the fact that national security is important, but freedom is essential," said Phil Kent, president of the conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation, which has taken issue with expanded federal surveillance powers granted under the law.I still find it difficult to believe that in the subsequent years on the Georgia Gang that there weren't occasions where Phil talked about "tools to fight terrorism" or the other nonsense that was bandied about, but lacking evidence of those utterances, I have to say Phil was right. I was wrong.
Atlanta Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis and a staff member spent two days in June in Chicago so Lewis could speak at a high school graduation ceremony. The John Marshall Metropolitan High School Alumni Association spent $1,500 for meals, airfare and hotel rooms for that trip. Lewis was the only Democrat from Georgia to file public disclosures for sponsor-funded travel, according to LegiStorm.
Each of the candidates is, in each their own way, uniquely unqualified to be Atlanta’s next mayor. However, I have to congratulate them for running. Thanks to poor governance from the State, truncated city limits and — to put it diplomatically — “constituent issues,” Atlanta is extraordinarily difficult to govern. So my hats off to anyone who wants a job that no sane person should ever want.That makes me want to quiver in a ball and cry! And I've been accused of being a ruthless s-o-b so many times I've lost count!
A chairman's race that could throw us back to the dark ages of fire hoses and police dogs? There is a proud history of leadership in this city, this county, this region. Somehow that leadership has lost its way in the past ten years. The current leaders better find that way again or someone will come along and show them the way out the door.When all was old was new was old then new again.
While the print daily died, a new Web site, Ann Arbor.com rose with a mission of some original reporting, along with much social networking and community involvement.I encourage you to read the entire article I linked. There have been many hybrid attempts and at times I have been guilty of being overly enthusiastic, but this one is fascinating. Especially how they meld the blogger content with the professional content.
The bloggers get technological assistance and coaching on the blog style, which Vielmetti says isn’t news or feature writing, but something unique. A copy editor reviews their posts after the fact and fixes typos or style and grammar errors. If one of the community bloggers writes something that really should be a news story, the post will be pulled until it can be substantiated, Vielmetti says. A reporter may be assigned to flesh out the idea — so in that sense, the community bloggers become a herd of highly invested tipsters.I'm going to share a terrible secret - I secretly want an editor. I've always sought advice from the professional journalists - at times hounding them until they probably are ready to swat me on my puppy nose. The thought of a process which satisfies this need for mentoring is enticing. And I bet I'm not alone in those feelings.
The unpaid community bloggers are described as “contributors” under their bylines on the site, in contrast to the AnnArbor.com employees who have “staff” beneath theirs.It may seem small and it may seem stupid but this is important. Yes, it is differentiated, one of the myths we've battled over the years is the idea that we want to replace journalists, but the words "contributor" and "byline" is a monumental leap forward. It shows that the Ann Arbor News recognizes the differences in its content generators but puts aside the gross generalization that bloggers do not contribute anything new.
But something has surely changed, otherwise the print media industry wouldn’t be in as much trouble. And that something is reporter salaries, which have become disproportionately high since the advent of the Internet.That's a line sure to open a few eyes.
In Whitaker’s case, because it was her husband’s name, not hers, on their home mortgage, she was allowed to return to her house — after living with relatives in a rural trailer park — only due to a temporary court injunction....But this past Monday, police in Columbia County arrested Whitaker at her mother’s house, charging her with failing to register a new address. If convicted, she faces a 10- to 30-year prison sentence under Georgia law. Last year, a bill to reduce the penalty for failure to register passed the state Senate, but Keen was able to kill it in the House...At this writing, Whitaker remains in jail, unable to make her $10,000 bail.Regular readers know it takes an exceptional circumstance for this site to take a position of advocacy. This is one.
If you look here at the map, you can actually see we could build a connector — a parallel connector — running from the 400/85 corridors, going through [East Atlanta]…Been there, done that, got the tree hugging chains to prove it.
At the end of the day, “when the morning comes,” a black agenda would better enable us to have our interests respected by and our influence realized in any administration.Galloway had the scoop.
Will we go with tanned, telegenic tax hikers with dubious personal issues, or young, telegenic conservative reformers who are not afraid to speak up for freedom?Charlie is many things, but scandal ridden is not one of them. I asked Erick a simple question - 'what personal issues?' He did not reply. Why stick around to clarify, when you can watch the results of your myth grenade from a safe distance?
If nothing else, there is clearly an undercurrent of desire for people to get him gone on the grounds that whatever was bad enough to stop him from running for Governor was bad enough to keep him from running for Lt. Governor.Last I checked, the reason Cagle got out of the race was he needed to undergo potentially paralyzing back surgery.
These people were either so delusional or so beaten down by their own government that they thought it was the government’s job to save them! Rather than taking action on their own to get themselves OUT of the situation they found themselves in, they sat there and waited to be “rescued” by the government!Usually, SWGA Politics has fine content - particularly when reporting about Albany local politics. However, it is not immune from occasional forays into true madness. This is one of those times.
...the tipline brings news of a website to draft Jane Vandiver Kidd, Chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, to run in the upcoming U.S. Senate race against fellow liberal Johnny Isakson.Of course it's Peach Pundit, so it must be noteworthy. AJC top political gun Jim Galloway picks up the story and adds this gem.
Take this seriously. As was the case in 2006, Democrats are extremely worried that a less-than-stellar candidate will jump in and win the top spot on the party’s ticket.And if anyone had taken five minutes to call Kidd, as Athens Banner Herald's Blake Aued did, they would have discovered the entire story was pure fantasyland.
The first thing we have to do is to locate every place that can store water north of Atlanta that does not have to be permitted by the Corps of Engineers.He also has some interesting ideas on transportation.
I think that what we have to do is to elevate light rail over the interstate highways where we already have the right-of-ways. And every so many bridges, you retrofit the bridges to be stations above.Barnes first administration was chocked full of ideas, some good, some bad. His opponents might have disagreed with him on the details but they could never accuse him of not thinking up ways to solve a fix. The fact is Sonny's election was less about competing ideas and more about portraying Barnes as a power-mad king.
Tom carries the lesson to the modern strangeness of current Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson's uncomfortable position of opposing the Obama administration on healthcare reform but also decrying flame breathing rhetoric from members of his own party.Eulogizing the late US Sen. Herman Talmadge at his funeral in 2002, former US Sen. Sam Nunn recalled a meeting with his state’s senator not long after he came to Washington. Nunn recalled that when he mentioned casually that he answered most of his mail, but ignored “nuts” like those who believed in flying saucers, Talmadge spit vigorously into the spittoon by his desk and gave him a solemn warning: “If you don’t get the nut vote, you can’t carry a county in Georgia,” the state’s senior senator said.
On the rare occasions when things started to get out of hand, it was usually because Johnson — ignoring his own event rules — began to respond directly to things shouted from the audience rather than to questions by citizens who took the time to wait in line and ask questions. In fact, those who booed most loudly and responded most vocally in the audience generally didn’t take the opportunity to stand and ask questions directly to the congressman. And once the respectful tone of the meeting was set early, more than a few of the more vocal opponents simply left.And who wasn't.
Meanwhile, constituents in Congressman Hank Johnson’s district all get smiley faces for good behavior. They have behaved as police authorities and the politician’s organizers desired. An organizer who runs his constituents through metal detectors at a public policy debate is afraid of the people he serves. That is not America.Jim, as a southern gentleman, you should know better than most that an invitation in my home does not provide you the privilege to drop trou and pee on my carpet. The rules for Hank Johnson's Town Hall were fairly straightforward and fair - no signs, no demonstrations from the audience, questions would be answered during the designated time period and if you were disruptive you would be booted. Despite these apparent draconian rules, both supporters lustily cheered and booed many times (and occasionally cat-called) without dire intervention by the authorities.
One day in 1996 the lights went off in a classroom in Georgia so that the students could watch a video. Wendy Whitaker, a 17-year-old pupil at the time, was sitting near the back. The boy next to her suggested that, since it was dark, she could perform oral sex on him without anyone noticing. She obliged. And that single teenage fumble wrecked her life.One area where I believe we all agree is the true predators should be punished and punished harshly. However, as the Genarlow Wilson case exemplified, our sex offender laws must be carefully crafted. We brand for life far too many people who are just stupid but hardly dangerous.
"I wish I had been a headline writer, but what I really want to talk about is how the two parent home solves all ills just like tunnels and toll roads would solve all our transportation problems".He's phoning it in, so am I.
The “Clunkers for Cash” program never made sense in the first place, at least as it was enacted. The alleged environmental “benefits” were largely bogus, the taxpayer subsidy was much too generous and its benefits were too narrowly targeted to the automaking industry and to those Americans in a financial position to think about buying a new car or, given the program design, a new truck or SUV.Hey CB? How's the Jay-hatin' these days?
