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Bookman: Potential indictments of former president not created equal
Let me ask a question, purely theoretical: Should the justice system treat a former president of the United States just as it would treat any other American citizen? As long as it’s just theoretical, the obvious answer is yes, of course. As Americans, we have no kings, no untouchable royalty. We are all equal before […]
Bookman: Another year, another school voucher bill to funnel public money to private schools
State Sen. Greg Dolezal argued on the floor of the Georgia Senate this month that his school-voucher bill offers students and parents a way out of low-performing public schools. It does not. Furthermore, it is not intended to do so. Like most voucher proposals, it is an attempt to funnel taxpayer money out of public […]
Bookman: Marjorie Taylor Greene ascends in GOP because of stupidity, not in spite of it
Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot, and idiots, as a rule, aren’t interesting people. They aren’t interesting because their idiocy overshadows all other aspects of their personality. Greene is more an exemplar of that rule than an exception to it. Nonetheless, in their wisdom, the voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District have elected Greene as […]
Bookman: Fulton indictments coming in 2020 election probe, just not reeling big fish
There will be indictments. They are coming at the federal level – you don’t subpoena a former vice president in a high-profile criminal case unless and until prosecutions are likely — and they are coming at the state level here in Georgia. At least, I think so. That prediction is not based on leaks. To […]
Bookman: Newt Gingrich is father of today’s compromise-is-surrender GOP politics
In an NBC News poll last month, just 23% of Americans said they believe the country is headed in the right direction. Among Republicans, just 7% liked the way things are going. (Among Democrats it was 41%.) In any country with such deep discontent within a major faction, this one included, it shouldn’t be a […]
Bookman: If Georgia GOP thinks life starts at conception, why allow ‘murder’ for six weeks?
If you honestly, sincerely believe that human life begins at the moment that sperm is introduced to egg, certain conclusions flow logically from that starting point, including that abortion is murder and that banning abortion is a moral obligation on a par with banning slavery. I strongly disagree with that approach, but I understand it, […]
Bookman: Beyond defeating Abrams, Kemp second-term agenda MIA
Brian Kemp has won a second term as governor without telling us what he wants to accomplish in that second term. OK, that’s not quite true. Just by winning, he has already kept his biggest campaign promise, the promise that served as the basis of his entire re-election bid: “Stacey Abrams is not going to […]
Bookman: Georgia’s gift to Trump is a lump of coal in stocking
When the history books about Donald Trump are written – and believe me, there will be many – Georgia will have earned a place of pride. It’s only a mild exaggeration to say that Georgia has been to Trump what Waterloo was to Napoleon, what Saratoga was to King George and his redcoats, what Gettysburg […]
Bookman: Marjorie Taylor Greene moves in same circles as Trump’s anti-Semitic dinner guests
We should talk a bit about Nick Fuentes, the far-right leader who recently dined with Donald Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. News accounts have described Fuentes as an anti-Semite, but that does not fully capture the vileness of the man or the danger that Trump courts by giving him credibility. According to Fuentes, American […]
Bookman: Walker’s backers likely prefer DeSantis over Trump on Senate campaign trail
Donald Trump personally hand-selected Herschel Walker to be his candidate for U.S. senator, hoping that Walker would serve as the instrument through which Trump could reassert political dominance over Georgia and erase the embarrassment of his 2020 loss. So Trump wooed Walker, he flattered Walker, he publicly pressured Walker to pick up and move here […]
Bookman: Brian Kemp’s brand of Republican no longer plays on national stage
Time and again on the campaign trail, Gov. Brian Kemp has made it clear that he sees his mission as two-fold, “to make sure Stacey Abrams ain’t gonna be our governor — or the next president.” It’s an effective bit of rhetoric, testament to the Republicans’ strategy of treating Abrams not as another state-level politician […]
Bookman: Top Republicans embrace Marjorie Taylor Greene’s violent rhetoric
In a recent campaign video, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, likened Democrats to destructive feral hogs allowed to range free and destroy the American countryside. But Marjorie had a solution: As the camera followed her, she grabbed a rifle and climbed aboard a waiting helicopter, where she tracked down and shot a […]