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Bookman: Trump, ‘Cop City’ RICO cases show danger of such laws
Georgia’s wide-ranging version of an anti-racketeering act, or RICO, puts a powerful weapon in the hands of prosecutors. And like any powerful weapon, it can be used for good, or for ill. The best safeguards against its abuse must be judges and juries, and both will come into play in the two major RICO-based prosecutions […]
Bookman: More evidence for Tooth Fairy than Georgia 2020 election fraud
According to a poll conducted last month by the University of Georgia, 63% of Georgia Republican voters still claim to believe “there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” At this point, almost three years after the election, that’s like an adult believing in the Tooth Fairy, only worse. There’s at least some […]
Bookman: The season for accountability has arrived
A democracy has the right – no, the obligation — to defend itself against those who attack it and seek to destroy it. That’s what Capitol Police were forced to do on Jan. 6, as they physically fought off thousands of attackers. It’s what special counsel Jack Smith, operating in a different role, has now […]
Bookman: Kemp offers selective outrage to threats of violence as political weapon
Last week, Atlanta City Council members were threatened with physical violence over their votes in support of the controversial “Cop City” proposal. That’s indefensible, and it seriously undermines whatever moral standing that project opponents may have claimed to have. Surely, whatever your stance, we can agree that such threats have no place whatsoever in public […]
Bookman: Can Georgia’s brand of conservatism survive the GOP’s rush toward extremism?
The future of the Republican Party is being fought out right here in Georgia; you can already see the battle lines forming. But it will be years before we know the outcome. The usual setting for that intra-party struggle would be the upcoming presidential primary season, which is when parties traditionally define themselves and establish […]
Bookman: From Clayton County to Buffalo, Biden is right about white supremacist terrorism
In March, a U.S. judge here in Georgia sentenced 48-year-old Larry Foxworth to 20 years in federal prison for firing multiple gunshots into two late-night convenience stores in Clayton County. Foxworth’s shooting binge wasn’t an act of random violence. It also wasn’t personal. It had a purpose, a motivation, an ideology behind it. “Foxworth told […]
Bookman: Georgia GOP chair’s lack of regret over 2020 election denial dangerous
Until the last few years, I did not fully comprehend our human capacity to delude ourselves, to insist on believing what we wish to believe, regardless of evidence or logic, and regardless of the damage that the delusion might do to ourselves and to others. Having seen some things, I’m now sadder, perhaps wiser. Definitely […]
Bookman: The truth is that it is Kemp, not Trump, who is the candidate of the past
In a high-profile speech over the weekend in Nashville, Gov. Brian Kemp told national Republican donors that it’s time for the party to look forward, to the elections and issues of 2024, rather than backward to the debacle of 2020. “Not a single swing voter in a single swing state will vote for our nominee […]
Bookman: In MTG’s grimy paws, a beautiful video becomes something sickening
“I’ll say it again,” Marjorie Taylor Greene says in a new video labeled “The Predator President.” “Democrats are the party of pedophiles.” What follows in the video is a compilation of interactions between Joe Biden and various young people, attempting to make the case that the 80-year-old president sexually abuses young children. This is what […]
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 […]