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Bookman: Kemp enjoys ‘special’ access to campaign cash flowing from donors coveting state favors
One of the running themes of the Stacey Abrams campaign has been her claim that Georgia Republicans are abusing their authority by undermining fair elections and tilting the playing field in their favor. It’s a claim that GOP officials dismiss as ungrounded. So let’s take a closer look at one potential example: Under Georgia law, […]
Bookman: Georgia GOP lawmakers sacrifice gun carry law at altar of the Cult of the 2nd Amendment
Correction: An earlier version of this column about the 2022 state Legislature passing Senate Bill 319 incorrectly characterized some aspects of the measure’s changes to Georgia gun restrictions. The law would not change an unlicensed gun owner’s ability to legally carry loaded weapons in their vehicles. The law would not allow possession of hunting rifles in […]
Bookman: Private school vouchers provide students a better chance to excel? Prove it
Bit by bit, inch by inch, year by year, Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly and in legislatures across the country have been moving toward passage of full-fledged school-voucher systems that would inevitably undermine public education. This year, at least for the moment, and at least in Georgia, that incremental advance has been stalled. Perhaps […]
Bookman: ‘We the people’ are in dangerous territory
The state of our union is precarious. It is precarious not because of some outside threat – outside threats we can still handle. It is precarious because we have forgotten our way, because we find ourselves increasingly seduced by a perverted, stunted and selfish notion of freedom. It is precarious because some of us have […]
Bookman: Regents pledged to find qualified new chancellor; they fished for Sonny Perdue instead
A year ago, the Board of Regents announced it would begin a search to find the best-qualified candidate in the country to serve as its chancellor and lead Georgia’s 26 institutes of higher learning and their 340,000 students into what was sure to be a bright and glorious future. What the regents sought, we were […]
Bookman: Trump continues to threaten violence against those who stand for rule of law
Like his buddy Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is a thug willing to use violence to achieve what he cannot achieve by legitimate means. He has shown a willingness to do so in the past, and because he himself has paid no price, he is threatening to do so in the future. We know all this, […]
Bookman: Crank hypocrisy alarm up as Kemp takes credit for Obamacare insurance access
Based on the first few days of the Georgia General Assembly, the Republican Party’s 2022 legislative agenda is to outlaw non-citizen voting which is already outlawed, ban “critical race theory” from schools where it already doesn’t exist, bar transgender athletes from high school sports where the rules already say they can’t compete, and combat voter […]
Bookman: A case for Mike Pence as heroic in face of pro-Trump attempted coup
I come to celebrate an American hero. I come to celebrate Mike Pence. That is not, to put it mildly, a widely held opinion. Not yet, at least. The Trumpian right reviles Pence as a traitor, as a Judas whose lack of courage and commitment a year ago cost them the prize that they see […]
Bookman: Naming names, former Sens. Perdue and Loeffler conspired against democracy
Anyone in public life who supported, advocated, justified, participated in, financed or helped to organize the scheme to void the 2020 Electoral College vote, take away the voice of the people, and MacGyver state legislatures into keeping Donald Trump in the White House is guilty of conspiring to end American democracy. History will record that […]
Bookman: Perdue’s candidacy ‘a continuation of the coup attempt and insurrection that Trump launched’
Let’s say it straight: Every Georgia Republican who votes for former Sen. David Perdue in next year’s gubernatorial primary is voting to strangle American democracy and replace it with an arrangement in which elections can be overturned on a whim, just because somebody says so. There is no other rationale for Perdue’s candidacy, no other […]
Bookman: Guilty verdicts in Arbery killing give no pleasure, only relief
There’s no pleasure to be taken from the guilty verdicts returned Wednesday by a Glynn County jury in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery; there is only relief and thanksgiving that in the end justice could be done, at least in a case in which the evidence was so well-documented and seemingly obvious. Given that they […]
Bookman: How far will GOP state lawmakers go to use threatened power to extend power?
Change occurs very slowly, and then all at once. Certainly, that’s been the experience of Republicans in Gwinnett County. The suburban Atlanta county that had long been dominated by the GOP has almost overnight become Democratic. In the space of four years, for example — just one presidential election cycle — the county commission has […]