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Bookman: Confederate monuments in high-profile places are an insult
For well over a century, a tall stone obelisk has stood unchallenged as a monument to white supremacy in the city square in Decatur, Georgia. But no longer. The monument – erected in 1908 – still stands where it has always stood. The letters “C.S.A,” for Confederate States of America, are still carved in its […]
Bookman: If President Trump is innocent, why lock up the evidence?
President Trump has placed a heavy shroud of silence over the executive branch. Under his orders, no witnesses from the State Department, the Defense Department, the Energy Department, the Department of Justice, the White House or any other executive agency will be allowed to testify under oath to Congress. It’s all shut down. Likewise, no […]
Bookman: Determined minority dictated ‘heartbeat’ law to majority
Not surprisingly, a federal judge this week temporarily suspended a new Georgia law that proclaims that an embryo “at any stage of development” is a “natural person” with all the rights and protections of a human being. That law, House Bill 481, would also outlaw most abortions more than six weeks into a pregnancy. For […]
Bookman: U.S. House’s Collins about to make his reputation, for better or worse.
“The times have found us,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week, explaining that in light of new revelations she felt she had no choice but to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald J. Trump. In much the same way, the times have also found U.S. Rep. Doug Collins. They’re about to make the north […]
Bookman: Child welfare, public safety not big Georgia priorities
This is a story about priorities. Fearing a slowdown in tax revenue, Gov. Brian Kemp has ordered many state agencies to cut their budgets by 4% in the current budget year, and another 6% in the following year, for a total savings of roughly $530 million. Most of those savings would come from social-service, law-enforcement […]
Bookman: Ga. Chamber signs on to GOP’s new love of tariffs, free money
When Democrat Jon Ossoff announced this week that he will run against incumbent David Perdue for the U.S. Senate next year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Chamber of Commerce were ready to pounce. Citing a poll they commissioned earlier this year in Georgia, the two groups pointed out that Ossoff’s name recognition remains […]
Bookman: Get ready for GOP calls to cut Medicare, other “socialism”
With two seats up for grabs next year, control of the U.S. Senate may be decided right here in Georgia. That condemns us to hearing the word “socialism” hurled at us repeatedly over the next 14 months in Republican campaign speeches and TV ads. In a speech earlier this summer in Washington, U.S. Sen. David […]
Bookman: Isakson an honest man, too much of a legislator for modern D.C.
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson is an honest man, and he deserves honesty in return. So as he announces his reluctant retirement from public life, I offer honest admiration, an honest hope that he enjoys many years still to come in private life, and an honest and significant degree of disappointment. At 74, with a 40-year […]
Bookman: Courts forced to clean up Georgia’s elections mess
Back in 2017, when Gov. Brian Kemp was still Georgia’s secretary of state and responsible for running fair elections and protecting our right to vote, he haughtily dismissed criticism that the state’s elections systems were vulnerable to hacking and might bar legal residents from voting. Such questions, he wrote in USA Today, are “baseless and […]
Bookman: Insane approach to gun laws ripe for change
A black-clad man in full body armor, using an assault weapon equipped with a 100-round magazine, opened fire in a Dayton nightclub district and killed nine people, wounding another 17, in the 30 seconds before being gunned down himself by police. Another shooter, this one in El Paso, walked into a Walmart armed with an […]
Bookman: Georgia’s junior senator misplaces his outrage
That’s outrageous,” U.S. Sen. David Perdue said last month, responding to a controversy over tweets in which President Trump attacked four female members of Congress. To Perdue, it wasn’t outrageous that Trump told those four women of color to “go back” to the “crime-infested places from which they came,” as if they didn’t belong here, […]