All posts tagged "georgia"

‘Biggest mistake of her life’: GOP lawmakers dish on Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise retirement announcement seems to have House Republicans breathing sighs of relief.

Before the far-right Georgia representative shocked the political world and announced her plan to retire on the eve of the next Jan. 6 anniversary, her fellow Republicans wanted nothing to do with her ongoing digital brawl with the president over the Epstein files.

Greene herself didn’t want to talk about the spat she started with Trump.

“Are you getting a divorce from Trump?” Raw Story asked last Friday morning, as Greene and her mini-entourage headed to the House floor for members’ last vote ahead of their weeklong Thanksgiving recess.

The usually talkative congresswoman just shook her head no.

“She’s not taking questions today,” her MAGA-media boyfriend, Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice, answered for her.

Greene wasn’t the only Republican avoiding the topic of Greene.

‘No comment’

While no one outside Greene’s small circle of confidants saw her retirement coming, the MAGA darling had alienated many fellow Republicans in recent weeks.

“What have you thought of this dustup between MTG and Trump?” Raw Story asked Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), like Greene a hard-line controversy magnet on the right of the party.

“Above my pay grade on that,” said Gosar, who in 2024 was one of only 10 Republicans to join Greene’s attempt to oust Speaker Mike Johnson.

Other Republicans, especially those seeking a new office, were close-lipped too.

"That's between them, not me," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who’s running for governor back home, told Raw Story.

"Look, I just do my deal, so I haven't really thought much about it, to be frank with you."

Awkward.

“I don’t have any thoughts,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) — who served in the House alongside MTG until moving to the Senate in January — told Raw Story.

“I'm glad to be a senator.”

Even members of Greene’s Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee refused to come to the congresswoman’s aid in her clash with Trump.

"No comment there," Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) told Raw Story Friday morning.

"It's uncomfortable, right?" Raw Story pressed.

"My fire is focused on the Democrats," Gill said. “I'll put it that way."

‘All in with the boss’

If there was any doubt lingering about who controls the GOP, doubt no more: Trump won, again.

Greene’s decision to step down rather than duke it out with a primary opponent next year reveals the power of this presidency — because Greene’s one of the most prolific fundraisers on Capitol Hill.

Since her first win in 2020, the congresswoman’s raised a staggering $26.1 million. But even she withered at the thought of taking on her former MAGA-ally-in-chief.

“Biggest mistake of her life,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story outside the Capitol Friday morning.

“I don't know why you get into altercations with Donald Trump, the greatest president," Nehls added. "I mean, the guy, he's done a hell of a job, why would you do it?”

While Greene has not discussed her decision, on Capitol Hill there’s been lots of chatter about her failing to garner Trump’s blessing for a Senate run.

“You hear the reports, some are saying she wanted to run for Senate and the numbers didn't look good,” Nehls said.

“A lot of people up here think they deserve to get promoted or, you know, all this other stuff. I don't know, but it's not healthy. It's not healthy.”

Just hours before Greene made her retirement announcement, Nehls predicted her downfall.

“I don’t see how Marjorie can win this battle. I just don't,” Nehls said.

“And MAGA’s MAGA. MAGA’s not moving off," he added. "The boss has his supporters and they're not leaving him. The boss is the boss, and I support the boss. I'm all in with the boss.”

’Tis the season?

Politically speaking, Thanksgiving promises to be a lonely day for Greene.

“None of you guys want to talk about her fight with Trump,” Raw Story told Arizona Congressman Gosar. “It feels like an uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Probably, yeah,” Gosar said, smirking. “It might be a Christmas dinner.”

“Do you think they'll heal it eventually?” Raw Story asked. “Because members of your party have already found out what happens when you cross Trump.”

“She’d be wise to” heal the breach with the president, Gosar said Friday morning, ahead of the retirement announcement.

“It's nice to see spirit, but not unless it comes with temperament. I've learned that from my family.”

In 2018, six of Gosar’s siblings disavowed him politically and cut an ad for his opponent. Seven years on, as Congress left town for the recess, it was unclear who Gosar — or MTG — would be spending Thanksgiving with.

MTG's change of tactics is real — but something much more worrying for Georgia is not

The lines that separate truth from falsehood, reality from fantasy, have become so smeared in recent years that democracy itself becomes difficult. Edgar Allen Poe, and later the Temptations, gave us the motto for our times:

“Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”

But which half to believe? We’re now witnessing the introduction of high-quality, AI-driven deep-fake videos into Georgia politics, which makes it even harder to tell.

For example, the other day I saw a clip that depicted U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saying the following:

“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I’m committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another. As Americans, we have far more in common than we have differences, and we have to be able to respect each other in our disagreements.”

Was that real, or was it an AI deep fake? I’m told that it’s real, but I’m also told to believe none of what I hear, so ….

One way to approach that question is to first ask what we mean by “real.” If by real you mean did it actually happen, yes, it’s real. Greene actually said those words. She’s saying similar things quite a bit these days, to such an extent that she and Donald Trump are publicly exchanging charges that the other person has become a traitor.

But is it real in terms of a sudden change of heart, a transformation by Greene from vicious culture warrior to a champion of peace, love and understanding?

No. It is not.

What we’re seeing is Greene’s reaction to being told the obvious by Trump and other top Republicans, that she has no future in politics beyond representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She didn’t like to hear that, and what she now frames as enlightenment is better understood as just a different manifestation of the resentment and frustration that has fueled her entire political career.

It’s important to remember that as far back as 2023, Greene was publicly musing about her future as U.S. senator, governor or even higher.

“I have a lot of things to think about,” she told a reporter back then. “Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?”

Girl, no.

Don’t get me wrong, Greene does have some gifts as a politician, chief among them her instinct for the swings and sways of popular opinion within MAGA. That’s at play here too. It’s no accident that she has dared to divorce herself from Trump at a moment when he has become vulnerable. The economy is shaky, his immigration policy is unpopular, the poll numbers are bad and his bizarre mishandling of the Epstein case has made even close allies nervous. Greene seems to sense that if a door has been slammed in her face, fate may be opening a window.

And of course, we have an actual case of deep-fake video in Georgia, created through artificial intelligence, in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Jon Ossoff and a handful of Republican challengers. U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, has released a video in which a deep-fake Ossoff can be heard — and seen — telling voters that he just doesn’t care about the impact of the recent government shutdown on farmers, that his only concern is his out-of-state donors..

It looks real. It sounds real. And given the regrettable gullibility of American voters, at least some of them are likely to take it as real. The Ossoff campaign condemned the video, pledging never to produce deep fakes of its own, while Collins dismisses any such concerns.

“It’s just new technology, a new way to campaign, and you’re going to see a lot more of that out there,” he said.

Politics has never been a particularly truthful endeavor, but even then, fake quotes and fake photos have always been considered unacceptable distortions. Like a lot of people these days, the Collins campaign appears to believe that technology voids all those rules. They are living an approach that Trump has driven home, and that MAGA has fully embraced: If the rules and the norms get in the way of victory, screw the rules and the norms, and never ever apologize for doing so. If it works, if there’s no voter backlash to Collins’ actions, then yes, we will see a lot more of it.

Down that road lies chaos, though, and I’m hopeful that the American patience for chaos is running pretty thin these days.

  • Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
  • Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This big gamble could seal Trump's fate — but the case hangs by a thread

The stalled Georgia case against President Donald Trump and more than a dozen allies accused of trying to invalidate the results of the 2020 election was given new life last week. Or was it?

Peter Skandalakis, who was tasked with assigning the case to a different prosecutor following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s dismissal by a top court, has decided to appoint himself to oversee what remains of the sprawling case.

Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, highlighted the unusual nature of the case in his statement announcing his self-appointment:

“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case. Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment. Out of respect for their privacy and professional discretion, I will not identify those prosecutors or disclose their reasons for declining.”

Willis herself alluded to this “culture of fear” last month, warning that the national ramifications of the case and its outcome could make it difficult to find another prosecutor.

“I think you have prosecutors, citizens and even judges who are afraid right now, and for good reason,” she told WSB-TV Channel 2.

“The reality is it’s going to be hard to find a prosecutor that’s not afraid to prosecute that case when one of the primary defendants is threatening anyone that would dare to prosecute them.”

She went on to argue that other district attorney offices may lack the resources and the staff to take on such a huge case.

Skandalakis, for his part, says there are still some parts of the case he needs to review. But he already has some familiarity with the matter. Willis was previously barred from bringing charges against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, now a top Republican gubernatorial contender. A state senator at the time, Jones called for a special legislative session in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat and was one of the Republicans who participated in the alleged “fake elector” scheme. But a separate political conflict of interest resulted in Jones being severed off from any case brought by the Fulton DA.

Skandalakis would name himself to oversee the investigation into Jones after the lieutenant governor was listed as an unnamed co-conspirator. But he ultimately concluded that the case warranted no further action, saying that Jones was acting as an elected representative and not a criminal conspirator.

“Considering the facts, applicable law and the circumstances surrounding the events occurring in November and December of 2020 and January of 2021, I find the conduct and involvement of Sen. Jones as an elected representative to be reasonable and not criminal in nature,” Skandalakis said in 2024.

The appointment leaves Georgia as the only jurisdiction with an active criminal case against the president.

Trump was convicted in Manhattan last year for falsifying business records, and the two federal cases against him were dismissed upon his return to the presidency.

We don’t know how Skandalakis will handle the case going forward. But if his exoneration of Burt Jones is any indication, the case is still skating on thin ice: There is simply no precedent for a state-level prosecution against a sitting president, and he wouldn’t be able to serve any prison time until the end of his term in office.

As for the remaining defendants and conspirators? Trump recently pardoned many of them, including Jones, for trying to overturn the president’s 2020 loss. But given that presidential pardons don’t apply to state prosecutions, the order was largely symbolic.

Now it’s all up to Skandalakis to decide when – or if – the case makes it before a jury. However, finding 12 impartial Georgians with no knowledge of the case to judge a sitting president’s staunchest allies may prove to be the steepest hill to climb.

  • Niles Francis recently graduated from Georgia Southern University with a degree in political science and journalism. He has spent the last few years observing and writing about the political maneuvering at Georgia’s state Capitol and regularly publishes updates in a Substack newsletter called Peach State Politics. He is currently studying to earn a graduate degree and is eager to cover another exciting political year in the battleground state where he was born and raised.

Dems can win this red-state race if they can find the right face

With Brian Kemp leaving the governor’s office after next year’s election, Georgia Democrats have an opportunity to make history.

All they need now is a candidate.

The alleged frontrunner for the 2026 nomination is Keisha Lance Bottoms. According to a poll of Democratic primary voters commissioned by her own campaign last month, Bottoms “pulls more support than all other named candidates combined,” drawing 38 percent of likely primary voters.

However, I’d argue that’s more a sign of weakness than of strength. Only 9 percent of voters polled in that survey said they haven’t heard of Bottoms, which tells us that she’s a well-known commodity with less than overwhelming support, even in a field of relative unknowns.

And frankly, it’s hard to envision Bottoms winning a statewide general election. She is a former Atlanta mayor, which historically puts her at a disadvantage in much of the rest of the state. More important than that, Bottoms proved mediocre in the mayor’s office, accomplishing little and declining to run for re-election after her first term, without offering voters or supporters much of an explanation for walking away.

At a time when Democrats are looking for fighters, I’m not sure that’s a resume they should find attractive.

If Democrats do make Bottoms their nominee for governor, they also guarantee an endless run of commercials retelling the tragic tale of Secoriea Turner, the eight-year-old Atlanta girl who was shot dead by vigilante gang members in 2020. Secoriea was shot while riding with her mother in the back seat after Bottoms, as mayor, allowed gang members to take and keep control of a site in southwest Atlanta.

That’s a hard, even impossible thing to explain to voters.

In an election season that Republicans are desperately trying to turn into a soft-on-crime referendum, Secoriea’s story would become an anchor around the neck of every other Democrat on the ballot, from the U.S. Senate down to local races.

Bottoms’ best-known challenger is Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant governor and, more famously, a Republican recently turned Democrat. Duncan deserves credit for recognizing that the party of Donald Trump bears no resemblance to the party of Lincoln, Reagan and Johnny Isakson, and for having the moral clarity and guts to act on that recognition. As far as I can tell, his conversion to the Democratic cause is sincere, but in an era of heightened tribal identities he’s asking a lot from primary voters to place their faith in him.

So far, I’m a little surprised by the open reception he’s getting, but translating voter curiosity into actual ballots will be difficult. If Duncan can pull it off, it would be a major miracle and a national news story, but I’m not seeing much in the way of political miracles these days.

The other two major announced candidates, Jason Esteves and Michael Thurmond, offer an important generational contrast, and my guess is that one of the two will emerge as the nominee.

Esteves, 42, is a former chair of the Atlanta Board of Education and a former one-term state senator. He comes across well in public and has built an impressive slate of endorsements from those who have worked with him in his previous roles. In the investment world Esteves might be touted as a growth stock, and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t.

Thurmond, 72, has served ably in a variety of state and local offices, including state legislator, state labor commissioner and DeKalb County executive. He knows the state and state government, he has the resume of a governor and he campaigns and operates as a moderate. But for Democrats, he’s also the last holdover from a political era that a lot of Georgia voters either don’t remember or never experienced in the first place.

In the current environment, that might not be to his advantage.

  • Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
  • Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This senator helped Dems take control in 2020. Now a messy GOP fight could see him survive

Georgia is set to host what will likely be the most expensive U.S. Senate race in the country next year. But Republicans are still searching for a clear frontrunner to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who continues to raise huge sums of cash as he prepares to defend his seat.

U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, along with former football coach Derek Dooley, are locked in a three-way race to take on the first-term senator. But latest fundraising figures suggest that the party remains largely undecided on a consensus candidate.

Collins, a Butts County trucking company owner and the son of a former congressman, said he raised about $1.9 million since entering the race, plus an additional $1 million transfer from his congressional campaign account. His team is hailing the fundraising numbers as proof that Collins is the “unmistakable frontrunner” in the Republican primary.

Dooley, who boasts an endorsement from Gov. Brian Kemp, also raised a little less than $2 million since he joined the contest. The former Tennessee Volunteers coach and son of Georgia coaching legend Vince Dooley has to walk a fine line between satisfying both Kemp’s allies and MAGA loyalists. But he also has to alleviate concerns about his scant political history and thin ties to Georgia.

And Carter, a wealthy pharmacist from St. Simons Island and the only candidate who entered the race before the start of the third quarter, raised another $1 million over the three-month stretch and loaned himself an additional $2 million.

“We didn’t inherit anything from daddy,” he said in an apparent dig at his two rivals. “We’re earning it — every dime, every vote.”

With no leading Republican candidate, all eyes will now turn to President Donald Trump — who can single-handedly turn this into a completely different race with a social media post announcing an endorsement.

And the president said Wednesday that he is indeed keeping a close eye on the Senate race (and continued doubling down on false claims surrounding his 2020 defeat).

“The governor has spoken to me about [the Senate race] a lot, he likes [Dooley] a lot, and I understand that. I haven’t made a decision yet. But I’m following that race very carefully. I think it’s important for Georgia to get a real senator because [Ossoff] is a horrible senator.”

Ossoff continues to be among the top Senate fundraisers in the country, raising another $12 million between July and September and ending the period with more than $20 million stashed away. But it’s only a small fraction of what the race is likely to cost: nearly half a billion dollars was spent on Georgia’s 2022 Senate battle between Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Republican Herschel Walker.

And Ossoff has established a reputation as one of his party’s strongest fundraisers. His 2017 campaign in a congressional special election brought in over $30 million. The Atlanta Democrat has now raised more than $200 million since his 2020 Senate bid, when he and Warnock ousted Republican incumbents to deliver a narrow Democratic Senate majority.

“If we’ve learned anything from recent elections, it’s that raising more money isn’t necessarily an indicator of future electoral success,” said Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster who has worked behind the scenes on several Georgia campaigns.

“But Jon Ossoff raising more than 250 percent of all three of his potential Republican opponents combined in Q3 is telling.”

Head-to-head polling between Ossoff and his Republican rivals has been sparse. But the incumbent appears to be starting out on solid ground: Morning Consult’s updated tracking poll found his approval rating at 51 percent with a disapproval of 34 percent.

But will these numbers hold by this time next year once negative campaign commercials start flooding the airwaves?

  • Niles Francis recently graduated from Georgia Southern University with a degree in political science and journalism. He has spent the last few years observing and writing about the political maneuvering at Georgia’s state Capitol and regularly publishes updates in a Substack newsletter called Peach State Politics. He is currently studying to earn a graduate degree and is eager to cover another exciting political year in the battleground state where he was born and raised.

Dems eye shock win in red state election — as GOP frets voters 'completely checked out'

Democrats are hoping to shake up a deep red district in a special election Tuesday that promises to send a clear message on President Donald Trump's second term in office.

Debra Shigley, a Democratic attorney and mother of five, has told voters in Georgia to "send a message" to Trump and vote for her for Georgia State Senate, District 21. She's facing political outsider and Republican candidate Jason Dickerson, the Washington Post reported.

The two candidates are vying for the seat north of Atlanta, which became vacant when Trump appointed Sen. Brandon Beach, the Republican incumbent, as U.S. treasurer.

Shigley has campaigned with the head of the national Democratic Party, which hopes to add a win to the red state and add to its string of recent special election victories.

Although Republicans are expected to hold the seat, according to analysts, Democrats could narrow the margin or pull off a shocking win in a district that is "really Republican at the presidential level,” Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst for the nonpartisan site Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told The Post.

Kondik expects Shigley will “at least do better than what the presidential [margin] was.”

In the 2024 presidential election, Trump had two-thirds of the vote. During his reelection last year, Beach had 70% of the vote.

Shigley finished first in initial balloting for the special election and had 40% of the vote in the race as the only Democratic candidate. While Dickerson, who competed against six other Republicans, took the lead in his party.

While off-year elections might not predict the next major election, it is a temperature check. Democrats have seen success in recent months and some Republicans are worried, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) who mentioned the upcoming election and complained in a recent podcast that Republican voters “have completely checked out.”

Democrats see an opportunity to break through in a traditionally Republican state.

“We’re going to fight for every vote in Senate District 21 because the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. Martin visited the Peach State to campaign with Shigley over the weekend. His goal is to keep pushing the momentum that Democrats have gained while Trump has come back to the White House.

Sheer ambition has pitched this red state's leadership into a civil war

When the Georgia Senate stunned the state Capitol and wrapped up work before the typical midnight deadline on the last night of the 2025 session, a visibly frustrated House Speaker Jon Burns took a not-so-subtle dig at his friends across the hall.

“The House is focusing on its priorities of getting the job done, and we’re not worried about moving on to some other higher office,” the powerful Republican told reporters shortly before gaveling out his own chamber. “We came here to do a job, and we did our job.”

With the exception of the presidency, just about every position in politics can be considered a stepping stone to something bigger. But it’s not often (maybe once every four or eight years) that ambitious and powerful lawmakers suddenly go from colleagues to campaign rivals as they all seek to add another title to their resume.

The tension is already creeping into Georgia’s upper chamber, where greetings on the Senate floor have started to sound more aspirational than ceremonial. It’s not out of the ordinary, a former lawmaker once said, to hear someone walk onto the Senate floor and randomly shout, “Good morning, Congressman!”

But it’s becoming more than just a joke tossed around the chamber. At least 10 state senators — Republican and Democrat — are leaving behind their seats and leadership positions to run for “some other higher office,” in the colorful words of the speaker. And that number could grow as more offices open up ahead of the 2026 elections.

Let’s start at the top: Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who serves as president of the senate, recently launched a bid for governor.

Three Republican state senators have already entered the race to succeed Jones: Steve Gooch of Dahlonega, John F. Kennedy of Macon and Blake Tillery of Vidalia. State Sen. Josh McLaurin, a Sandy Springs attorney, is the only known Democratic contender so far.

With Attorney General Chris Carr also fighting for the governor’s chair, Republican state Sens. Brian Strickland of McDonough and Bill Cowsert of Athens, both lawyers, are aiming to become the state’s next top prosecutor. State Sen. Emanuel Jones is challenging a longtime incumbent in a metro Atlanta congressional seat. And state Sen. Jason Esteves is running in the Democratic primary for governor.

A lot of these names aren’t “backbenchers” — they are synonymous with the levers of power in the chamber. Kennedy is the president pro tempore, Gooch is the majority leader, and Tillery chairs the budget-drafting appropriations committee. Strickland chairs the judiciary committee, and Cowsert is also a former Senate leader (and a brother-in-law to outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp).

And a change in Republican bylaws means that many of these members must immediately stand down from their roles in leadership while they campaign for a different office, which means new leaders are already being named ahead of the 2026 session.

While this mass exodus of seasoned legislators definitely says a lot about their own ambitions (and how awkward next year’s session is going to be), it’s also a sign of the power transition underway at the state Capitol with Gov. Brian Kemp entering the final year of his term.

The governor’s mansion isn’t the only big office up for grabs. Insurance Commissioner John King is running to oust Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper are said to be plotting their next moves as well. More open statewide offices could lead to more lawmakers ditching their annual 40 days of work in search for higher office.

With several key senators already departing, however, the chamber is set to lose years of wisdom and institutional knowledge as key offices prepare to change hands. So the next governor and lieutenant governor won’t be the only ones learning on the job — a lot of their legislative partners will be new to their roles as well.

Strickland says the looming leadership turnover brings a great opportunity for new faces and names to step up to the plate.

“I think you’re going to see a chance for new people to step in who might have different leadership styles, but will maybe bring some needed changes in some particular areas,” he said recently while on break from court.

In the short term, lawmakers will need to convene for one more session before next November. But with so many senators running for other offices, how many of them will be focused on doing the work they were elected to do and not itching to get back out on the campaign trail?

“I think it’s incumbent on all of us who are running statewide to set [our campaigns] aside for those 40 days and to do the job we were elected to do for those 40 days,” finished Strickland.

“Obviously there’s going to be some tension. My hope is that it does not come from me.”

Georgia GOP has won 2026 already — with a truly evil scheme

It’s all over but the official count. Georgia Republicans can’t win the Senate seat now held by Democrat Jon Ossoff — the demographics will drown them: Georgia is now a “majority minority” state with non-whites predominant. EXCEPT. EXCEPT if the GOP can come up with a way to stop those un-white voters from voting.

And they have. This week, the violently partisan Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, announced that he is removing tens of thousands of voters who live in addresses that Republicans rarely haunt: office spaces used as housing [and] homes with 10 or more registrants.

That’s ON TOP OF the 480,000 voters the state is about to remove as “inactive voters.”

Hey, it all sounds reasonable. But consider this: in the entire history of Georgia, since the days of its treasonous attack on America, NOT ONE person has been convicted of voting while dead, while non-existent, while an illegal alien. Not one.

In other words, this is a punishment looking for a crime. And it’s severe punishment: losing your voting rights happens when you’re convicted of a felony crime.

But what you’re looking at is what we politely call, “institutional racism,” because, from what we learned from our in-depth study for the ACLU, is that the overwhelming number of Georgians purged are voters of color — the color ‘blue’ for Democratic. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, new young voters … you get it.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the premier voting rights organization, warned: “This would create new and unnecessary barriers to voting for Georgia’s unhoused and housing-insecure voters — a population estimated to include over 10,000 eligible Georgian voters. Among the segment of the homeless population that is residing in shelter facilities more than 50 percent of the time, 2022 data found 57 percent were Black and 31 percent were adult victims of domestic violence.“

Maj. Gamaliel Turner Maj. Gamaliel Turner. Photograph: Palast Investigative Fund

And here’s one of the most evil schemes announced by Raffensperger. (I use “evil” most carefully). He’s announced Georgia will remove 87,027 voters because they’ve filed Change of Address forms with the post office.

If you’ve seen my film, Vigilantes Inc., you know the story of Maj. Gamaliel Turner of Columbus, Georgia, because he filed a change-of-address to get his absentee ballot while assigned by the Pentagon to California. He was one 4,000 who lost their vote to a challenge by the Georgia Republican Party on or near his military base.

Then there was Christine Jordan, MLK’s cousin, who put in a change of address form because, at 92, she wanted her daughter to review her mail.

Then there is the case of Dr. Carry Smith, expert on voter purges, who herself was removed for cockamamy reasons.

But I want you to see the faces of American apartheid’s victims. If these were rare cases, I wouldn’t waste your time. But removing hundreds of thousands of voters can, and has, changed the presidency and control of the Senate.

And let’s not pussyfoot around the purpose of this ethnic cleansing of Georgia’s voter rolls: Gov. Brian Kemp is termed out next year, so the only way he can climb up the greasy pole is to challenge the popular Sen. Ossoff. Kemp can’t, and never has, won fair and square.

Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket raised the alarm this week about the new mass purges in Georgia. Elias cited my study for the ACLU that showed that 63.3 perscent of voters, in 2020, were purged from the rolls even though the Postal Service and Amazon’s experts (they know where you live) verified that 198,351 of them still lived at their legal voting address.

We gave the names of the wrongly purged to Raffensperger — who defied a federal judge in refusing to review our list. Still, Ossoff and Biden won the state: evidence that they can’t steal all the votes all the time.

But they can try. This year, the state has doubled the number of voters facing the elimination of their citizenship rights. Gerald Griggs, President of the Georgia NAACP, is staring at that list of half a million Georgia voters about to get the heave-ho. He says, “This is Jim Crow 2.0. We’ve warned you, America: what they test in Georgia they will take to your state.”

Christine Jordan. Greg Palast with Christine Jordan. Photograph: Palast Investigative Fund

What about those voters living at “commercial addresses.” That would be me: I lived in a building zoned for business which my friends and me turned into apartments. Who could have dreamed that my right to vote depended on my zoning.

By the way, Mr. Raffensperger: if you find illegal voters, arrest them. They’ll be in nursing homes … and, according to the Vera Institute, at least 10,000 are in Georgia’s jails awaiting trial. Mr. Raffensperger, a poor man who can’t make bail, sitting in the can awaiting trial for selling dime bags, should not lose their citizenship. We are not Russia. Yet.

Here’s what you can do:

  • Spread this story. Like it, and share it.
  • Subscribe to my new Substack.
  • Catch my new column at RawStory
  • Check if you’ve been purged by CHECKING YOUR REGISTRATION at Vote.org — NOW!

'Huge Coup for Dems': GOP dragged as prominent governor bows out of Senate race

News that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) will not run for Senate in 2026 had social media buzzing Monday.

Kemp had been the Republican favorite to take on incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Kemp's departure from the race may be a boon for MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has expressed interest in the Senate seat.

Kemp released a statement on his X account that read, in part, "Over the last few weeks, I have had many conversations with friends, supporters, and leaders across the country who encouraged me to run for the US Senate in 2026. I greatly appreciate their support and prayers for our family."

Kemp vowed to help "President Trump and Senate leadership" to "ensure we have a strong Republican nominee who can win next November."

Kemp's bowing out led to swift reactions across social media.

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MSNBC analyst Tim Miller posted, "While 98% of GOP pols have shamelessly sacrificed their integrity at the altar of Trump, Brian Kemp hasn't. And he understands that there is no way to run for Senate while Trump's president and maintain your dignity. So hat's off to him for that."

Democratic pollster Matt McDermott wrote, "Between Brian Kemp in Georgia and Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, a remarkably bad recruitment year for Republicans hoping to maintain their Senate majority."

"This is a huge, huge coup for Dems and a massive set back for GOPs going into 2026. Ossoff is a favorite against every other possible opponent and Kemp was the perfect GOP candidate to oppose him," wrote Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.

Republicans Against Trumpism posted, "Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will NOT run for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat in 2026 against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. It was recently reported that Marjorie Taylor Greene Is expected to run for the seat if Kemp stays out. Very good news for Ossoff."

Podcaster Mueller, She Wrote echoed the sentiment: "Kemp will NOT run for senate, making it easier for Ossoff."

Democrat takes shot at Trump after President mentions her name during big speech

Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams hit back at Donald Trump's accusation that the two-time nominee for governor was a paragon of wasteful government spending.

During Tuesday night's address to Congress, Trump "rattled off a list of questionable projects that received federal funding," including, "$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee headed up — and we know she's involved —just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?"

Republican lawmakers in the House chamber booed and jeered at the mention of her name.

CNN's John Berman asked Wednesday what her response was to Trump.

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"That he is trying to distract Americans from his failure to deliver on any of his promises, and instead of doing his work, he's going after those of us who are actually doing the work of the American people," Abrams responded. "I am very proud of the work that i've done to protect voting rights, to lower the cost of energy for real people in the state of Georgia, and working with organizations that want to do it around the country, because Donald Trump is failing in his promises and focusing on petty retribution instead of fulfilling his promises to the American people."

Berman then asked what Abrams' "connection" was to the organization that got the federal funding Trump mentioned.

"I led a project in southwest Georgia that has lowered the cost of energy for struggling families, and I'm extraordinarily proud of that work. And because of that work, because of the work of five major organizations around this country who have done more than 250 years of service combined, the Biden administration authorized a grant."

Abrams continued, and took a dig at Trump.

"I did not work for the entity that received the grant, ultimately — I worked for one of the partner organizations, but I was very much a part of pushing and showing America that we have the ability to lower prices, that the money is there, the will is there, the capacity is there. But what is not there is Donald Trump and his lackeys' willingness to actually let American people get the benefit of these services."

Watch the clip below via CNN or click the link.

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