Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

With their signature "rogue prosecution" law having been passed and having taken effect as of October 1, Georgia state Republicans are now trying to shut down Fulton County DA Fani Willis's RICO fraud case against Donald Trump and his inner circle of co-conspirators.

 

Georgia Senate Republicans filed a formal complaint to punish Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she sought charges against former President Donald Trump under a new law aimed at sanctioning “rogue” prosecutors.

The complaint contends Willis “improperly cherry-picked cases to further her personal political agenda” and asks the newly formed Prosecuting Attorneys Qualification Commission to initiate an investigation and take “appropriate measures” to sanction her.

“The integrity of our justice system is at stake, and the trust of the community in the District Attorney’s Office has been severely eroded,” states the complaint, which a group of eight state senators submitted hours after the law took effect Oct. 1.

The Republicans don’t specifically mention Trump in the complaint, but they sought to link a spate of deaths in the Fulton County Jail to Willis’ decision to “empanel a special grand jury to investigate her political adversaries” amid a yearslong backlog of cases.

Willis, who has criticized the law as racist and retaliatory, declined to comment through a spokesman. But she has long said that she can balance the high-profile trials in the Trump case with the other demands of her office.

The complaint sharpened an already deep rift over Trump among state Republicans.

Gov. Brian Kemp, a chief sponsor of the law, has repeatedly said there’s no evidence Willis should face any sanctions by the commission for bringing the indictment against Trump and his allies alleging they participated in a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Kemp, however, has criticized the timing of the charges.

“I haven’t seen anything that she has done that has broken the law or the procedures that we have. And I’ve been very honest with people about that,” Kemp said in a recent interview. “It may be a political action she’s taken in some ways, with timing and other things, but it doesn’t mean it’s illegal.”

But the GOP-controlled state Senate has forcefully broken from that approach. Senate leaders encouraged their constituents to file complaints with the commission against Willis shortly after she announced the indictment in August.

And last week, Senate Republicans launched a probe into dangerous conditions at the Fulton County Jail that is expected to scrutinize Willis’ handling of the backlog of cases that worsened during the coronavirus pandemic.

The document, reviewed Monday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was filed by a group that included Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch and state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, another high-ranking Republican in the chamber.

The complaint contends that Willis has “prioritized cases that align with her political party’s interests” rather than on the merits of each case. And it invokes the 10 inmates who have died in Fulton County custody in the past year.

 

Republicans can't let Fani Willis prosecute the case, or Trump will destroy them. They have to punish her or their political careers will be ended. That's where we are right now, even though this investigation will most likely go nowhere as far as the Trump case.

 

But they can make it very difficult for Willis and frankly, since Georgia Republicans are writing the laws and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on the legislation, an investigation into her office right now could very well sink the case completely on a technicality or "prosecutorial misconduct". Anything to get Trump off the hook.

 

And if you think Brian Kemp is going to play along when he's told his career ends if he doesn't, he will fall in line in the end. They always do.

We'll see where this goes.

Last Call For Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis clapped back at House Republicans trying to intimidate her into dropping her case against Donald Trump today, responding to accusations of election interference by pointing out what The US Constitution actually says.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Thursday blasted a congressman who has pledged to investigate her handling of an indictment of former President Donald Trump and others.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recently demanded records of Willis’ communication with Justice Department officials who have also indicted Trump for his role in an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Jordan suggested Willis is attempting to interfere with the 2024 election – Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination. And he said her investigation could infringe on the free speech and other rights of Trump and other defendants.

On Thursday, Willis fired back, saying Jordan’s Aug. 24 letter included “inaccurate information and misleading statements.” She accused Jodan of improperly interfering with a state criminal case and attempting to punish her for personal political gain.

“Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations,” Willis wrote of Jordan letter. “As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”

Jordan’s letter came 10 days after a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others for their roles in an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

A spokesperson for Jordan’s office did notrespond to a request for comment.

 

Jim Jordan got his sound bite last month, but Willis has the law on her side and she's well aware of it.  Jordan and the GOP know they can't do anything about the case, and Gov. Kemp hates Trump so much that's he's scuttling state GOP attempts to stop her.

 

Anyone who thought Willis was not going to be able to handle the pressure at this level of politics was clearly wrong, and that included me when this investigation was first announced.  I've since leared how formidable she is.

Trump's going to find out, that's for sure.

Retribution (Non) Execution

Georgia Republicans and MAGA cultists have had Fulton County DA Fani Willis n their sights for years now, but it seems like Gerogia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp isn't going to entertain a lynch mob...for now.

 

During a remarkable press conference, Gov. Brian Kemp quashed the idea of a special legislative session pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies to oust Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she charged them with a vast conspiracy to reverse his 2020 defeat.

And the governor on Thursday also dismissed talk of backing efforts to reprimand Willis, either through legislative hearings that seek to slash state funding to her office or a newly empowered panel that can sanction wayward prosecutors or remove them from office.

The second-term Republican said he hasn’t “seen any evidence” that Willis has violated her oath of office, even though he voiced concerns about whether she was motivated by politics to pursue the 41-count indictment.

“The bottom line is that in the state of Georgia as long as I’m governor, we’re going to follow the law and the Constitution, regardless of who it helps and harms politically,” Kemp said. “Over the last few years, some inside and outside of this building may have forgotten that. But I can assure you that I have not.”

Kemp added: “In Georgia, we will not be engaging in political theater that only inflames the emotions of the moment. We will do what is right. We will uphold our oath to public service. And it is my belief that our state will be better off for it.”

The governor is pushing back against an effort by Republican state Sen. Colton Moore to impeach Willis in the General Assembly. Beyond the significant legal issues that raises, the push is politically impossible because it requires Democratic support.

Kemp’s remarks came during a press conference at the state Capitol that opened with an update on storm damage from Hurricane Idalia in South Georgia — and unfolded just as Trump entered a not guilty plea to charges that he orchestrated a sprawling “criminal enterprise.”

He summoned a reminder of the fraught days after the 2020 election, when the governor and other Republican leaders were blamed by Trump for his defeat. That quickly made them targets of his supporters, who peppered them with death threats and vowed to oust Kemp from office.

He said he sees echoes of those volatile times now, as Moore and other far-right Republicans have pressured GOP lawmakers to join their push, leading to harassing behavior from Trump loyalists. At least five state senators have told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they’ve received threats.

Republicans, the governor said, should be talking to Georgians about their economic policies and public safety platforms and “not focused on the past, or some grifter scam that somebody’s doing to help them raise a few dollars into their campaign account.”

The governor joined a chorus of Republicans seeking to lower the temperature of the escalating rhetoric. House Speaker Jon Burns wrote a lengthy letter to Republicans warning that the initiative flouts “the idea of separation of powers, if not outright violates it.”

 

 Of course, Kemp and Donald Trump basically hate each other, so there's that. The bigger news is that much to my surprise, Kemp is handily resisting the calls for Republicans to interfere with Fani Willis's case, and it doesn't look like he's going to be swayed or threatened.

I figured Kemp would cave. He hates Trump more than that, it seems. I'm good with the reason and the results.

The Big Lie, Con't

Donald Trump's campaign continues to lie about the 2020 Georgia presidential election even after being indicted on state RICO charges over it, and now they are citing the indictments by Fulton County DA Fani Willis as further "evidence" that Georgia state lawmakers and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp are all part of the same massive Big Lie "conspiracy".

Although Trump’s allegations have repeatedly been disproven — often by his own advisers — they’ve taken a firm hold among his party. An Associated Press poll last week found 57% of Republicans said they didn’t view Biden as a legitimately elected president.

The 98-page Georgia indictment lists several false allegations made by Trump that were quickly disproven by fellow Republicans, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and Gov. Brian Kemp. Still, Trump insists to this day that the election was stolen from him and continues to lie about it.

After the indictment, he promised a press conference this week revealing a report he claimed would show how the Georgia election was stolen from him — a pledge he rescinded on Thursday, saying his lawyers wanted to make his argument in a court filing instead.

“Does anybody really believe I lost Georgia?” Trump asked on his Truth Social network Saturday. “I DON’T.”

By repeating the lie over and over, even when it has been repeatedly exposed as baseless, Trump is not only ensuring that his loyal followers remain energized, but also dominating the discussion and forcing others to relitigate the 2020 election on his terms.

At the recent Iowa State Fair, where he was campaigning for that state’s presidential caucus next year, Trump again claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.” In anticipation of the Georgia indictment, Trump’s campaign issued a statement a week ago saying prosecutors were “taking away President Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time.”

His attorneys have defended his actions by saying the former president sincerely believes fraud cost him reelection.

Lee McIntyre, a Boston University researcher, noted that many of Trump’s followers no longer see other Americans as legitimate opposition, but rather as an enemy. “This is strategic,” McIntyre said. “This is not a mistake. Somebody is profiting from this — politically, ideologically or financially — and we know it’s Trump.”

Known as “affective polarization,” that phenomenon has led to increased violence and political destablization in other nations. This month, FBI agents fatally shot an armed Utah man who had threatened to kill Biden and referred to himself online as a “MAGA Trumper.”

“It’s not just that the other side is wrong, it’s that the other side is evil, and they deserve to be punished, maybe even physically harmed,” McIntyre said. “It is no longer about facts, but about trust. It’s about teams, and which side you’re on.”

 

Increasingly, Gov. Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are The Enemy to Trump, and part of The Big Lie now. Trump wants to get rid of Fani Willis for sure, and Georgia GOP lawmakers are trying to make that happen.

 

But Trump also wants Kemp and Raffensperger gone too. Don't be surprised if Trump has a Georgia rally in MTG country in order to turn his MAGA cultists against the two of them as well.

Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is coming for the entire Trump Gang.

 

DONALD TRUMP MAY be in trouble in Fulton County, Georgia. But unlike the recent indictment of him in a federal court in Washington, DC, he may not be alone.

Three sources who have spoken with prosecutors tell Rolling Stone that they believe that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is likely to indict not just Trump, but a number of his associates involved in attempting to overturn the election, as well.

“It really seems like they’re coming for everyone,” says one lawyer who has repeatedly dealt with the prosecutors in this criminal probe. “Based on what I know, Willis and her team do not seem to be stopping at Donald Trump. The scope for this [likely coming indictment] is probably going to be a hell of a lot wider than that…and round up a significant number of people.”

The Fulton County DA’s office has declined to comment on what will occur with an indictment, and only she knows for sure who ultimately will be hit with charges.

Still, some of Trump’s own lawyers, as well as other attorneys retained by his election-denying allies, are already preparing for the very real possibility that Trump will have plenty of company in an upcoming indictment. Lawyers have already outlined legal strategies, memos, and other material that factor in their expectation that an array of these Trump subordinates will face charges alongside him, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Trump’s team is in part basing their expectation of wider charges on the subject matter of prosecutors’ witness grillings, as well as what the DA has asked for. Those inquiries include granular details of what certain Trump allies were doing in the weeks following Election Day 2020. Figures of particularly high interest have included, but aren’t limited to, the once obscure lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, and Rudy Giuliani, sources who’ve dealt with the prosecutors tell Rolling Stone.

The Fulton County district attorney’s office and attorneys for Trump, Eastman, and Giulaini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

In return, Donald Trump is making good on his threats that he's coming for Fani Willis. 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.

In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign “derogatory and false.” She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”

A Willis spokesman declined to comment.

In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.

But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone.

But the ad gets several facts wrong. The Rolling Stone article is an interview with YSL Mondo, one of Willis’ former clients in 2019 when she worked as a defense attorney, and it doesn’t make reference to any sort of affair.

In the interview, Mondo is quoted saying that he had some “auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks” with Willis. But the article notes that the two didn’t talk after his case was resolved.

After Willis was elected DA, her office opened a racketeering case against the rapper Young Thug and the alleged street gang Young Slime Life. YSL Mondo co-founded the Young Slime Life music crew with Young Thug in the early 2010s, according to Rolling Stone, and in the article commented that the Willis who defended him is not the same person who would pursue such a racketeering case.

Trump made a similar baseless relationship allegation against Willis during a Tuesday campaign rally in Windham, N.H.

“I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member,” Trump said. “And this is a person that wants to indict me.”

Since then, his comments have been amplified by several right wing activists.

The Trump campaign paid $79,000 for “The Fraud Squad” ad to run on cable news channels in metro Atlanta between Aug. 9 and 13, according to Medium Buying, which tracks political ad spending.

As I said last week, Georgia Republicans will almost certainly try to use a law passed earlier this year and signed into law by former GA Secretary of State and current GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to remove Willis from office for "misconduct" with an "independent commission" whose members are of course appointed by Kemp. That law is currently being challenged in state court by four of Willis's fellow Georgia County DAs.

What Trump is doing with his ludicrous slime job is laying the false justification for doing just that. If the indictment includes several of the false slate of electors who are powerful members of the state Republican Party apparatus on RICO and fraud charges as I strongly suspect, then the pressure on Kemp and the commission to remove Willis will be overwhelming, hence the lawsuit filed last week.

We're most likely headed for a massive court battle to even see if Willis will be allowed to bring her case against Trump at all, delaying a possible trial for months, if not years. Willis will be attacked on all sides, and Trump is sending a message to anyone else poised to charge him: you're next.

And even if he is found guilty, Gov. Kemp will then be under pressure to pardon Trump, his lackeys, and all the state Republicans who joined in.

What I'm saying is don't expect Trump to end up in an Atlanta jail anytime soon.

Fani, Flagged In Georgia

Four Georgia County District Attorneys are filing a lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 89, a measure passed in May by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and state Republican lawmakers to form an independent commission to review and remove County prosecutors and District Attorneys for "misconduct".

 

Four district attorneys filed a legal challenge to block a Georgia law championed by Gov. Brian Kemp that gives the state new powers to punish local prosecutors who don’t enforce tough-on-crime crackdowns.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges one of Kemp’s signature achievements this year — a Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to sanction “rogue prosecutors” accused of neglecting their duties.

The opponents of the law, which took effect in July, say it’s a power grab that threatens the independence of the judiciary, infringes on free speech rights and forces prosecutors to hide their stances from voters.

They framed the urgent GOP drive for the measure as backlash against district attorneys who promised not to charge low-level drug offenders, enforce the state’s anti-abortion law or take “punitive approaches” to criminal justice.

“From the moment they started drafting this legislation it was clear to me they had crossed constitutional lines,” DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in an interview.

“It’s of vital importance for district attorneys to have both independence and discretion,” Boston said. “This commission attacks our abilities as the ministers of justice to do that.”

Boston is among four district attorneys who brought the lawsuit, which was filed in Fulton County Superior Court. The others are Jonathan Adams, the top prosecutor in Butts, Lamar and Monroe counties; Cobb County District Attorney Flynn Broady; and Augusta District Attorney Jared Williams.

While the legislation passed along party lines — the sole Democrat to vote for the law has since switched to the GOP — the complaint shows the new commission remains divisive in the legal community. Adams is among several Republican prosecutors who have raised concerns about the law.

It’s one of a spate of measures Republicans adopted after a midterm campaign that focused on public safety, a theme Kemp reinforced when he declared that “far-left prosecutors are making our communities less safe” as he signed the law in May.

“Georgians in every community deserve to be safe,” Kemp, flanked by law enforcement officers, said at the ceremony. “Brave men and women in uniform are doing their part. District attorneys and prosecutors need to do theirs as well.”

 

It's bad enough that Kemp and Georgia Republicans are directly interfering in legal cases brought in the state, but the real alarm bells should be ringing over the one DA not mentioned in the lawsuit or the article: the DA for the most populous county in Georgia, Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

You know, the one currently conducting a grand jury investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 election fraud, involving several members of the Georgia GOP leadership, and possibly even Kemp himself.

Understand that I expect this "independent commission" will be used against Willis, with intent of removing her from office for bringing any charges against Trump in the state.

So yes, seeing this coming from a Georgia country mile away, her fellow DAs, some Republican, some Democratic, brought a lawsuit.

We'll see where all this goes, but keep this in the back of your mind if/when Willis brings charges as many observers expect.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Hugo Lowell has been covering the Trump crime beat for The Guardian for years now, and his reporting has been indispensable as much as it has been accurate, so when he reports that Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is preparing RICO indictments for Trump as myself and others have predicted, I believe it.

The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes.

In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.

Willis had previously said she was weighing racketeering charges in her criminal investigation, but the new details about the direction and scope of the case come as prosecutors are expected to seek indictments starting in the first two weeks of August.

The racketeering statute in Georgia is more expansive than its federal counterpart, notably because any attempts to solicit or coerce the qualifying crimes can be included as predicate acts of racketeering activity, even when those crimes cannot be indicted separately.

The specific evidence was not clear, though the charge regarding influencing witnesses could include Trump’s conversations with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the people said – and thereby implicate Trump.

For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.

The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.

The copied data from the Dominion Voting Systems machines, which are used statewide in Georgia, was then uploaded to a password-protected site from where election deniers could download the materials as part of a misguided effort to prove the 2020 election had been rigged.

Though Coffee county is outside the usual jurisdiction of the Fulton county district attorney’s office, the racketeering statute would allow prosecutors to also charge what the Trump operatives did there by showing it was all aimed towards the goal of corruptly keeping Trump in office.

A spokesperson for Willis did not respond to requests for comment. 

 

The outline of a broad racketeering trial is here, and it's something that Lowell's sources say is coming in the next couple of weeks. We'll see if he's right, but the evidence at hand is strongly pointing in more indictments in the next 2-3 weeks.

Hopefully these racketeering charges will apply to multiple Georgia GOP officials as well. And let's not forget, Jack Smith is taking a look at these false electors too at the federal level, and that includes Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

It's going to be a hot summer for the GOP.

Last Call For The Devil Went Down To Georgia, Con't

Donald Trump's legal team is asking Georgia's state supreme court to toss Fulton County DA Fani Willis's entire investigation into Trump's 2020 election interference conspiracy in the state, claiming Willis has no legal right to investigate Trump or to bring charges against him for acts he may have taken while in the Oval Office.

 

Weeks before he’s expected to be indicted in Fulton County, former President Donald Trump revived his push to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from investigating him for election interference.

In a petition filed before the Georgia Supreme Court, Trump’s attorneys also sought to quash the final report of a special purpose grand jury that recommended people be indicted. Additionally, they requested a ruling that would forbid Willis from using any evidence obtained by the investigative jury, which heard testimony from about 75 witnesses between May 2022 and Jan. 2023.

The motion filed on Thursday asks Georgia’s highest court to put a halt to any ongoing proceedings “related to and flowing from the special purpose grand jury’s investigation until this matter can be resolved.” This would include any consideration of a possible indictment for alleged criminal meddling in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election by one of two regular Fulton grand juries that were seated on Tuesday.


Trump’s attorneys — Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg and Jennifer Little — acknowledged that such a petition filed before Georgia’s highest court is typically a long shot. But they said “extraordinary circumstances” justify it now.

“Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the motion said. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”

In March, Trump’s attorneys filed a motion in Fulton Superior Court also asking officials to disqualify Willis and toss out the special grand jury’s findings. They noted this time that Judge Robert McBurney, the supervising judge of the special grand jury, has yet to rule on the motion and that Willis has notified local court officials and law enforcement she is likely to seek an indictment at some point between July 31st and Aug. 18th.

“Stranded between the supervising judge’s protracted passivity and the district attorney’s looming indictment, (Trump) has no meaningful option other than to seek this court’s intervention,” the motion said.

Willis’s office previously said Trump’s arguments for dismissal were barred by lack of standing, untimeliness and other procedural flaws. The Republican’s efforts were premature because no one has been charged with a crime yet, prosecutors said.

“If an investigation results in actual criminal charges against (Trump), the justice system ensures they will have no shortage of available remedies to pursue,” the DA’s May response argued.

Trump’s lawyers also filed a similar motion in Fulton Superior Court on Friday, saying they did so out of an abundance of caution.

A spokesman from the DA’s office declined to comment on the state Supreme Court filing. McBurney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Both motions contend that Willis and McBurney “at every turn” have trampled on the procedural safeguards and rights of Trump and others under investigation.

“The whole of the process is now incurably infected,” the motion said. “And nothing that follows could be legally sound or publicly respectable.”

It asserted that the Georgia statute allowing for the operation of special grand juries was unconstitutionally vague. It said that publication of excerpts of the final report would violate the former president’s rights to fundamental fairness and due process and lead to “irremediable injury” to his reputation as he runs for the GOP nomination for president for a third time.

“(Trump) now sits on a precipice,” his lawyers’ motion said. “A regular Fulton County grand jury could return an indictment any day that will have been based on a report and predicate investigative process that were wholly without authority.”

 

The motion is nonsense, of course. It assumes plenary executive immunity to state crimes, and assumes that indictments will wreck Trump's 2024 campaign run, which won't actually happen (it should) but that's not a reason to grant Trump immunity and wipe out the investigation.

It's a long shot but the play here is victimization, setting the table for what Trump's lawyers know is coming: criminal charges that he can't absolve himself of if convicted.

Of course, Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp could do exactly that, so...

We'll see.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

The special grand jury investigating Donald Trump's 2020 election interference in Georgia has finished its work and is suggesting that its report be made public, as Fulton County DA Fani Willis weighs her options going forward with possible indictments.

The Georgia special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully sought to interfere in the state's 2020 U.S. presidential election results has issued its final report, a court filing showed on Monday, but it remained unclear whether criminal charges will follow.

In an order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney dissolved the grand jury now that its work is complete and set a Jan. 24 hearing to determine whether the report will be made public. The jurors recommended that their findings be released, McBurney said in the order.

The special grand jury, which was convened at the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, had subpoena power but not the ability to issue indictments. Willis will ultimately decide whether to bring charges against Trump or anyone else, though the jury's report could include recommendations.

Willis, a Democrat, opened a criminal investigation soon after a January 2021 phone call in which Trump, a Republican, urged top election officials to "find" enough votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's statewide victory.

The grand jury heard testimony from numerous state officials including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as key Trump advisers such as U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and attorney Rudy Giuliani, many of whom unsuccessfully attempted to quash their subpoenas.

Prosecutors have told Giuliani he is a target and could face criminal charges, as well as Trump allies who backed a scheme to appoint alternate electors in a bid to deliver Georgia's electoral votes to Trump, rather than Biden, in the Electoral College process that determines the outcome of presidential elections.

 

So, the questions are if the report will ever see the light of day, and if DA Willis will press charges. Doing so immediately would make her a target, both in the political sense as GOP Gov.  Brian Kemp and the GOP-dominated state legislature will almost certainly try to attempt to remove Willis from office if she does charge Trump and/or his inner circle, and in the dangerously literal sense of the very real possibility of violence by Trump faithful, up to and including Atlanta PD, Fulton County Sheriff's office, or the Georgia State Police.

We'll know soon, possibly by the end of the month.

Georgia On My Mind, Con't

The races for Governor and Senator in Georgia are shaping up to have no small amount of ticket-splitting, if the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll is any indication.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is slightly ahead of Republican Herschel Walker in the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of a race that could decide control of the Senate, while Gov. Brian Kemp has an apparent lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch for Georgia’s top office.

The AJC poll is the latest that suggests a split-ticket dynamic may be emerging in Georgia’s two marquee races, with a small but crucial bloc of voters indicating they’re willing to cross party lines to cast ballots for both the incumbents in the nationally watched contests.

In his second election against Abrams, Kemp leads the Democrat 48% to 43% with an additional 7% of likely voters who haven’t made up their minds. A statistically insignificant number of voters back Libertarian Shane Hazel and Al Bartell, an independent candidate.

Warnock edges Walker 46% to 43% in his bid for a full six-year term, with about 3% of voters indicating they’ll support Libertarian Chase Oliver. About 8% say they’re still undecided about the race, which is likely to be among the costliest in the nation.

“Both of these races are very close statistically,” said Trey Hood, a University of Georgia political scientist who conducted the poll.

“There’s a long way to go before the general election, but a trend is emerging with recent polls: Kemp is consistently polling ahead of Abrams and Warnock is polling ahead of Walker.”

 

And yes, one out of six Democrats in the state are willing to keep Republican Brad Raffensperger as Secretary of State over Democrat Bee Nguyen. So there's plenty of evidence that individual races matter, at least in Georgia, and that there's not monolithic, straight party ticket voting going on.

 

Vote like your country matters, folks.

Abrams, Elementary

In Georgia, the race for Governor between Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams is suddenly all about who will for paying teachers more.

Democrat Stacey Abrams proposed raising the minimum salary for Georgia public school teachers to $50,000 a year if she’s elected governor, part of a four-year plan that would hike the pay of K-12 educators by $11,000.

Abrams said Sunday she would finance the estimated $412 million annual cost over each of the next four years by relying upon revenue from Georgia’s budget without increasing taxes or imposing new fees. She framed the $1.65 billion plan as essential to retain teachers and improve the state’s education system.

“When our pipeline is thinning and our exodus is increasing, we are losing the fight for our children’s future,” said Abrams. “We need a governor who does not see education as an election-year gimmick but sees our responsibility as a guarantee for the strongest future for our people.”

The Democrat’s proposal would more than double Gov. Brian Kemp’s pledge in 2018 to hike annual teacher pay by $5,000, a promise he made weeks before the election that became a central part of his appeal to a broader set of voters after a bruising primary.

At the time, Abrams derided the Republican’s proposal as a “gimmick” and said he couldn’t be trusted to carry it out. Kemp signed a record $30.2 billion budget earlier this year that included the final installment of the promised pay hike.

In a scathing response, Kemp’s campaign predicted that Abrams was understating the price tag of her proposal and asserted that she would have to levy new taxes to pay for it.

“Following the lead of her pals in the Biden administration, Stacey Abrams’ latest Hail Mary proposal for over $2 billion in new state spending annually joins an ever-growing pile of pie-in-the-sky plans that would make inflation worse and require higher taxes on Georgia families to pay for it all,” said Kemp spokesman Tate Mitchell.

Abrams rolled out her proposal in tandem with the endorsement from the Georgia Association of Educators, an influential advocacy group that represents roughly 23,000 teachers. Lisa Morgan, the association’s president, assailed a Republican-backed school policy overhaul that Kemp engineered.

“Adjusted for inflation, our educators are making less now than they did in 1999,” Morgan said outside the group’s headquarters, adding: “It’s not just about salaries. It’s about educators being treated as the professionals they are.”

 

So if I'm reading this right, Kemp used COVID relief money that Republicans voted against to raise minimum teacher salaries from $34k to $39k, and he wants a gold medal for it.

I can't imagine why Georgia, like just about every other red state who refuses to pay teachers more money because they don't want public education at all, continues to have a critical teacher shortage.

Please note Kemp's response is not that teachers shouldn't earn more than $39k, it's that somebody has to pay for it.

Here's an idea. Maybe move around some of those billions thrown at policing every year to buy surplus military gear to use against Georgians, particularly Black Georgians.

Again, just an idea.

The GOP Race To The Bottom, Con't

With his support from Donald Trump essentially the only thing keeping him even remotely close in today's Georgia gubernatorial primary, former GOP Sen. David Perdue needs something of a miracle to pull off the win against avowed Trump enemy GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.  But because these are Republicans we're talking about, Perdue's final actions before the vote indicate he has plead for intervention from below, rather than above.

Former Senator David Perdue ended his Trump-inspired campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the Black woman who is the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race” in how she has described the state’s problems.

Speaking to an overwhelmingly white crowd, Mr. Perdue trained his ire on Ms. Abrams, who narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race to Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican whom Mr. Perdue is vying to unseat in Tuesday’s primary.

Mr. Perdue’s remarks about Ms. Abrams transcended the typical Republican primary campaign fare about stolen elections and accusations of disloyalty to former President Donald J. Trump. In a state where segregationists once demonized civil rights leaders as unwanted interlopers, and where how to interpret the nation’s history of slavery and racism remains a contentious subject, Mr. Perdue cast Ms. Abrams as an outsider in a state that has been her home since high school.

“Did you all see what Stacey said this weekend?” Mr. Perdue said from the stage. “She said that Georgia is the worst place in the country to live. Hey, she ain’t from here. Let her go back to where she came from. She doesn’t like it here.”

Mr. Perdue also injected race into a 2018 remark Ms. Abrams made about her pledge to create jobs in the renewable energy sector.

“People shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or hospitality to make a living in Georgia,” she said in the closing weeks of her 2018 campaign. “Why not create renewable energy jobs? Because, I’m going to tell y’all a secret: Climate change is real.”

On Monday, Mr. Perdue said: “When she told Black farmers, ‘You don’t need to be on the farm,’ and she told Black workers in hospitality and all this, ‘You don’t need to be,’ she is demeaning her own race when it comes to that. I am really over this. She should never be considered material for governor of any state, much less our state where she hates to live.”

Mr. Perdue’s remarks came in response to comments Ms. Abrams made Saturday in which she dismissed Mr. Kemp’s regular line that under his stewardship, Georgia has become the best state in the nation to do business.

“I am tired of hearing about being the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live,” Ms. Abrams said. She added: “When you’re No. 48 for mental health, when you’re No. 1 for maternal mortality, when you have an incarceration rate that’s on the rise and wages that are on the decline, then you are not the No. 1 place to live.”

After concluding his remarks on Monday, Mr. Perdue ignored questions about his description of Ms. Abrams and his proposition that she was “demeaning” to Black people, and an aide hustled him off.

The Wisconsin-born Ms. Abrams spent most of her early childhood in Mississippi but moved to Georgia in high school. She graduated from Avondale High School in DeKalb County and Spelman College in Atlanta.

During an interview on MSNBC on Monday evening, Ms. Abrams declined to comment on Mr. Perdue’s remarks.

“Regardless of which Republican it is, I have yet to hear them articulate a plan for the future of Georgia,” she said.

 

I mean when you're down by more than 30 points in a Republican primary in a Southern state where a Black woman is running as the Democratic challenger in the general election, vile racism is actually something that will probably help him among Republicans. After all, this is the state that gave us Marjorie Taylor Greene.

It's a final roll of the blackened, bloody dice, and a nice reminder that all Republicans are terrible.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp failed to deliver the state into Donald Trump's win column, and then had the unmitigated gall to say that no, the elections for President and for both senators were not stolen. As such, Donald Trump now wants Kemp gone by any means necessary, even if that means voting in Democratic challenger and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams as governor of Georgia.

Donald Trump is escalating his fight against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, and state Republicans fear it will give Democrats a stronger foothold in the key swing state as next year's midterm elections loom. 

The former President's criticism of Kemp now includes hyping Democrat Stacey Abrams as a preferable alternative to the GOP governor, whose crime against Trump was staying out of his attempt to overturn the Georgia 2020 election returns. 

"Having her, I think, might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know what I think," Trump said Saturday at his rally in Perry, adding later, "Stacey, would you like to take his place? It's OK with me." 

Party leaders worry a divided Georgia GOP next year could hand Democrats the governor's mansion and help them keep a Senate seat in a year when Republicans should do well. And the former President's quasi-endorsement of Abrams reveals the diffidence among party leaders about how to proceed. 

"I think the most notable part is the quiet of everyone in the GOP in Georgia," said Erick Erickson, an Atlanta-based talk radio host. "No one agrees with him. No one is endorsing it. But no one is vocally pushing back, either." 

At the same time, the battle in Georgia reveals the larger war for the party's future and what role Trump occupies in it. 

The former President is doing his part to try to shape this future in his own image in Georgia. He has endorsed a slate of Republican candidates for statewide office in competitive primaries. Several of these attended his rally in Perry last weekend, including Herschel Walker for US Senate, Burt Jones for lieutenant governor and Jody Hice for secretary of state. 

"I do not see how the governor can unite the party without reconciling with the former President," said one longtime Georgia Republican operative. "This is not a question of fairness. It is a question of reality. Kemp needs the party united in 2022." 

But other Republicans in Georgia say demanding total loyalty is a risky proposition for a decidedly purple state that Trump lost in 2020. And the stakes for the GOP are high, with the US Senate race in Georgia potentially determining which party holds the majority after next fall's midterms. 

"Trump could prevent Republicans in Georgia from riding a massive anti-Biden wave that could put them almost where they were pre-Trump," said a second Republican operative from Georgia. 

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and vocal critic of Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, wrote in a CNN op-ed last week that Trump threatens to "hijack our great state for his own selfish agenda." 

"It might make for good theater, but it is setting back the conservative movement. If we keep it up, we are looking at another four years of President Biden calling the shots," Duncan wrote.

 

So yes, Trump is both willing to load up his GOP endorsements based solely on loyalty to helping him steal elections, and he will punish those who do not by replacing them with Democrats. The Trump party is all Trump, all day, all the time, forever.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The GOP now exists to do Dear Leader Trump's bidding, and the purging of the heretical and the apostate continues as the party attacks the insufficiently loyal.

 

Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) is calling on Georgia’s top law enforcement official to investigate Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) for his handling of the 2020 election.

Loeffler sent a letter on Wednesday to state Attorney General Chris Carr requesting a probe into whether Raffensperger used his office to advance his personal political interests during the 2020 election cycle, alleging that he “politicized and minimized voters’ legitimate concerns about changes to Georgia’s elections” that came about in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This request is not about the outcome of an election, but about the loss of confidence in our elections and the importance of holding elected officials accountable for upholding the law and carrying out their constitutional duties,” Loeffler wrote.

“If voters don’t trust the electoral process and their elected officials, we risk sustained damage to voter participation in our state,” she added.

The letter lays out a slew of allegations against Raffensperger, including that he failed to adequately address absentee voting and other procedural issues in Georgia’s widely panned 2020 primary elections. The letter also faults Raffensperger for recording a January phone call with former President Trump, during which Trump sought to pressure him to “find” enough votes to reverse President Biden’s victory in the state.

Other charges listed in the letter include that Raffensperger entered into a consent decree that changed the signature verification process for absentee balloting without informing the Republican-led state legislature. That claim echoes one made in a lawsuit filed last year by pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood.

Raffensperger’s office has claimed that the consent decree did not significantly alter the signature review process, and that it therefore did not require the approval of the state general assembly. Carr himself was the one who signed the settlement agreement for the state.

“Georgians deserve answers regarding these issues and to understand the impact these and other matters may have on future elections,” Loeffler wrote in her letter. “Failure to acknowledge these issues and irregularities will lead to a continued loss of trust in our elections.”

Carr’s office declined Loeffler’s request on Wednesday, saying that, as the lawyer for Georgia’s executive branch, the attorney general cannot investigate its own client.

“Under the Georgia Constitution, the Department of Law is the lawyer Executive Branch of government – which includes the Secretary of State’s Office,” a spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office said in a statement. “As such, we cannot investigate our own client on these particular matters. We’ve forwarded the letter to our client for their review and appropriate response.”

 

Note Raffensperger is being accused of what Republicans across the country did, including the Trump regime: enriching themselves at the public's expense. And frankly, I'm pretty okay with him going to jail over that, especially if what he did was done at Gov. Brian Kemp's orders.

Raffensperger turning on Kemp would be amazing. I'd love to see all of them go down.

Republicans are still Republicans. Let them all burn for their sins.

Vernon Learnin' The Truth

Last year a Black Georgia lawmaker, Vernon Davis, announced he would switch to the Republican party in order to endorse Donald Trump. Republicans hailed it as proof that Trump was going to win as much as a quarter of the Black vote in 2020 or more. Trump didn't even win Georgia, let alone a quarter of the Black vote nationally, it was less than half of that.

 

But then Vernon Davis decided he was going to run for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp's job, and he's learning the hard way just what Southern White Republicans think about Black Republicans who dare to be anything other than window dressing to help them hurt Democrats.

A former Democratic state legislator who switched parties after he endorsed Donald Trump launched an insurgent challenge Friday against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, setting the stage for a race that will test the former president’s influence in Georgia.

Vernon Jones aims to tap into GOP anger at Kemp for resisting Trump’s demands to overturn Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia in November, though his long record as an elected Democratic official seems certain to complicate his bid to win over Republican voters.

At a sparsely attended kickoff event outside the state Capitol, Jones delivered a roughly 30-minute speech where he called Kemp a phony conservative and pledged to replace Georgia’s voting system, which came under attack by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists after Biden’s victory.

As he signed autographs for a small group of supporters, Jones refused to answer a question about how he can attract GOP support as a lifelong Democrat or say whether he expects to receive Trump’s endorsement.

The former president has repeatedly promised to back a primary challenger to Kemp, though it’s not yet clear whether he’ll side with Jones, who gained national attention after he publicly supported Trump’s reelection campaign a year ago. Jones formally switched to the GOP in January, after his term in the Legislature expired.

Even with Trump’s help, Jones faces a steep challenge with the Georgia GOP electorate. Though recent polls show Kemp has been damaged by his falling out with Trump, the first-term governor’s outspoken support for a controversial package of new election restrictions has helped him rally the party’s base.

In recent weeks, Kemp has been a mainstay on conservative cable TV shows and enjoyed raucous receptions at grassroots meetings across the state, seemingly dissuading better-known Republican rivals such as former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, whom Trump once recruited to run.

What’s more, Jones must answer for a long history of controversy in public office that includes allegations of sexual assault that he has denied, along with votes that could alienate Republicans such as Jones’ opposition to a strict anti-abortion “heartbeat” measure that Kemp signed into law in 2019.

Kemp and his allies are eager to portray a contrast between the state’s first lifelong Republican governor since Reconstruction and a party-switching Democrat who only endorsed Trump last year. Bobby Saparow, Kemp’s campaign manager, recited a list of Jones’ stances that included his support for Barack Obama, backing of firearms restrictions and opposition to anti-abortion legislation.

“He is not a Republican, and he is certainly not a conservative,” Saparow said. “Assuming he actually stays in the race, we look forward to contrasting Gov. Kemp’s successful conservative record with Vernon Jones’ liberal, corrupt tenure in public life.”

 

To recap: Vernon Jones staying on the sidelines as a Republican to act as a pro-Trump prop, proof that Democrats have failed Black America.  Vernon Jones running for office as a Republican, proof Jones is a traitor, no different from The Hated Barack Obama™.

Enjoy your new "friends", Vernon. They hate you more than Democrats ever will for being a Republican.

A Whole New Ballgame, Con't

Both Republicans and Democrats in Georgia believe Major League Baseball's decision to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta this summer over GOP Gov. Brian Kemp's voter suppression laws will politically profit them, but as with baseball, only one side gets to win the game in the end.

Brian Robinson, a GOP strategist skilled in explaining the state’s Republican base to a mainstream audience, predicted it could be a singular moment in the 2022 race.

“The Democrats in one week have united a fractured Georgia GOP, rallied Republicans to Brian Kemp at a time when many had abandoned him and appalled the same independent voters who broke heavily toward them last year,” he said, before invoking Kemp’s likely 2022 rival.

“Stacey Abrams couldn’t have done more for Brian Kemp’s reelection hopes if she’d written a $10 million check to his super PAC.”

There was one Republican who didn’t stick to the same GOP script on Friday: Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan. In a statement, the former minor league pitcher said he disagreed with Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision but respected the outcome.

Then Duncan repeated what he’s said since November: He criticized Trump for promoting lies about Georgia’s election, saying the post-election misinformation campaign “continues to manifest itself and divide our nation.”

“And now, misinformation surrounding Georgia’s new elections reform has furthered that divide – even reaching MLB baseball.”

To be clear, Duncan’s stance is no surprise. He was one of the first elected GOP leaders to loudly debunk the pro-Trump conspiracy theories, and it earned him the enmity of the former president. Earlier this year, he refused to preside over the vote on a previous, and more restrictive, proposal.

But Duncan’s comments raise even more questions about his chances in 2022, when he’s up for another term, and his plans to promote a “GOP 2.0.” As one senior Republican official posited, Duncan’s statement was a “weird way to announce you aren’t seeking re-election.”

State Democrats want to make Georgia the poster child for federal voting legislation that’s stalling in Congress, and party leaders hope the white-hot spotlight on the new law helps them build their case.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, facing another election next year, said Friday’s fallout only proves the federal overhaul is needed more urgently. And Abrams, the once-and-likely-future gubernatorial candidate, called on corporate and political leaders to support the voting expansions pending in Congress to “mitigate the harm” in Georgia.

Georgia Democrats also have their eye beyond the U.S. Capitol and the Gold Dome. That’s one of the reasons they’ve stepped up their criticism of the new law and urged major corporations to publicly oppose it even though it’s already in the books.

Dozens of restrictive voting measures are pending in other states, and the pressure campaign aims to force local lawmakers to think twice before passing those laws in other state legislatures, too.

In Texas, for one, legislation that would limit early voting hours and restrict mail-in voting is gaining traction, while Florida legislators could soon consider a measure that would curb the use of drop boxes.

Democrats shaped the national narrative of Georgia’s election measure early, in part because they capitalized on proposed measures that included more far-reaching restrictions that never reached a final vote.

As Duncan, the GOP lieutenant governor, put it: Republicans “fell into the trap set by the left and allowed them to make the bill into something that it’s not.”

Now Democrats have their own challenge: At the start of what could be a growing boycott movement, how do they avoid getting blamed for the economic backlash? 

 

That's what's going to determine the political fallout over this, but remember that Republicans are the one who should be blamed for the outcome of this. Whether they are is another thing entirely.

A Whole New Ballgame

Georgia Republicans pass new Jim Crow voting suppression laws, Major League Baseball reacts swiftly in response.

Major League Baseball announced Friday that it is moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to a new Georgia law that has civil rights groups concerned about its potential to restrict voting access for people of color.

The 2021 MLB draft, a new addition to All-Star Game festivities this year, will also be relocated.

In a statement, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league is "finalizing a new host city and details about these events will be announced shortly." A source told ESPN that the 2022 All-Star Game is still planned for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and that that site won't be moved up to fill the void this summer.

"Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views," Manfred said in his statement. "I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year's All-Star Game and MLB Draft.

"Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game's unwavering support."

The Atlanta Braves said they were "deeply disappointed" by the outcome.

"This was neither our decision, nor our recommendation and we are saddened that fans will not be able to see this event in our city," the team said in a statement. "The Braves organization will continue to stress the importance of equal voting opportunities and we had hoped our city could use this event as a platform to enhance the discussion. Our city has always been known as a uniter in divided times and we will miss the opportunity to address issues that are important to our community.

"Unfortunately, businesses, employees and fans in Georgia are the victims of this decision."

The Players Alliance, consisting of more than 100 current and former players who have united in an effort to empower Black communities, came out in support of MLB's decision with a statement that read in part: "We want to make our voice heard loud and clear in our opposition of the recent Georgia legislation that not only disproportionately disenfranchises the Black community, but also paves the way for other states to pass similarly harmful laws based largely on widespread falsehoods and disinformation."

 

Braves are upset. Gov. Kemp and Republicans are furious and are already talking about punishing the MLB in some way. This does however put Georgia Democratic senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in a bad spot. Ossoff already has come out against this.

We'll see how this plays out.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signed the state's voter suppression omnibus package into law yesterday, and the symbolism of the signing ceremony is a perfect description of what the bill is designed to do.

Georgia state troopers arrested state Rep. Park Cannon on Thursday as she knocked on Gov. Brian Kemp’s door, interrupting his livestreamed announcement that he had signed an elections bill into law.

The officers forcibly removed Cannon, a Democrat from Atlanta, dragging her through the Capitol and pushing her into a police car. She was charged with obstruction of law enforcement and disrupting General Assembly sessions, according to the Georgia State Patrol and released on bond late Thursday.

Cannon was with several other protesters when she knocked on Kemp’s office door, saying the public should be allowed to witness the announcement of the bill signing. The sweeping legislation requires ID for absentee ballots, limits drop boxes and changes early voting hours.

Tamara Stevens, an activist who was with Cannon, said she wasn’t being disrespectful or causing a disturbance.

“She knew he was signing a bill that would affect all Georgians — why would he hide behind closed doors? This isn’t a monarchy,” Stevens said. “You have a women of color fighting for the rights of Georgians and they arrested her for knocking on the door because she wanted to witness our governor sign the bill.”

Cannon was charged with the two counts taken to the Fulton County Jail after she refused repeated warnings to stop knocking on Kemp’s office door, according to the Georgia State Patrol.

“She was advised that she was disturbing what was going on inside and if she did not stop, she would be placed under arrest,” said GSP spokesman Lt. W. Mark Riley. “Rep. Cannon refused to stop knocking on the door.”

Court documents show she was charged with “knowingly and intentionally” knocking on the governor’s door during a bill signing and stomping on Officer L.T. Langford’s foot three times “during the apprehension and as she was being escorted out of the property.”

“The accused continued kicking on LT Langford with her heels,” according to the arrest warrant.

 

A black woman and state lawmaker was disappeared so quickly away from Kemp and all the white men at his ceremony that it almost created a sonic boom.

 

The only thing that vanished faster yesterday were the voting rights of Georgia's Black population. As I said on Twitter yesterday:

As former GA Secretary of State, Kemp knows precisely what this bill will do to Black voters in the state.

He's counting on it. https://t.co/gY0LNjja3T

— Gender Reveal Cannon Zandar (@ZandarVTS) March 26, 2021

 

Don't expect the Supreme Court to fix this either. The time for ending the filibuster and setting national voting access laws is now.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Georgia Republicans found out the hard way that Georgia isn't a red state, it's a purple state with decades of voter suppression where one-third of the population is Black, and current governor Brian Kemp knew exactly how to steal a close election against Stacey Abrams because he was Secretary of State. As a result, the GA GOP is introducing a massive new package of voter suppression measures targeting Black and brown voters to keep them from getting to the polls in 2022.

After Donald Trump failed to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Republicans in the state’s legislature are doing everything they can to make it more difficult for Democrats to win the next one.

On Thursday, with almost no public notice, Georgia House Republicans introduced a 48-page bill to significantly change voting procedures in the state in a way that particularly targets Black voters in the Atlanta metro area. This followed similar moves by the state Senate earlier in the week.

The House bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Barry Fleming, chair of a newly created Special Committee on Election Integrity, limits the weekend early-voting period to only one Saturday before the election. Fleming claimed the provision will provide “uniformity” in voting hours across the state, but in practice it will take away voting opportunities for large, heavily Democratic counties in Atlanta, like DeKalb and Fulton, which held early voting on multiple weekends in the runup to the 2020 election when many Black voters turned out.

It specifically eliminates early voting on Sundays, when Black churches traditionally hold “Souls to the Polls” get-out-the-vote drives. The January 5 runoffs were the first time that Democrats outnumbered Republicans during in-person early voting, and Black voters constituted a third of early voters. In the November general election, Black voters used early voting on weekends at a higher rate than whites in 43 of 50 of the state’s largest counties. Black voters make up roughly 30 percent of Georgia’s electorate, but comprised 36.7 percent of Sunday voters in 2020 and 36.4 percent of voters on early voting days Fleming wants to eliminate, according to Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams.

“This bill is Jim Crow with a suit and tie,” said Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia.

When North Carolina Republicans eliminated Sunday voting in 2013 after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals called it “as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times” and struck it down for targeting Black voters “with almost surgical precision.”

Republican leaders in Georgia notably stood up to Trump when he sought to overturn the presidential election results in the state, with GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defending the integrity of the system by holding three recounts that found no evidence of fraud. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans in the legislature from introducing bill after bill to limit voting options after Georgia turned blue, and Black voters showed up in record numbers during the January runoff to elect two Democratic senators.

The proposed reduction in early voting times in Georgia seems likely to make already-long lines in the state worse. Voters in Atlanta waited up to 11 hours to vote during the November general election, and during the June primary, voters in predominantly white areas waited six minutes to vote while voters in areas predominantly of people of color waited 51 minutes to vote.

Other provisions of the bill would add a voter-ID requirement for mail-in ballots, give voters less time to request mail-in ballots and election officials less time to send them out, throw out ballots that are cast in the wrong precinct, and restrict the use of mail-in ballot drop boxes.

The proposals “would have devastating consequences for voting rights in Georgia,” wrote a coalition of 28 voting rights groups led by Fair Fight Action, “and the people of Georgia have been blindsided by its release.”

Democrats were angry that the House bill was released at 1:53 p.m. on Thursday before a 3 p.m. hearing. “None of the Democrats had anything to say about it,” said state Rep. Rhonda Burnough, a Democrat from south Atlanta. “The public, people of color, didn’t have any opportunity to review or give an opinion.”

“There’s nothing more important fundamentally than a person’s right and the privilege of voting,” says Calvin Smyre, dean of the House and a longtime civil rights activist. “Something like this requires a lot of vetting.”

 

The Republican answer to the marketplace of ideas is "keep Black people from voting because they vote Democratic." There's basically no better example of structural racism than Republican voter suppression in states with large Black populations. They do it, because they would lose without doing it.

It's that simple.

Black Votes Matter.

Retribution Execution, Con't

With Donald Trump believing he's won and will have a second term (in whatever fantasy universe he's residing in, anyway) you'd figure he'd be in Georgia right now campaigning for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the state's January 5 runoff Senate elections so that he would continue to have a GOP Senate covering for him. You would of course be completely wrong, because Trump is instead infuriated at Georgia Republicans for not doing enough to help along his little coup.

 

Georgia is at the center of a battle for Senate control. Yet President Donald Trump, America’s omnipresent political commentator, has remained mum.

Two runoff Senate races in Georgia, set for Jan. 5, will determine which party controls Congress’s upper chamber. Marquee political names like Vice President Mike Pence and former President Barack Obama are willing to make Georgia trips to rally supporters. Big donors from both parties are funneling money into the races. The state is even embarking on a hand recount of its presidential ballots as the Trump campaign challenges Georgia’s election results in court.

But back in Washington, Trump has been all but silent on the subject. Outside of a few scattered tweets and retweets about specious claims of voter fraud in Georgia, Trump has made no public remarks about the state or the Senate runoffs there. And there are no plans for him to visit Georgia until at least after the state’s recount is complete. In fact, apart from a silent appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, Trump hasn’t appeared in public since two days after the election, and it’s unclear when he’ll resurface.

His avoidance of the Georgia runoffs has left some Republicans around Trump frustrated that the GOP’s preeminent figure is leaving his party in the lurch at a critical moment. Trump’s rallies and appearances, they argue, are a guaranteed way to drive interest in the state’s two GOP Senate candidates: Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. And, they noted, the Trump campaign’s focus on legally challenging the presidential election has spread out GOP resources and money that some wish would be funneled into Georgia.

“Several people have told him it’s important Loeffler and Perdue win because they will help keep his legacy intact. We’ve made the point to him that Republicans slowly dismantled parts of Obama’s legacy when we had control of the Senate in 2016 and a Democratic Senate would do the same to Trump,” said a Republican close to Trump.

“I’ve told the campaign his only priority should be holding onto the Senate,” the person added. “Frankly, he is losing credibility the more and more we have this fraudulent ballot fight.”

 

Indeed, the White House is all but giving the game away: unless the Georgia GOP can deliver the state to him and help him stay in the White House somehow, Trump won't lift a finger to help Perdue or Loeffler.

 

But Jason Miller, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said for now, there are no plans for the president to get involved in the Senate races.

“I would not expect anything prior to his race being decided, but he’ll be supportive to ensure Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue win those races,” Miller said. “If the reported irregularities and concerns with illegally harvested ballots aren’t dealt with ahead of Jan. 5, that could impact Republican chances as well.”

On Thursday morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed Trump had no plans to head to the state.

“He hasn't made any determinations on that thus far,” she said, adding that the country would “be hearing from him at the right moment.”

You'll be hearing from Trump at the "right moment" alright, when he openly blames Georgia Republicans for failing him, and tells his cultists to stay home because the state's Republicans are corrupt and fixing elections.

Which they are through massive voter suppression of Black and Native voters, but that's another story.

Won't this be fun?