Recent Comments
Re: “Jimmy Carter: 'We must do everything we can to discourage marijuana use'”
{{"Jimmy Carter: 'We must do everything we can to discourage marijuana use'"}}
You mean like how we have so effectively "discouraged" marijuana use over the past 40 years of the War on Weedsmokers?
Good luck with that one, Jimmy...
Comeback and tell us how well that one works out for you with states legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana left and right after 40+ years of overzealous enforcement of anti-weed laws have only served to make the drug problem worse by turning marijuana into a gateway drug for deadly drugs like wet, crack, ice, meth and so on.
Re: “Summer Road Trip: Digging for gold records in Dahlonega”
Dahlonega is a great little town!
Re: “First Slice 5/13/13: N.C., GA GOP love local control... until they don't”
JF Williams on 05/13/2013 at 7:12 PM-
{{"Stop this bullcrap excuse about simply making Fulton's County's government "more representative of the demographics" if the same political maneuver isn't fairly and equally applied to Gwinnett County. Because there isn't a lick of honesty in that action."}}
...Republicans are going to DESPERATELY try and keep control of Gwinnett's political scene anyway that they can despite conservative whites making up a RAPIDLY-SHRINKING MINORITY of Gwinnett's population, because when the GOP loses control of Gwinnett, the GOP will likely lose its current iron-grip on Georgia, forever.
The Georgia GOP will live with Gwinnett no matter how corrupt it gets because when the party loses control of Gwinnett, that will likely be it for the party.
That's how critically-important Gwinnett is for the political fortunes of the Georgia GOP which, despite having a legislative supermajority and control of all statewide offices, is in a much more precarious situation than appears to the naked eye because of the aforementioned rapidly-changing demographics that increasingly threaten to turn Georgia from a Republican-dominated red state to a Democrat-dominated blue state, potentially in a very-short time.
Re: “First Slice 5/13/13: N.C., GA GOP love local control... until they don't”
JF Williams on 05/13/2013 at 7:12 PM-
{{"The conservatives running the Capitol right now should just come right out and admit that they are changing MARTA's board to get more white people on it. And they should also admit that they are doing the same thing with Fulton County's Commission."}}
...It's not just getting more white people on MARTA's board and the Fulton County Commission, it's about getting white Republicans on those two governing bodies so that the predominantly white and Republican-controlled north end of Fulton County controls them.
It's a power play by Republicans to take control of Fulton and DeKalb counties while the GOP has a supermajority in the Georgia Legislature, a political advantage which will likely be totally evaporated by 2030 due to the state's rapidly-changing demographics.
Getting control of MARTA, Fulton and DeKalb counties is also a way for North Fulton (and DeKalb) Republicans to suffice for not being able to recreate Milton County despite the GOP having a supermajority in the Legislature where the party leadership won't take on the issue out of fear that it could awaken a sleeping Democratic majority and cause Republicans to lose control of the state's political climate sooner rather than later.
Re: “First Slice 5/13/13: N.C., GA GOP love local control... until they don't”
From the AJC article "While Fulton gets a makeover, some ask why Gwinnett gets a pass":
{{"Others see it differently. Rep. Brian Thomas, D-Lilburn, agreed Gwinnett’s problems stem in part from the behavior of individual commissioners, but he said the structure of the commission may be a contributing factor.....
......Thomas said Republicans in the delegation have been reluctant to expand the commission in part because it could allow Democrats to win seats on the all-Republican board."}}
...Gwinnett County is currently home to the largest county bloc of Republican voters in the state, so of course the Georgia GOP is not going to do anything to interfere with the all-Republican political makeup of a Board of Commissioners in a county that is the strongest base of GOP power in the state.
And since only 43% of the population in fast-growing Gwinnett is non-Hispanic white (down from 90% non-Hispanic white two decades ago), the GOP is especially going to want to do all that is can to hold on to its advantage in Gwinnett because when Gwinnett goes, so will the Georgia GOP, which is increasingly living on borrowed time with the rapid demographic changes in its most powerful county of Gwinnett and statewide where non-Hispanic whites makeup only 55% of Georgia's population.
The 55% of Georgia's population that is non-Hispanic white is a number that is identical to the Democrat-dominated state of Maryland (where non-Hispanic whites makeup 54% of that state's population), 2.5% percentage points lower than the than neighboring swing-state Florida (where non-Hispanic whites makeup 57.5% of the population) and 10 percentage points lower than the South-Atlantic swing states of Virginia and North Carolina (where non-Hispanic whites makeup roughly 65% of the population of both states).
With minorities making up 57% of Gwinnett County's population and 45% of Georgia's population, the increasing likelihood of "Rockdale County moments" loom larger and larger with each passing year for the Georgia GOP.
Re: “First Slice 4/24/13: GDOT proposes new I-75 toll lanes in metro Atlanta”
NadVertising on 04/24/2013 at 9:40 AM-
{{"Make all the lanes toll lanes, and you have an idea. Those who absolutely have to get on the interstate will pony up. Those who don't will take an alternate route. Revenue up, highway traffic down."}}
...The Feds are already seriously considering your suggestion to toll all lanes by putting adjustable tolls on all lanes of the freeway system in metro Atlanta over the long-run as a means of clearing the Interstate system of excess local traffic and boosting transit usage in an Atlanta metro area where transit usage is amongst the lowest of any major metro area in the country.
Putting tolls on all lanes is also an excellent idea if the portion of the state fuel tax that currently funds the construction and maintenance of divided highways with 4 or more lanes (particularly Interstates and expressways) is eliminated and replaced with distance-based user fees in the form of tolls on each road.
Switching from a state fuel tax per-gallon form of funding to a distance-based user-fee per-mile form of funding where motorists pay directly into a major road each time they use it, would be a much-better way of funding the growing logistical needs of the Interstate network (particularly the construction truck-only lanes on the I-285 Perimeter and OTP mainline interstates).
Eliminating state fuel tax funding on Interstates and switching to a distance-based user-fee per-mile form of funding would also insure that each road has the funds it would need for construction, continuing maintenance, reconstruction and expansion as needed.
We could insure that toll funds are only used where they are spent by making it illegal to spend toll revenues anywhere but on the road they are collected.
{{"What sacred cow of free-wheelin' freedomocracy did I just kill with such a suggestion?"}}
...The sacred cow that is the illusion that all public roads are basically free because the public cost of paying for them has effectively been 'hidden' from the motoring public because the fuel taxes that pay for the construction and continuing maintenance of the road network are 'hidden' the price of gas.
Since fuel taxes are built-in to the cost of a gallon of gas, many people are not necessarily aware that they pay to construct and maintain the roads every time they buy fuel.
Re: “Karen Handel dives into 2014 U.S. Senate race”
oydave on 05/17/2013 at 11:23 PM-
{{"Left-wingnut...."}}
...Come on Dave, you know better than that.
You know that Far-Right CONSERVATIVES are Wingnuts and Far-Left LIBERALS are MOONBATS.
Don't get it twisted.