"Georgia Republicans bundled over a dozen measures that targeted the state’s transgender residents into omnibus packages in a desperate attempt to get them passed. In a stunning defeat for the GOP, every single one of them failed.

Legislators gutted bills that had passed through committee and instead stuffed them full of their anti-LGBTQ+ wishlist items.

Bills that would ban transgender students from playing on teams aligned with their gender identity, ban transgender students from bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, opt parents into notification for every book a student checks out of the library, bar sex education before sixth grade, make all sex-ed classes opt-in and expand obscenity laws to make it easier to ban books with LGBTQ+ content all failed.

“MAGA politicians in Georgia tried it all in service to their anti-LGBTQ+ agenda,” said Human Rights Campaign Georgia State Director Bentley Hudgins, “including silencing debate and gutting unrelated, popular bills that had bipartisan support to ram through policies that would have put young LGBTQ+ Georgians in harm’s way. They failed.”

“It’s undeniable that the tides are shifting, both here in Georgia and across the nation,” Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham added. “Anti-LGBTQ actors are losing their political power, and more and more Georgians who know and love LGBTQ people are standing up against their baseless fear-mongering.”

In Florida recently, nearly two dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills were defeated in the wake of Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) presidential campaign implosion, dozens of measures in Virginia were tabled [Note: In the US, "tabled" means "shelved" or "taken out of consideration - the opposite of its meaning in the UK and other places], and Ohio’s governor backed off his attempt to restrict gender-affirming care access for transgender adults and minors. 

Meanwhile, in D.C., Democrats successfully excised 50 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in the two budget bills passed and signed by President Joe Biden to fund the federal government.

Even Fox News has been forced to acknowledge transgender issues are among the lowest-priority concerns among voters."

-via LGBTQ Nation, April 1, 2024

The indictment also names Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, Ray Smith, and several others.

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You can download and read the 98-page indictment here.

Knowing that David and Georgia Tennant have a non-binary child and knowing that their child gets to watch their dad in Good Omens, a show that respects and includes non-binary people makes me smile. I hope it makes them smile, too.

Savannah - Georgia - USA (by Anna Jewels (@earthpeek))

https://www.instagram.com/earthpeek/

Georgia Senate race really be like

Edit 12/07/2022: Hell Yeah Warnock won

before opening their trap, every pro-russian leftist should be mandated to get a real taste of «русский мир» (“the russian world”) 🤗

absolutely can't relate to juliette's moral quandary wrt killing a person. i literally know exactly which of my classmates in high school i would have murdered if i was a vampire & i would have done it without a second of remorse. girl git gud smh

Swing-state voters are open to several ideas to keep Social Security benefits flowing for decades — as long as it’s the wealthy footing the bill, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

An overwhelming 77% of registered voters in the seven states that will decide the 2024 presidential election like the idea of a billionaires tax to bolster Social Security shortfalls, the poll found. More than half say they approve of trimming benefits for high-earners, and for taxing wages for Social Security beyond the first $168,600 in earnings as done under current policy.

The poll was conducted among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin between April 8-15.

Across-the-board changes — raising the retirement age to 69 from 67 or introducing a new formula that results in less generous benefit payments — were less popular. Around one-fourth of poll respondents supported those policies, while about a third support increasing payroll taxes.

The poll demonstrates the difficult task Congress will face in the coming years as it grapples with how to shore up the social safety net program for aging Americans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that starting in 2034 Social Security recipients will only receive about 75% of their promised payments if lawmakers don’t act.

“A lot of people want the government to take action, but they’re not really sure how,” Matt Monday, a senior manager for Morning Consult, said in an interview. “But the things that they do feel sure about is that someone else should do it,” he said, pointing to the wide popularity of the billionaires tax.

President Joe Biden’s billionaires tax would place a 25% levy on households worth more than $100 million. The plan taxes accumulated wealth, so it ends up hitting money that often goes untaxed under current laws. The president has also proposed higher payroll taxes on those making more than $400,000 as a way to strengthen the Social Security trust fund.

Conversations in Washington about large-scale plans to find new ways to fund Social Security have become more pressing with projections showing the program is becoming increasingly unsustainable. But changes to Social Security are politically risky because older Americans, who are directly benefitting from the payments, are an important voting bloc for both parties.

Benefit programs for elderly Americans are one of voters’ top priorities in November — only the economy, immigration, abortion and protecting democracy were chosen more often when respondents were asked what single issue was most important to their voting decision.

The poll also found that swing state voters trust Biden more than Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump to preserve Social Security and Medicare, with 45% trusting Biden and 39% trusting Trump.

Trump has not articulated a clear vision for the benefit programs. His campaign website says he will “always protect” Social Security without providing details. In a March interview, he said “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting,” but later walked back that statement, saying he would never do anything to “jeopardize or hurt” the payments for older people.

Republicans in Congress have proposed raising the retirement age and using a new cost of living adjustment metric that would result in lower payments over time. Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, proposed scaling back Social Security benefits for future generations and higher income retirees.

METHODOLOGY

The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll surveyed 4,969 registered voters in seven swing states: 801 registered voters in Arizona, 802 in Georgia, 708 in Michigan, 450 in Nevada, 703 in North Carolina, 803 in Pennsylvania and 702 in Wisconsin. The surveys were conducted online from April 8-15. The aggregated data across the seven swing states were weighted to approximate a target sample of swing-state registered voters based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, 2020 presidential vote and state. State-level data were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters in the respective state based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, and 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven states; 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada.

"There is a small panel of regulators in every state that holds a similar power over electricity generation and, by extension, an enormous segment of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. By setting electricity prices, they also have a substantial impact on most people’s lives and pocketbooks. Yet, in Georgia and elsewhere, these groups — known as public service or public utility commissions — get little attention or scrutiny outside of energy wonk circles. Their hearings and documents tend to be long and jargon-heavy, covered in the media by a small group of specialized reporters, making it hard to engage with the process. 

This year, Grist and WABE will try to demystify energy regulation in Georgia and beyond. We’ll bring you stories on not only how your power gets made, but how those decisions happen — and how residents who vote and pay electricity bills can get involved."

-via Grist, March 5, 2024. See link for more details (especially in Georgia) and more ways to get involved.

Donald Trump charged in Georgia for efforts to overturn the 2020 election

Link here, because WaPo's security measures stop Tumblr previews. Non-paywall link here.

"Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia on Monday in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night [on August 14, 2023].

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.

The Recap

The historic indictment, the fourth to implicate the former president, follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The probe was launched after audio leaked from a January 2021 phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to question the validity of thousands of ballots, especially in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area, and said he wanted to “find” the votes to erase his 2020 loss in the state.

Willis’s investigation quickly expanded to other alleged efforts by Trumpor his supporters, including trying to thwart the electoral college process, harassing election workers, spreading false information about the voting process in Georgia and compromising election equipment in a rural county. Trump has long decried the Georgia investigation as a “political witch hunt,” defending his calls to Raffensperger and others as “perfect.”

The Details

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment states.

A total of 41 charges are brought against 19 defendants in the 98-page indictment. Not all face the same counts, but all have been charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Willis said she has given those charged until Aug. 25 to surrender.

Among those charged are Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who served as Trump’s personal attorney after the election; Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and several Trump advisers, including attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro...

Prosecutors brought charges around five subject areas: false statements by Trump allies, including Giuliani, to the Georgia legislature; the breach of voting data in Coffee County; calls Trump made to state officials, including Raffensperger, seeking to overturn Biden’s victory; the harassment of election workers; and the creation of a slate of alternate electors to undermine the legitimate vote. Those charged in the case were implicated in certain parts of what prosecutors presented as a larger enterprise to undermine the election."

-via The Washington Post, August 14, 2023

"Fulton County prosecutors are recommending a sentence of six years probation. Powell will also be required to testify at future trials and write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia."

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“When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze and touches with her hand the summer trees….’ That’s poetry. And ‘Like painted kites the days and nights went flying by. The world was new beneath a blue umbrella sky.” ― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Photo: Savannah, Georgia

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