Members of the Georgia House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee are scheduled to meet Monday to address Atlanta’s rising rates of crime. State Rep. J. Collins (R-Villa Rica) chairs the committee. Those committee members are scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. Monday, July 19, in Room 406 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in Atlanta.
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The Republican National Committee (RNC) released a television ad during Tuesday night’s All-Star Game and told Atlanta residents that Democrats stole the game from their city, all to push a divisive political agenda. The ad features former Georgia State Rep. Melvin Everson. Everson, according to Ballotpedia, is a Republican who served in the legislature from 2005 to 2011.
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Federal officials in Atlanta have sentenced a man to prison for unlawfully acquiring dozens of firearms, several of which Atlanta Police officers later recovered at various crime scenes. That man, Ben’Andre Javon Goolsby “helped fuel the violence in our community,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine in a press release for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Just the News on Wednesday that he wants Fulton County elections taken over by the state under a new law that addresses localities with habitual problems counting ballots, dramatically escalating his battle with the state’s largest urban center in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
“I think people are saying, enough is enough,” Raffensperger said in a podcast interview in which he discussed using the new election integrity law known as Senate Bill 202 to have the State Elections Board take over the Atlanta-area election counting in time for the 2022 elections.
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A Georgia man traveled to Tennessee and posed as a veteran to receive more than $20,000 in medical benefits, according to federal officials. Federal officials this month sentenced that man Kristopher M. Voyles, 31, to 27 months in prison followed by three years’ supervised release.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to weigh in on the possibility of the 2020 election being decertified due to mounting evidence of fraud in several states.
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Over 70 companies signed on to a letter Monday in support of the For the People Act, a voting bill proposed by Democrats seeking to reform large parts of the electoral process.
The letter called on the Senate to pass the voting bill, calling it “one of the most significant pieces of legislation to strengthen our democracy since the Civil Rights era” and condemning recent Republican voting legislation, The Hill reports. The letter was backed by a number of advocacy groups such as Vote.org and Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote
“More than 360 bills in 47 states have been introduced to put up barriers to silence our fellow Americans’ voices, especially the voices of Black, Brown, young, disabled, and working class voters,” the letter said. “The For the People Act would override many of the abusive state laws that make it harder for millions to cast their ballots, and set national standards for free and fair elections.”
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A recent National Association of Realtors report shows the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta metro area is experiencing new-home growth amid a national housing shortage.
The area ranked fourth in the country for metro areas with the most single-family home building permits over the past year.
Metro Atlanta real estate agent Allahva Panton has seen a large increase in real estate sales in the Atlanta area, but not so much in Sandy Springs or Alpharetta.
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Fulton County, Georgia had more election integrity problems during last year’s U.S. presidential elections than were previously known, according to a new investigative report that Just the News published late Thursday night. Reporters John Solomon and Daniel Payne cited a 29-page memo they obtained that documented double counting of votes, insecure storage, threats, and massive chain of custody irregularities.
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Buckhead made national headlines Monday after FOX News host Tucker Carlson described, in sometimes graphic terms, how crime rates in this Atlanta residential district have soared and how certain of Atlanta’s opportunistic politicians incited the violence. Buckhead residents have organized and wish to secede from Atlanta.
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Buckhead, already trying to formally break away from the City of Atlanta so they can address an out-of-control crime wave using their own resources, had another violent weekend, including a murder. According to the Atlanta Police Department’s (APD’s) website, someone shot a man Saturday as he jogged through the 1200 block of West Wesley Road in Buckhead.
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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will soon sign an administrative order directing the city’s Department of Enterprise Assets Management (DEAM) to designate all single-occupancy restrooms within city facilities as gender neutral. This, according to the order that Bottoms will sign later this month. The Georgia Star News obtained a copy on Friday from Atlanta Director of LGBTQ Affairs Malik Brown.
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Georgia lawmakers will study the rise in crime in Atlanta this summer.
The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee plans to hold a series of hearings to look at the causes and solutions for the increase in crime in the state’s capital city.
“We want to have productive hearings that can get down to exactly what’s going on because, as you all know, the success of the city of Atlanta is directly impacted by the success of Georgia and vice versa,” Committee Chair J. Collins, R-Villa Rica, said.
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An Atlanta City Council member who tried to defund the police of millions of dollars last year called 911 Wednesday to report that four people stole his 2016 Mercedes. That man, Antonio Brown, told a 911 dispatcher the car thieves consisted of four children.
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Buckhead residents organized earlier this year and announced they wish to secede from Atlanta, but members of a new group formed within the district this week and they say seceding is dangerous. This, according to a press release that members of the group A Committee for a United Atlanta emailed to The Georgia Star News this week.
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One Atlanta conservative unsettled by the behavior of the Fulton County Republican leadership at their party’s convention last month said too many members of the old GOP establishment resist change — and put the party in peril. Rob Cunningham told The Georgia Star News this week that “the call to get engaged [among the grassroots] is being heeded.”
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U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11) said this month that many Atlanta business owners realized controversy surrounded Georgia’s voter integrity law Senate Bill 202, but Major League Baseball’s ultimate reaction to it still astonished them. MLB officials pulled their scheduled All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
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Atlanta’s Mayor announced Thursday night that she will not run for a second term.
“As [husband] Derek and I have given thoughtful prayer and consideration to the season now before us, it is with deep emotions that I hold my head high, and choose not to seek another term as Mayor,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) said in a letter published Thursday.
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This week Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms announced she will not seek reelection. This, while Atlanta’s crime rate remains high and a new report explored why members of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) have difficulties hiring and retaining employees.
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Fulton County parent Danielle Denlien urged — unsuccessfully — that members of the Fulton County School Board abolish the COVID-19 mask mandate they impose upon students. But before she could finish, a law enforcement officer escorted her away from the podium.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed CEO of Job Creators Network and the man behind the iconic billboard in Times Square Alfredo Ortiz to the newsmakers line to talk about MLB Commissioner Manfred’s strikes and balls and the destruction of small business in America.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to travel to the Atlanta area Thursday to celebrate his first 100 days in office. This, according to a press release that Georgia Democrats posted on their website this week.
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Buckhead residents who have organized and wish to secede from Atlanta said this week that they are diverse and their ties to that larger city bring crime and one horror story after. Members of this group, the Buckhead Exploratory Committee (BEOC), also said that they are serious about wanting to leave.
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The Cobb County Travel and Tourism Bureau said that it estimates it will miss out on $100 million in revenue, after Major League Baseball (MLB) was brow-beaten by political activists into moving its 2021 All-Star game from Atlanta.
“This event would have directly impacted our county and the state, as visitors spend their dollars on local accommodations, transportation, entertainment and recreation, food and retail throughout the county,” the bureau said. “This would have been a big boost to Cobb businesses and help with recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Saturday told Major League Baseball officials and executives at Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines that he will not buckle under to their pressure. Kemp, flanked by several supporters at the Georgia State Capitol, said he will not do away with the state’s new voter integrity law, Senate Bill 202. The governor also told state residents that Democrat and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is lying about the new law and fundraising off of her lies.
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Members of a nationwide group pushing for The Green New Deal have planned rallies and demonstrations throughout the country for Wednesday, April 7. The activists in this group, The Sunrise Movement, will hold one rally in Atlanta and another in Knoxville on Wednesday, according to its website.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday evening said Major League Baseball officials caved “to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies.” This, after MLB officials announced earlier in the day that they will relocate the 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft, originally scheduled for Atlanta, to another location. They specifically cited Georgia’s new voter integrity law, Senate Bill 202.
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Democrats who represent Georgia in the state’s general assembly as well as the U.S. Congress said this week that recent mass shootings, including the one in Atlanta, necessitate either more gun control or hate crimes laws. State Sen. Michelle Au (D-Johns Creek), for instance, filed SB 309, a bill this week that would, if enacted into law, mandate a five-day waiting period for anyone who wants to purchase or transfer certain firearms.
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Joe Biden fell three times while climbing the stairs to Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Friday.
The stumbles happened just before noon when Mr. Biden, 78, was trying to jog up the steps to the aircraft for a flight to Atlanta.
After the first stumble, Biden, who has previously taunted former President Trump for lacking physical prowess, tried steady himself, but he fell a second time, and then a third time to his knees.
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According to documents released Friday, the two massage parlors targeted by a deranged gunman in Atlanta Tuesday had both been subjects of prostitution stings by police, despite claims to the contrary by Atlanta’s mayor.
“As far as we know in Atlanta, these are legally operating businesses that have not been on our radar,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said after the shootings. “Not on the radar of [the Atlanta Police Department].”
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President Joe Biden spent part of his Friday in Georgia meeting with failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and leaders of the Asian American community.
Along with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s visit was aimed at offering “support to the Asian American community following a string of shootings at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent,” according to WKRN.
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Details are emerging after a man was arrested for allegedly committing a series of killings in Georgia on Tuesday.
Robert Alan Long, 21, of Woodstock, was arrested in south Georgia after he allegedly killed eight people of Asian descent in shootings at three different massage parlors.
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Buckhead residents have formed a new group to study whether their upscale commercial and residential district should formally break off from Atlanta and its soaring crime rate and possibly create their own law enforcement agency. This, according to the members of this group, The Buckhead Exploratory Committee, on their website.
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If you live in Atlanta and want to monitor local law enforcement officers through the Atlanta Citizen Review Board then city officials, per policy, can exclude you from serving if you are a convicted felon. But they cannot exclude you if you have never registered to vote.
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Former U.S. Republican Congressman Doug Collins is scheduled to launch his own talk radio program Monday, March 1, and the show will feature guests local to Georgia as well as guests who hold national stature. The Doug Collins Show will broadcast from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. every weekday on the Georgia-based WMLB (1690 AM). People outside of the Atlanta-listening area may also listen to the show through the John Fredericks Radio Show app.
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Six members of the Georgia House of Representatives have responded to the “Defund the Police” movement and filed a bill that would prohibit local governments in the state from cutting more than 5 percent of their police budgets. State Rep. Houston Gaines (R-Athens), the bill’s primary sponsor, said Tuesday that his legislation would, if enacted into law, exempt local governments that lose more than 5 percent of their budget revenues.
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A recent report found Atlanta’s budget deficit would cost each of the city’s 500,000 residents $1,900 to balance, representing the 26th-lowest tax burden among the 75 most-populous cities in the U.S.
Truth in Accounting (TIA) released its fifth annual Financial State of the Cities analysis last week, examining the financial health of 75 of America’s most-populous cities and calculating how much each resident would have to pay to cover all of their city’s bills.
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Just days before the statewide U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia, confusion over obtaining absentee ballots remains.
“Georgians who are over the age of 65, members of the military or are physically disabled have the option of receiving absentee ballots for an entire election cycle by submitting a single application,” Atlanta radio station WABE reported in November.
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Over 25 area restaurants closed their doors for good – several that have been in business for decades – due to the impact of Health Department stay-at-home orders and restrictions on business operations that began in March 2020 with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A few days after Thanksgiving, Governor Brian Kemp issued an executive order further restricting restaurant operations. The Georgia Restaurant Association (GRA) published a statement shortly after.
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Many people, including some good friends, believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square.
Many others – and I place myself among them – believe that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, or, to be more specific, in the cities of Milwaukee, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, not to mention Maricopa County, Arizona. I think what happened was so rotten that I regard the election as illegitimate.
What proof, you might ask, do I have?
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Dr. Michael A. Youssef, a prominent Arab-American pastor in Atlanta, posted on social media that three mail-in ballots were sent to his house for his adult son — who has lived overseas for decades.
Youssef is founder/pastor of The Church of the Apostles megachurch in the Buckhead neighborhood. He also runs Leading the Way, an international television and radio ministry that shares the gospel in 26 languages in six continents.
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Americans who once belonged to the political left, whether White, Black, straight or gay, assembled in front of CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta Saturday and explained why no one should ever again trust mainstream news outlets.
Those same people, who now support U.S. President Donald Trump, explained during a mass protest that those same legacy outlets need to disappear.
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Organizers are scheduled to protest CNN in front of its Atlanta headquarters Saturday at 10 a.m.
Brandon Straka said Thursday that he and other protestors describe the event as a #Walk Away Rescue America rally.
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In a specific discussion on Thursday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy was joined by former Vanderbilt and Princeton professor Dr. Carol Swain to talk about her experience at last Friday’s Black Voices for Trump event in Atlanta.
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Williamson County Schools Superintendent Mike Looney may soon vacate his position and relocate to Atlanta. Officials with the Fulton County School System said on their official website Wednesday that Looney is their top finalist for their open superintendent job. Looney was in Atlanta Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after he oversaw a Williamson County Board meeting Tuesday night. According to The Williamson Herald, decision day is only a few weeks away. “Vying as the Fulton County School District’s top finalist, Looney could be soon exiting the position he’s held in WCS for just over 10 years if he chooses to officially accept the position May 2 at the competing district’s school board meeting,” the paper reported. Williamson County School Board Chair Gary Anderson told The Herald he and his colleagues could soon hire an interim superintendent, if Looney takes the Atlanta job. According to a statement on the Fulton County Schools’ website, board members have searched nationwide for a new superintendent since December. “As prescribed by Georgia law, the school board must give a minimum of 14 days for public input on a finalist for the position of Superintendent,” the press release said. “To ensure Dr. Looney has the opportunity to…
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by Evie Fordham The nation’s only all-male historically black college announced a new transgender policy after its board of trustees approved it on Saturday. Morehouse College in Atlanta will begin accepting transgender men next year, college leaders told The Associated Press. “I think Morehouse having the courage to speak to issues of masculinity in today’s environment is important,” Morehouse College President David Thomas told The AP. “For 152 years, the world has, in some way, seen Morehouse as the West Point of black male development.” Transgender men, meaning they have transitioned from female to male, can enroll at the college starting in 2020, but students who were born male and now identify as female will not be allowed to. Morehouse “will continue to use masculine pronouns” and “the language of brotherhood” according to the new policy as cited by The AP. The college will not guarantee a degree to students who transition from male to female while enrolled, however. Morehouse alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., film director Spike Lee and former Atlanta Democratic Mayor Maynard Jackson, reported The AP. The college now joins more than 1,000 other U.S. colleges and universities that have approved a transgender policy. Morehouse is…
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Southwest Airlines has begun nonstop flights from Atlanta to Nashville. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the airline launched the flights from Atlanta to Nashville, The Associated Press reported. Nashville International Airport celebrated the inaugural flight from BNA to Atlanta Tuesday. The airline will operate five flights a day Monday through Friday between Hartsfield-Jacskon Atlanta International Airport and BNA, as well as three flights a day on Saturdays and Sundays. Southwest Airlines Co. vice president of technical operations Trevor Stedke said in a statement when the airline announced the route in February that it answers business community requests in both cities. Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority CEO Doug Kruelen says business people have long sought more service between Nashville and Atlanta. Kruelen says the route brings more competition and options. Delta Air Lines already flies the route. Nashville International Airport served more than 14.9 million passengers in the fiscal year that ended in June, making it one of the nation’s fastest growing airports, The Tennessee Star previously reported. The record makes Nashville International, or BNA, the fourth fastest growing airport among the top 50 airports in North America, the airport’s website said. BNA serves 450 daily flights to more than 65 nonstop markets.…
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