Category: Georgia

Second Georgia Republican Victim to Christmas Day Swatting Following Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tom Pappert

Georgia State Senator Clint Dixon (R-Gwinnett) is the second Georgia Republican to report being swatted on Christmas Day, with U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) posted about her own experience on social media.

The Gwinnett Police Department (GPD) confirmed to The Georgia Star News on Tuesday the department is investigating after Dixon was swatted on December 25, but a spokesman said the department could not comment about possible suspects or the status of the investigation.

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Atlanta ‘Rapid Transitional Housing’ Project Will Offer ‘Micro-Units’ to Homeless People in January

Tom Pappert
Mayor Andre Dickens

It was confirmed on Friday that a $5 million “rapid transitional housing” project in Atlanta is on pace to accept 40 residents from the city’s homeless population beginning in January as city officials consider cracking down on homeless encampments.

The report came after Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (D) toured the project, known as The Village, which WSB-TV reported “could house up to 40 people in individual units with private baths, social services,” and a “dog park” in “donated converted shipping containers and modular units.”

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Georgia Democrat Files Bill to Eliminate State Income Tax as Governor Plans to ‘Accelerate’ Cuts

Tom Pappert
Eric Bell

A Democratic state legislator quietly filed a bill in late November for the upcoming legislative session that would eliminate the state’s income tax by 2025.

Georgia State Representative Eric Bell (D-Jonesboro) filed HB 559 to “repeal the state income tax in its entirety,” along with any tax credits or conflicting laws. Just two pages long, Bell’s bill would declare, “For taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, no income taxes whatsoever shall be levied or collected by the state or any political subdivision thereof and no income tax returns shall be required to be filed for such taxable years.”

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Report: Charter School Enrollment Increases in Georgia

The Center Square

Georgia’s public charter school enrollment has grown over the last four years while enrollment at traditional schools has declined.

That’s according to state-level data the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools studied for a new report, “Believing in Public Education: A Demographic and State-level Analysis of Public Charter School and District Public School Enrollment Trends.”

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Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon Expects ‘Absurd’ Move to Strike Trump from Colorado Ballot to Energize Republican Voters

Tom Pappert
Josh McKoon

The chairman of the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) told National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday that he expects the “absurd” decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to strike former President Donald Trump from the ballot will energize Republicans to vote against President Joe Biden in November 2024.

On Tuesday, a one-vote majority of the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Trump engaged in an insurrection against the United States government on January 6, 2021, and thus is ineligible to run for president in 2024 and struck him from the state’s primary ballots, prompting widespread outrage from Republicans.

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Georgia Unemployment Rate Holds at 3.4 Percent for Third Month as Expert Predicts ‘Soft Landing’ for State Economy

Tom Pappert
Office Work

The Georgia Department of Labor revealed on Thursday that the state’s unemployment numbers remained constant at 3.4 percent for the third consecutive month in November, even as small business owners across the country report a pessimistic outlook for the economy.

A total of 14,300 jobs were added to Georgia over November, bringing the total number of jobs generated in 2023 to 103,700. Nearly 5 million jobs exist in Georgia, which the agency reported continues to be the state’s highest recorded.

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Georgia Sec of State Raffensperger Sounds Alarm on Border Crisis’ Impact on Election Integrity

Just the News
Georgia Sec State Brad Raffensperger

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is sounding an alarm that the crisis at the southern U.S. border may eventually cause an election integrity crisis in America, imploring lawmakers in Congress and his state Legislature to pursue constitutional amendments to permanently ban noncitizen voting before liberal activists try to secure voting rights for the millions flooding into the county under President Joe Biden.

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Democrat Election Attorney Marc Elias Joins ‘Stop Cop City’ Effort to Prevent Atlanta Public Safety Building

Tom Pappert
Marc Elias

Democrat election attorney Marc Elias is throwing his support behind the “Stop Cop City” referendum to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Facility where a protester shot a Georgia State Trooper in January, a Wednesday report confirms.

Elias has decided to throw “his political weight behind a proposed ordinance that aims to upend Atlanta’s petition review process,” according to Atlanta Black Star. The petition review process memo was sent by the Vote To Stop Cop City Coalition, reported left-leaning Mother Jones.

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Judge Reportedly ‘Skeptical’ of Lawsuit to Remove Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones from Office over 2020 Election Contest

Tom Pappert
Burt Jones

Georgia Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson reportedly expressed skepticism at an attempt to remove Lt. Governor Burt Jones (R) from office on Monday. A group of Democratic voters in Georgia filed the lawsuit claiming Jones’ role as one of the alternate electors who sought to preserve former President Donald Trump’s legal challenge to the 2020 election in Georgia should make him ineligible to hold office.

Wilson “appeared skeptical of the plaintiffs’ longshot arguments,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which reported that plaintiffs argued Jones “is an insurrectionist against the Constitution of the United States of America” because he participated in the 2020 election contest, and thus should be prohibited from holding office due to a post-Civil War law that was also cited in a bid to prevent Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from seeking reelection in 2022.

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Gov. Brian Kemp Announces $1,000 Bonus for Georgia Teachers, New Funding For School Safety

Tom Pappert

Governor Brian Kemp (R) announced a $1,000 bonus on Monday for those who work in Georgia’s schools, and introduce legislation to provide Georgia with more school funding and fund a permanent, annual bonus.

In a joint announcement with Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington), and State Representative Matt Hatchett (R-Dublin), Kemp announced a $1,000 “state employee retention pay supplement” for more than 300,000 Georgia teachers and state employees who work in education.

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Prosecutors Say Former Facebook DEI Executive ‘Abused a Position of Trust’ When Defrauding Company $4 Million

Tom Pappert
Facebook Money

Barbara Furlow-Smiles, a Georgia resident and former Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) executive at Facebook, admitted on Tuesday to defrauding the company of more than $4 million from 2017 until 2021.

Federal prosecutors say Furlow-Smiles “abused a position of trust as a global diversity executive” to steal “millions of dollars” from Facebook while “ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her DEI mission.”

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Georgia U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson Will Not Seek Re-Election in 2024

Tom Pappert

Georgia U.S. Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) announced on Thursday that he will not seek another term in office, and will instead resign from Congress when his term ends in January 2025.

Ferguson announced his decision to retire from Congress in a Thursday post to X, formerly Twitter. He called his time in the U.S. House “the honor of a lifetime,” while complimenting his staff as “talented and dedicated” and constituents as “wonderful.”

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Fani Willis Maintains She ‘Is Not Responsible’ for Fulton County Jail, Argues Georgia Senators ‘Should Worry About the State Prisons’

Tom Pappert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asserted in a Tuesday interview that Georgia state senators investigating the conditions at the Fulton County Jail should instead investigate the state prison system, though she said she “is not responsible” for the jail.

Willis made the remarks to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in response to an investigation launched in the Georgia Senate earlier this year over the conditions at the Fulton County Jail, where 10 inmates have died in 2023. One of the defendants in Willis’ high-profile Young Slime Life (YSL) racketeering case was stabbed in the jail this week, delaying the ongoing trial until 2024.

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Georgia Moves to Block Noncitizen Voting in State Constitution

Admin

Georgia’s top election official is pointing to the Biden administration’s failure to secure the southern border as a reason the state Legislature must act to prevent voting by foreign nationals in state elections. 

“With open borders, citizenship verification for voter registration is more important than ever,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said Monday in a public statement. 

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Georgia City Bans New Massage Parlors amid Human Trafficking Crackdown

Tom Pappert

The Roswell City Council issued a temporary moratorium on Monday to prohibit the city from granting new licenses for massage parlors in the Fulton County suburb located north of Atlanta. The moratorium follows a number of September human trafficking arrests and law enforcement actions at six massage parlors.

The city approved a resolution “instituting a temporary moratorium on new massage establishment licenses and occupational tax certificates” for 90 days “or until the City has properly amended its ordinances regarding massage establishments.”

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Trump Expands Lead in Georgia as Poll Shows Biden Struggles with Young People

Tom Pappert

Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over President Joe Biden in Georgia, according to a new CNN-SRSS poll, which suggests the current president is struggling with voters in key demographics.

The poll showed Trump winning with 49 percent of the vote, while just 44 percent of voters said they would vote for Biden. The polling was conducted between November 30 and December 7, and pollsters reported a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent.

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Federal Dollars Flow to Study Georgia Rail Projects

The Center Square

The federal government has awarded $1.5 million to study the possibility of running passenger trains on a trio of corridors in Georgia.

The Federal Railroad Administration awarded $500,000 to the Georgia Department of Transportation to study a possible Atlanta-to-Savannah line. It also provided $500,000 to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to evaluate a Charlotte-to-Atlanta line and $500,000 to the city of Chattanooga to study an Atlanta-to-Chattanooga-to-Nashville-to-Memphis route.

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Former Trump DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark Appeals Denial of Removal of Bar Disciplinary Trial to Federal Court

Rachel Alexander

Jeffrey Clark, an attorney who served at high levels of the Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump, is undergoing both prosecution and bar disciplinary proceedings for his slight involvement with the 2020 election challenges. The District of Columbia Bar, its disciplinary panel, and the federal trial court judge refused to let Clark remove the disciplinary proceedings to federal court, despite the fact there is a federal law providing for removal when the actions in question involve a federal official, so Clark filed an appeal with the D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday.

Clark is being disciplined and prosecuted for drafting a letter to Georgia election officials after the 2020 election advising them of options the Georgia Legislature could take to address the concerns about election illegalities. The letter was never sent or even circulated. 

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Georgia Lawmakers Sign Off on New Congressional Maps

The Center Square

The Georgia House of Representatives passed revised congressional districts, capping the end of a special session that put partisan divides front and center.

The House voted 98-71 to send Senate Bill 3EX, which the state Senate passed on Tuesday, to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature. The revised districts ostensibly maintain the 9-5 Republican edge in the U.S. House.

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New Fulton County Jail Expected to Cost over $1.7 Billion, Finish in 2031

Tom Pappert

If funding for a new jail in Fulton County is approved next year, the facility could open in 2029, but will not be finished until 2031, according to a presentation received by Fulton County commissioners on Wednesday. The county considers a new jail as the Georgia State Senate investigates the conditions at the troubled Fulton County Jail.

The proposed facility will cost nearly $1.76 billion, and will boast enough room to provide accommodations and services for 4,416 inmates, according to the presentation delivered by consultants from architecture firms TreanorHL and STV.

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Fani Willis Reportedly Wants Mike Pence to Testify Against Trump in Georgia Election Trial

Tom Pappert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) reportedly plans to call former Vice President Mike Pence as a witness in the Georgia racketeering trial of former President Donald Trump.

Willis reportedly lists Pence among nearly 150 witnesses she intends to call at trial, according to a CNN report published Wednesday. Citing sources “familiar with court documents that remain under seal, the outlet reveals that Willis’ latest witness list includes Pence’s name.

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Democratic Georgia State Senator Calls for Fulton County Sheriff to Resign for Jail ‘Crisis’

Tom Pappert

Georgia State Senator Joshua McLaurin (D-Sandy Springs) called for embattled Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat (D) to resign on Monday in response to the “crisis” at the Fulton County Jail.

McLaurin cited Labat’s recent controversies, which include allegations he used the jail’s Inmate Welfare Fund as a “slush fund” and questions about why medical bracelets purchased from a company tied to Georgia legislators were not being used at the facility, before calling for his resignation.

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Gov. Kemp Pitches Legislation to ‘Accelerate’ Georgia Tax Cuts Next Year

Tom Pappert

Governor Brian Kemp (R) pitched new legislation on Monday that he said will “accelerate” Georgia’s new income tax cuts. Beginning in 2024, the Kemp’s plan would steadily increase income taxes annually until the tax rate falls to 4.99 percent.

Kemp announced the move to expand on HB 1437, which established a flat income tax in Georgia by which all income earners are taxed equally at 5.49 percent. While HB 1437 called for the tax rate to eventually decrease to 4.99 percent, Kemp said in a Monday statement that his changes to the law will mean Georgians pay less taxes sooner.

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Audit: King Center Spends State Money on Facility Repairs, Updates

The Center Square

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change has received roughly $2.2 million in state funds over the past six years and has spent about three-quarters of it.

That’s the finding of an audit the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts conducted at the request of the House Appropriations Committee. The center received the money — allocated through the Department of Economic Development’s tourism program — between fiscal 2017 and October, primarily for facility repairs and updates.

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Georgia State Senate Overwhelmingly Votes to Support Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Despite ‘Stop Cop City’ Petition

Tom Pappert

The Georgia State Senate voted on Friday to approve a symbolic senate resolution expressing support for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, with the measure receiving universal support among Republicans, and support from all but seven Democrats.

Introduced by State Senator Mike Hodges (R-Brunswick), the resolution expresses “support for the” safety training center and condemns “acts of violence and domestic terrorism,” referencing the violent clashes between law enforcement and protesters that saw a Georgia State Patrol trooper shot and a protester killed in January.

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Fulton County Jail Moves Up to 70 Inmates to Forsyth County amid Severe Overcrowding, ‘149,200-Case Backlog’

Tom Pappert
Inmate Behind Bars

News broke on Thursday that Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat inked an agreement with Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman in April to allow up to 70 detainees at the troubled Fulton County Jail to be relocated to the nearby county, with the agreement reportedly citing Fulton County’s 149,200-case backlog.

Reports indicated Labat planned to send some of the inmates in Fulton County to other jails earlier this year, but Appen Media Group published details about the agreement struck with Forsyth County for the first time on Thursday.

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Trump Seeks Dismissal of Georgia Election Case Citing First Amendment, Notes DA Willis’ Election Claims in Indictment

Tom Pappert

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump submitted a legal filing in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday arguing the First Amendment protects Trump from prosecution for the statements he made during his contest of the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, wrote in the filing that Trump genuinely believes he won the 2020 election in Georgia, despite Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ repeated claims he “falsely” made statements to that effect.

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Georgia Judge Will Hear Motions from Trump Co-Defendants Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark to Delay Court Dates

Tom Pappert

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee agreed on Tuesday to hear motions from two co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and those who helped him contest the 2020 election. If granted, the motions would see a significant delay in court deadlines that could impact the proposed August 5 trial date.

McAfee agreed to hear motions last week filed by attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark, who was the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Apartment Justice during the 2020 election. Both men have filed for the charges against them to be removed from Fulton County to a federal court, and seek to delay Georgia court dates until those decisions are made.

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NBC Claims Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman ‘Takes Digs’ at Him, Cites No Evidence

Rachel Alexander

Constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, who served as an attorney to former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election lawsuits, is being prosecuted in both Georgia and Washington, D.C., and has undergone a disciplinary trial by the State Bar of California due to his role. Eastman’s criminal attorney filed a pleading in the Georgia RICO prosecution on Monday asking to move up the date to accept a plea agreement in that case so his trial can proceed sooner, explaining that his situation was different than Trump’s which needs a later date. The mainstream media claimed Eastman was attacking the former president, with NBC reporting that Eastman “takes digs” at Trump.

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Georgia Supreme Court Pauses Commission Created to Check Prosecutors, Stalling Senate Effort to Rein in Fani Willis

Tom Pappert
Georgia Supreme Court

The Georgia Supreme Court refused to accept the proposed rules for the state’s new Prosecuting Attorneys Qualification Commission (PAQC) in a ruling made Wednesday, effectively pausing the Republican effort to provide oversight for the state’s attorneys.

Georgia lawmakers passed SB 92 last year, creating the PAQC to provide oversight of elected district attorneys across the state. While independent, the legislation requires the Georgia Supreme Court to accept the PAQC’s draft standards and rules before the committee can enforce its decisions.

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Georgia Report Suggests Steps Congress Should Take to SNAP ‘Benefits Cliffs’

The Center Square
Tennessee Star

Design flaws in the federal food stamp program hinder recipients’ upward economic mobility and effectively force them into governmental dependency.

That’s the upshot of a new Georgia Center for Opportunity report exploring possible solutions for addressing the benefits cliffs in safety-net programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

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Expert: Georgia Should Alleviate Burdensome Licensing Requirements

The Center Square

Eliminating licensing requirements for some professions in Georgia could help businesses and bring more people into the workforce.

“We did a national ranking in terms of occupational licensing, and we had Georgia coming in at 32nd with first being the worst,” Edward Timmons, director of the Knee Regulatory Research Center at West Virginia University, which recently rebranded from the Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation, told The Center Square.

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Biden, Democrat Donors Reportedly Do Not Consider Georgia ‘Top Tier’ Priority for 2024

Tom Pappert

President Joe Biden and major donors to the Democratic Party do not consider Georgia to be a “top tier” priority for the 2024 elections, according to multiple progressive and Democratic activists quoted in a New York Times report published Friday.

Cliff Albright, executive director of the Black Voters Matter Fund, told the publication his impression from “Democratic donors and party leaders” is that Georgia is “not, like, first tier,” adding that “some early indications are that it’s not going to get top-level prioritization.” The left wing group he co-founded spent more than $1 million to oppose former Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in 2020, and nearly $400,000 to elect Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

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No Labels Hoping to Secure Ballot Access in Georgia

The Center Square

No Labels is working to secure ballot access in all 50 states for the 2024 presidential election, including Georgia, even as the party plays coy about nominating a candidate for the nation’s top office.

A party spokesperson confirmed that No Labels is on the ballot in 12 states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. However, the party still needs to be added to the ballot in Georgia.

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Slain ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester Wrote ‘Killing Cops Is Okay’ in ‘Anti-Police’ Diary Georgia Attorney General Wants to Use in RICO Trial

Tom Pappert

The office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) filed a motion on Tuesday to use the diary of slain “Forest Defender” Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán in the racketeering trial of more than 60 activists allegedly tied to violent protests at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

Police say Terán opened fire on Georgia State Patrol (GSP) troopers at the site of the public safety training center in January, prompting troopers to fatally shoot him. Prosecutors determined the troopers involved in the fatal shooting will face no charges in October.

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Georgia Judge Refuses to Revoke Bail for Trump Co-Defendant, but Bans Him from Talking About Trump, Witnesses

Tom Pappert

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee refused to revoke the bail of former Black Voices for Trump director Harrison Floyd in a Tuesday hearing, and instead adopted a modified bond order submitted by District Attorney Fani Willis in court. Floyd is a co-defendant in Willis’ racketeering case against former President Donald Trump.

Willis asked McAfee to revoke Floyd’s bond in a filing last week, citing Floyd’s posts to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Floyd made posts referencing former Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and tagging other defendants, including former attorney Jenna Ellis, who accepted a plea deal from Willis in October and publicly apologized to Georgia for participating in Trump’s contest of the 2020 election.

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Fani Willis Seeks to Begin Georgia Trump Trial in August 2024

Tom Pappert
Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked in a Friday filing to begin the racketeering trial of former President Donald Trump on August 5, 2024. If granted by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, this would correspond with Willis’ plans for Trump’s trial to be active on Election Day, as she told a crowd of reporters gathered at The Washington Post’s headquarters last week.

Willis requested Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to schedule the trial after a final plea hearing on June 21, 2024. According to Willis, the August trial date “balances potential delays” from Trump’s “other criminal trials” while respecting the rights of his co-defendants to have a speedy trial.

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Poll Shows Widespread Support for Education Tax Credits in Georgia

The Center Square

An education choice advocacy group says personal education tax credits are popular with parents nationwide, and Georgia lawmakers could soon move on education reform.

With education tax credits, an alternative to Education Savings Accounts, parents or guardians receive a credit when they choose a non-public school for their dependent’s education. According to the group yes. every kid., states can use existing tax mechanisms for these policies, and parents or guardians receive a tax refund by indicating on a tax form or an application their dependent isn’t enrolled in public school.

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Stacey Abrams’ Brother-in-Law Arrested on Human Trafficking Charges

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Jimmie Gardner

The brother-in-law of former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was arrested on human trafficking charges, Florida authorities said.

Jimmie Gardner, 57, allegedly met a 16-year-old girl in a Tampa hotel and attempted to pay her for sex, according to a Friday release by the State Attorney’s Office for the 13th Judicial Circuit. He was charged with one felony count of human trafficking for commercial sexual activity (victim less than 18), according to a court document obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Gov. Kemp Points Out MLB Dropped ‘Misguided Understanding’ of Georgia Voting Law as All-Star Game Returns to Atlanta

Tom Pappert

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) posted on social media to celebrate the return of the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game to Atlanta in 2025, noting the professional athletic organization changed its mind regarding Georgia’s 2021 voting law.

The MLB announced the Atlanta Braves will hold the 2025 All-Star Game at Truist Park in a statement posted to social media on Thursday. Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred stated that the Braves are “a model of success on the field,” and predicted that “Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta” will offer “a world class experience” to baseball fans in 2025.

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Judge Signs Protective Order Written by Defense, Not DA Fani Willis, After Video Leaks in Georgia Trump Trial

Tom Pappert

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee signed a protective order on Thursday to seal sensitive evidence in District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering case against former President Donald Trump following the leak of proffer videos earlier this week. However, McAfee adopted the protective order submitted by former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, one of the co-defendants in the case, instead of the more restrictive order submitted by Willis on Tuesday.

He explained that Willis first requested a protective order on September 27, but Shafer and nine other defendants informed the court they were negotiating the details of a joint protective order with prosecutors. The negotiations apparently reached an impasse by October 5, but remained ongoing as of October 16, according to McAfee’s order. 

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