July 2, 2019 10:13 AM
HomePoliticsMorning Reads for Tuesday, July 2

Morning Reads for Tuesday, July 2

By  Politics  13 Comments

Good morning! Please excuse any technical difficulties – no need to adjust your screen.

About Author

Teri

Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.

13 Comments
  1. Dave Bearse

    Great timing yet again by Trump for his Dictatorpalooza tour ahead of Independence Day.

    He kicked off the trip by joking with Putin about Russian non-interference in the 2016 election. He went on to PDNK to further legitimize Li’l Kim, and NK as a nuclear power, meeting privately along with Ivanka and Jared for nearly an hour (because a second-rate fashion designer and her grifter husband are the best the Trump administration has for dealmaking). He closed out the trip with MBS by greenlighting extrajudicial killing.

    Trump’s return to the “dump” would be a real downer if not for his naming himself guest of honor at a Washington parade featuring tanks and armored vehicles. He’s says it’s a non-partisan speech but the RNC is a primary ticket outlet. His dictator friends fete themselves with such displays, so why shouldn’t Trump?

    Lest anyone think the denigration of Democracy is only a Trump thing, neither the GaGOP or any leading Republican in the state of Georgia have yet to investigate or speak out on the DPG hack of the state’s voter registration database. They don’t care that it happened—elections are a joking matter. Ditto the dictator worship. Silence isn’t plausible objection—it’s acquiescence that normalizes it that will MAGA.

    • chefdavid

      Sure glad Obama didn’t go and meet with the Murderess Castro regime when he was in office.

      • Grindelwald

        The Obama Admin. met with MBS (granted, that’s before he ordered and oversaw the brutal murder of a Washington Post journalist). Bush, Obama, and Trump have consistently maintained normal relations with Saudi Arabia, and the House of Saud despite the fact they pretty much financed 9/11. As David notes, Obama met with Raul Castro. Simply pointing out that Trump meets with bad people is a stupid argument when you realize that Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. met with bad people, too.

        There are two things that make Trump different, however. First, I don’t recall Obama showering Raul Castro in effusive praise or cracking jokes with Putin about murdering journalists or silencing dissidents.

        Second, and more importantly, Obama actually got something for his efforts. A meeting of “principals” is the juiciest carrot we can dangle in front of leaders like Castro, Kim, etc. Meeting with the President of the United States – and being able to broadcast the imaging of you meeting him across the world and back home – lends international legitimacy to bad actors. Trump is, in essence, giving away his most powerful bargaining tool for free. For the price of three face-to-face meetings with the President he’s gotten absolutely zero, none, zip, zilch, nada out of North Korea. They’ve taken no steps towards dismantling their nuclear program. They’ve made no efforts at increasing freedom of speech/press/assembly/etc. They’re still killing and jailing political opponents. They’re still starving their people. They’re still doing the same s*it they’ve been doing for decades, only now with the President telling the world how wonderful Kim is.

      • chamblee54

        Who is this Murderess Castro? Fidel was known to be a ladies man. Did one of his wives, or daughters, kill people?

  2. xdog

    Can anyone provide details of new insurance commissioner John King’s Hispanic background? News accounts mention he was born in Mexico and review his career as a cop and a military man but skip everything else. I wonder who was his ma and pa and who are his wife and kids.

  3. chefdavid

    In case you missed it. “S&P 500 posts best June in 64 years” BAM https://www.snl.com/web/client?auth=inherit#news/article?id=52654640&KeyProductLinkType=4

    “President Trump has now gotten the US economic expansion to outlast any other in modern history,” the New York Post editorial board writes. By historical standards, even with the weak growth of the Obama era, the economy was overdue for a dip when Trump took office. “Yet it has instead remained pretty strong . . . Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts, each a stark reverse of Obama policies, changed the course.” https://nypost.com/2019/07/01/remember-the-policies-giving-america-sustained-and-deep-economic-growth/

    Could you believe socialist AOC would give out disinformation? Isn’t this part of their manifesto? https://www.foxnews.com/politics/immigration-border-facility-aoc-hispanic

  4. armanidog

    “Federal funds are 30% of Georgia’s budget”

    Interesting article on Georgia’s budget. It gives all the basics:

    “Georgia plans to spend $27.5 billion in state money raised through taxes and fees for the 2020 fiscal year. The budget plan anticipates a revenue increase of $1.3 billion, or five percent more than the prior year.

    Georgia’s $27.5 billion 2020 budget is record-setting. The majority of the increase over the prior year is required to simply keep pace with growth and fund a $3,000 pay raise for Georgia’s certified teachers and public school employees. Things like the number of students in our K-12 schools and rising retirement benefits for state employees will almost always increase the cost of running the state from year to year.

    Georgia’s 2020 fiscal year runs July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020. The total budget available to the state is $48.6 billion. That includes $27.5 billion in state funding, $14.4 billion in federal funding and $6.7 billion in agency funds.”

    The article breaks down the funding sources and the cost of government.
    https://gbpi.org/2019/georgia-revenue-primer-for-state-fiscal-year-2020/

  5. Grindelwald

    USA! USA! USA! Only fitting we flash it back to 1776 and hand England their hats. Can’t wait til Sunday!!!

  6. Will Durant

    Couldn’t help notice the name but agree wholeheartedly with the argument against forfeiture to Da Man in lieu of prosecution. Torpy seems to be focusing more on the legality of the machines rather than the legality of the extortion.

    For three years, Bowers and Anulewicz have argued that it’s DAs like Cooke who are going too far by using the law to “extort” millions of dollars in forfeitures. Large sums of this cash, they point out, go to attorney Lambros and also to Cooke’s office. They allege that Cooke spends these “unaccountable funds” in ways “he believes will garner him favor with his constituency.”
    “This is a shakedown scheme,” Anulewicz told me. “They have this huge cash cow. We were looking to bust their model up. If you or I did this, we’d be in prison. This is a RICO scheme all its own.”

    https://www.ajc.com/news/local/torpy-large-coin-machines-surest-bet-wealth-legal-woes/Mu9gRQqS2KFEDu2lu8yGuL/

  7. Dave Bearse

    Thanks for the Bitter Southerner link. It had been a long while since I visited there.

  8. Dave Bearse

    Carter’s average GOP constituent is too stupid to know he says one thing and does the opposite. MAGA.

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