The Ron Show

As Cop City protestors gathered, marched and wound up being tear-gassed, an Atlanta apartment community is reeling from the stupidity of two individuals who put celebrating birthdays with fireworks over the safety & wellness of residents. Trust me, there's a connection I'm getting to here. Atlanta's fire department is routinely shutting down more than a quarter of its fire stations because it hasn...

Middle school math teacher, Georgia Young Dem President & Morehouse grad Bryce Berry announced he's running for the Georgia House - in district 56. If that number sounds familiar, it's the seat currently occupied by Republican Mesha Manor. I got to know him a little bit on the show today. Outgoing West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin sat with former Senator Roy Blunt at the Isakson Symposium at the U...

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin announced he's not running for his seat in 2024, sending shivers down the backs of Democrats hoping to hold a Senate majority. I spoke with Kendal Scudder, host of "Pod Bless Texas" & vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party to discuss why Democrats struggle in rural places like West Virginia (and Texas). Then there's the opportunity to review the latest GOP presi...

Andrew Heaton, political consultant & advisor for the Jerica Richardson congressional campaign, rejoined me today to bask in the afterglow of Tuesday election gains for Democrats and choice advocates. Don't worry, my pessimism kept him honest, to a degree. New AJC/UGA polling shows a neck-and-neck race in Georgia (no surprise) between President Biden and former President Trump, but there are revea...

With polls showing some degradation of support among African Americans for the Democratic party (or at least it's presumptive nominee & incumbent President), I sought out someone I knew would give me the temperature ... so educator and author Dante King (⁠"The 400 Year Holocaust"⁠) was my guest today. Gird your loins; it's not an easy listen. So what do President Biden & Democrats do? Also, why is...

No sugarcoating the latest New York Times / Sienna College presidential polling data that just dropped; so I won't try to. Instead, I'll pontificate as to what has to be done - if anything can be - or if Democrats and Biden/Harris have to figure out a way to communicate with the America we live in - on America's level. And before anyone goes thinking I'm only talking about MAGA voters or low=info...

In my attempt to implore that "local elections matter," going into what'll be a low-turnout Tuesday, I can't stress enough the importance of weighing in on local school board races (ask a Cobb County voter how important that is). I also hear the dogwhistles, as being blown into by the likes of one GOP backer in Johns Creek who's concerned about "riffraff" coming to her community if "Democrats" com...

I spent more than half of my show agreeing with Republican politicians, y'all. Let that sink in. Fulton district 2 commissioner Bob Ellis went all-in on Sheriff Pat Labat's alleged mishandling of money in a fund meant for "inmate welfare" on things like soirees, party DJs and personal vehicle use. Now, while Labat - or for that matter anyone from his department - was present to speak to the allega...

Dom Kelly, co-founder & CEO of New Disabled South & New Disabled South Rising PAC joined me to discuss his being a Jewish American who's pro-Palestinian and give his reaction to recent Senate subcommittee testimony that insinuates Georgia's DFCS sought to detain foster kids with exceptional needs in youth detention facilities because they were too hard to place. We also touched on the GOP's effort...

No real show agenda today, and no one "major" story to harp on, so I bounced around a good bit. There's discussion on new state maps, our cooler (and drier & windier - be careful with the yard burns) weather, the escalating death toll in Gaza, the rise in ugly antisemitism here in Georgia and the prospects of an MTG presidential campaign? Hasn't America suffered enough?

Georgia's Department of Family & Childres Services were accused - in a Senate subcommittee hearing today - of seeking permission to detain special needs kids in the foster system. DETAIN. The state with the $11.7 billion (or more) surplus, with a stretched-thin DHS system and inadequate facilities for the special needs community, has a foster system looking to "detain" kids as a temporary (or is i...

"MAGA Mike" Johnson, new Speaker of the House, got the soft glove treatment from Sean Hannity Thursday night on Fox News, but there were a handful of moments worth hearing & chiming in on. They touched on gun policy (sort of), which gave me an excuse to share some ⁠Randy Rainbow work⁠, aid to Israel & Ukraine (Sean, invoking the 'European fair share' trope - ⁠roundly debunked⁠), Johnson's ⁠anti-ga...

Another deadly mass shooting has a community and surrounding state essentially on lockdown and a numb nation is immobile to do anything. I spoke with Leigh Richardson, licensed counselor, founder of the Brain Performance Center and author of the book " Turn Your Brain On to Get Your Game On: The How, What, Why to Peak Performance" to ask how survivors & grief-stricken loved ones handle such a scen...

Georgia Republicans seem to forget we've jail overcrowding and judicial backlog problems; they're looking to make both worse by ramping UP cash bonds, because .... the cruelty is the point. Lt. Governor Burt Jones also wants to "gun up" your kid's gym teacher. Then there's the new GOP House Speaker, flanked by Grandma Moses-like Virginia Foxx imploring people of color "shut up; just shut UP!" Also...

Rep. Shea Roberts (maybe we're cousins?) joined me today to begin by soundly criticizing the state Supreme Court's decision to affirm the six-week abortion ban in place prior to 'Dobbs.' She also takes Governor Kemp to task for "leading" the state to it's last place ranking on healthcare. Did ya hear Jenna Ellis' riveting "performance" earlier today? Let me let ya hear another gem she gave on Nove...

Things are beyond dire at Dekalb's animal shelter in Chamblee, with Lifeline Anima Project stating they'l need to ramp up euthanizing dogs at more than four times the usual clip to get its population under control - and they'd prefer not to at all, of course. TikTok's "Politics Girl" provides some clarity for us folks on the left concerned about Biden's age (myself included). I'll hear her out if...

It's not been a good week for Governor Brian Kemp, relative to facts in the healthcare realm; I've 1,343 reasons to point out Kemp's failing hundreds of thousands of Georgians. The dominos from Trump's inner circle keep falling, as Fani Willis nabs another guilty plea - and cooperative witness in the process in her bid to take down the former President. President Biden's Oval Office address is an...

Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell - she of the "kraken release" that never was - suddenly and unexpectedly rolled, taking a plea deal this morning. Hear her taking the plea - admitting guilt to six charges - and join me in speculating why. My theory? The ⁠treasure trove of recovered emails⁠ Coffee County officials appeared to try and bury under the "delete" button. So ... will Georgia e...

Hear Fani Willis tell her close friends and top donors about the crap she's having to deal with just for doing her job (in this case, prosecuting Trump's attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results). Hey, speaking of prosecuting thugs, it turns out FBI data bears out an overall drop in the violent crime Republicans want you to believe is skyrocketing since Biden took office. It's actually...

GOP dysfunction is truly funnier in that - while they flail at getting their sh*t together - they have the gall to blame Democrats for that, too. Georgia's racking up a helluva reserve, and while I'm pretty sure a future Senate candidate will just punt it back to us in some minor tax tweak, I've some tangible, meaningful suggestions that would better lives for hundreds of thousands, if not million...

Herschel's holding onto some serious campaign cash, and some Georgia GOPers are sweating his future Senate aspirations, but ... Uhm, there's another Clarence Thomas "conflict of interest" situation flying under the radar. Boop. Boop. New IN-CITY "Cop City" polling should give the mayor and Atlanta Police Foundation the sweats.

Dan Vicuna with Common Cause joined me today to dive into the CHARGE batch of report cards for each state's redistricting efforts, and - surprise - Georgia got a D. IN fact, 18 of the 20 failing states are GOP-controlled. I'm also joined today by Chris Dowd with Athens Politics Nerd to get a better understanding as to why Deborah Gonzalez, Athens-Clarke district attorney - is the target of Georgia...

Georgia's only openly Jewish General Assembly representative, Esther Panitch, was certainly emotional over the weekend, on the heels of Hamas' deadly and often grisly terror attack on Israel. She admitted yesterday one of her tweets, targeting "The Squad," was "beneath" her and her office. I'm pleased she came to this realization. Report cards are in, and Georgia gets a "D" - and this time we won'...

Mayor Andre Dickens' recent appearance on a non-commercial radio station podcast warrants a little scrutiny ,and I have a little to give. :) Of course the public safety training facility is the topic he and the three hosts focus on, but he did make some news in the wake of the Johnny Hollman death & subsequent firing of the APD officer involved, so there's that. I was joined by Rev. James "Major"...

The officer who showed up to handle a fender bender, but wound up tasing Johnny Hollman shortly before Hollman died is now out of a job. That whole situation is somehow rationale for a $90 million police campus, according to Atlanta's mayor. Kinda not digging the use of a civilian casualty by one's own police officer for that. I'm also noticing a note of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian...