The Ron Show

Yesterday's 'Meet the Press' was DE-pressing for "D" party folks. When Steve Kornacki rolled out the latest NBC News poll, it showed the party with a meager 27% approval rating. It's a three-decades long low, and after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rallied enough Democrat Senate votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the federal government (somewhat) churnin...

Mayor Andre Dickens surprised (sort of) many when he and his staffers announced a c hange in priority for the Atlanta Beltline's transit future . They made this news at Thursday's MARTA board meeting and reaction was swift. Among the sharpest critics, the Beltline rail advocates at Beltline Rail Now! Matthew Raoe, chair of BRN, joined me today at Condesa Coffee in Old Fourth Ward for a spi...

The chilling detainment of green card holder Mahmoud Khalil , a Syrian national and recent Columbia graduate, raises a lot of questions about the rights of permanent residents, most notably freedom of speech . To answer the sort of questions that came to my mind, immigration specialist Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, managing partner at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law in Austin, TX, graciously took the call. We als...

Always a joy to have Melita Easters - executive director at the Georgia WIN List - on the show, and today was no exception. As of this episode posting she's interviewing author Elaine Weiss, whose latest book, "Spell Freedom," looks back at the underground schools that built the civil rights movement, The discussion is one previously scheduled at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library...

The Zoom call dust-up between state Senator Elena Parent and the mother of a trans child continues to catch the attention of local media and the political consultant class; the latest to chime in being the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Bill Torpy , who zeroed in on an angle: that Parent is one of four Democrats who voted for a GOP-led bill (four others skipped the vote altogether) to limit ta...

Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens gave his "state of the city" address in a typically "Atlanta Way" ... a flashy high society pep rally of sorts, with civic leaders and local music icons both in the wings and on the stage, too. While he touched on (of course) all his perceived high marks (and there are enough, for sure), leave it to me to douse a little reality on the feting, too. Od...

The now-infamous (somewhat) personal Zoom Q&A state senator Elena Parent (D) and one of her constituents - Lena Kotler - got a lot of attention because of but a few minutes of the dialogue. Like most people, I heard it and focused just on that portion because of the mushy messaging Senator Parent exhibited with regards to the rights of the imprisoned who are trans. It's a party problem mor...

State Senator Elena Parent - someone who's been on this show on two occasions; someone I'm awful fond of, politically - didn't have her best moment on a live Instagram Q&A with a trans parent and constituent recently . With me to discuss, another trans parent and activist, Clare Schexnyder., founder/CEO of Oh Baby! Fitness . It's not that I don't  get  what Sen. Parent is s...

Back from my week-long Puerto Rican birthday vacation only to step back into the booth and have to tee off on arguably one of the most shocking and embarrassing displays of foreign diplomacy in American history. You can't tell me my eyes didn't see what they saw and ears heard what they did: Donald Trump and JD Vance are Russian assets. There's no other explanation for their revolting...

Author (and physical therapist) Michelle Stiles wrote a book a few years ago that seemed worthy of review now, more than ever. " One Idea To Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda " isn't strictly a political book, per se, but it does offer a lot of clues leading us to realizing why we're in the political state we're in currently. Oner particular excerpt caugh...

Tad Stoermer is a public history lecturer in the Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies program at Johns Hopkins University. He is also the Film and Digital Media Editor of The Public Historian. He caught my eye on Instagram with a 9-plus minute diatribe insisting we're not "approaching" a Constitutional crisis; we're already in one and have been for awhile. Can it be fixed? Is the...

MAGA may not care that their heroes, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, keep getting caught in lies, but for the sake of history, the rest of us will just have to keep chronicling it, anyway. The latest: claims that 150+ year old people are getting Social Security checks; well, that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is sending check to people born that long ago (and longer) who are obviously not a...

Another Republican-backed bill to get rid of school zone speeding ticket-generating cameras is having a better go of it in the Georgia General Assembly this session, and as someone who's been the recipient of one of their tickets, I'm not not so sure I'm for or against this ban. On the one hand, I definitely support safety for pedestrian kids near schools (and anywhere), but there'...

Hearing J.D. Vance have the audacity to go not just to Europe but to Munich, GERMANY to finger-wag about a "threat from within" was just too stunning to let glide by. Today I started with my disdain (I was a ctually outraged upon first glance) for a social media post by a longtime radio friend taking delight in a purported spike in home listings in the DC metro - along with a pretty wick...

I've been tough on Georgia Democrats not doing better waging a proper offensive in the war for information over disinformation, but they've gotten way better at it in recent months. Between Sen. Jason Esteves and Sen. Elena Parent , House Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook , the messaging is organic and yet still well-produced - and that's a big pivot from the recent past. And it's more nec...

I've long said Republicans were unserious about addressing shortcomings in our immigration situation because they spend way more time seeking to demonize migrant (you know, "illegals") and not the real "illegals" (employers & human traffickers) menacing ( in some cases abusing, exploiting, threatning and even killing) well-meaning migrant laborers. A recent sentencing of a human trafficking ki...

Greg Bluestein's reporting that Democrats are "fracturing" over Trump's "hardline" immigration agenda (literally the headline) included a nugget that - to me - was the story. "...a poll published this month by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  showed  that roughly 60% believe there should be a way for most people who have come to the U.S. unlawfully to “stay in the...

Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime performance has certainly sparked a conversation, and honestly the timing couldn't be better considering conservatives' breathless zeal for suppressing a true reckoning on race and its role in our nation's history. Surely you understand that's why the white nationalist-in-chief wants to dismantle the federal Department of Education so MAGA s...

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a MAGA radical, but there appears to be an effort to 'mainstream' her, anyway. She did a l ive taping for WABE-FM's "Politically Georgia" podcast with Atlanta Journal Constitution reporters Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell and Patricia Murphy last week and waffled on her "America First" hardlining (when it equivocates on Gaza but less so on Ukr...

Pardon me while I close a few "open tabs" on the laptop heading into the weekend. A ruby-red, Trump-adoring Georgia county "found out" about 700 "green energy" jobs planned for at a new battery plant south of Newnan aren't coming , after all. While the Norwegian company spoke of inflation and costs , it's hard not to connect the "drill baby, drill" d...

Good news, y'all; I have it on good authority (a mid-market conservative talk radio parrot) that Donald Trump''s rhetoric whereby the U.S. would "take over" Gaza were "sidebar remarks were casual and not intended as anything other than speculative inquiries." Oh good; for a minute there I thought the press briefing on a dais with the Israeli Prime Minister beside POTUS - both behind podiums and on...

Sometimes when I launch into a topic I have no idea where the stream of consciousness is going to take me, but damned if this isn't a good one, y'all, if I do say so myself. Georgia Republicans want to make Georgia a "closed primary" state , and that's (spoiler alert) bad for democracy . If Republicans are for something, when it comes to elections, you can be sure it's &q...

Sometimes you just have to laugh; credit to Senator Josh McLaurin (D-14) for taking his time on the floor at the state Senate to review all the nuttiness from the Trump administration's takeover in Washington. His xompatriot Senator Nikki Merritt took another tact yesterday , invoking Black History Month to remind folks to " walk carefully.. " She noted the military trying to bury th...

Super grateful that GA-6 Senator Jason Esteves joined me today to share some optimism (and some stark reality, too) on the likelihood some form of full Medicaid expansion is even a possibility this legislative session. There's at least a glimmer of hope with four rural Republican lawmakers joining with Democrats on the idea, anyway. Meanwhile, as Donald Trump keeps imperiling our economy with...

In the aftermath of the deadly plane/army helicopter crash, President Donald Trump almost immediately cited "D.E.I." as a factor - without evidence. Listen as USC law professor Jody Armour weigh in on Trump's missed opportunity to unite the nation after such a tragedy and his "incongruous" rationalization that D.E.I. has to have played a role. Why? Is he kneejerk reacting to deflect culpability on...