The Ron Show

Unsure if Hurricane Helene was going to trounce Atlanta and render me unavailable this morning, I caught up with Lawfare 's newest senior editor, Anna Bower , to discuss her latest piece: Will Georgia's New Election Rules Allow Trump to Steal The Presidency? Quite the headline, no? I won't spoil it for you and blurt out the answer but ... eh. Enjoy the conversation between me and my pedestrian non...

Georgia's 11th Congressional district has a unique general election scenario awaiting its voters. First, GOP incumbent Barry Loudermilk has spent much of the last two terms shilling for Donald Trump's "big lie" and whitewashing the January 6th insurrection . He's on the ballot, as is Katy Stamper - a former Libertarian candidate whose birth name is Karen Sacandy - who ran as...

While the right howls with indignation that VP Kamala Harris is going to do her first network TV interview with MSNBC'S Stephanie Ruhle, they seem to forget her opponent, Donald Trump, never wanders far off the OANN/NewsMax/Fox News reservation himself. The few times he has, of course, he's stormed off set (ask Leslie Stahl and '60 Minutes'). I dove into that double-standard a bit,...

Today saw the return of most Apalachee HS students to most of their school's campus. With "The Rock" welcoming football players and a talented student musician going viral on TikTok just for emoting over the loss of his teacher and classmates, there's no shortage of courage on display. Republicans in a position to do something on the senselessness of near-unfettered access to wea...

The now two-day Georgia Elections Board September hearing - stretching from Friday to today - has been a drama-filled doozie - and I've plenty of audio to share with you, so get your popcorn and settle in for a wild ride. Remember when this board as a boring, "mostly-ministerial acts" sort of body? Ahh, good times. Instead, now, our state's board wants to further gum up Election...

What a contrast: as Donald Trump stumped before the Israeli-America Council pre-blaming Jewish voters for not fawning over him, Kamala Harris sat down with Oprah Winfrey for what was essentially an hour-plus long infomercial, reminiscent of the 1992 Ross Perot run. Part of that Kammie/Oprah sit-down included the family or Amber Thurman, featured in recent days by ProPublica as among the first casu...

New polling in battleground states Georgia , Pennsylvania and nationally offer some mixed messaging - but the consensus is: 1. Kamala Harris has either made up ground or surpassed Trump and 2. this race is a dead heat But what are yard signs (or lack thereof) and local TV, radio and social influencer vibes telling us? Friend of the show King Williams tweeted earlier this week his concerns about th...

I do get a kick out of Senator JD Vance howling with indignation that folks on the left need to dial down the divisive rhetoric as if we're all unaware who his running mate is. As a matter of fact, before my day got away from me yesterday, I'd planned to splice together a batch of clips of one Donald John Trump and his many years of heated rancor. Fortunately, the Daily Show has a staff ca...

New ProPublica reporting details an unintended consequence of Georgia's six-week abortion ban: it's killed at least one (so far) pregnant woman - and likely more. Amber Nicole Thurman's story is one likely repeating since her passing in 2022, but we won't know until further data gets released by the state. There's a political distinction to this, too: conservative white men don...

Sure, I could spend time today handwringing over a second Trump assassination, but I've become desensitized since they just keep happening - much the way America is desensitized to gun violence. So, since the GOP says there's nothing we can do about curbing access to weapons for nuts, why bother? Instead, there's more to know about that goings on in Springfield, Ohio, where a rust belt...

Okay, we've all had a few good laughs over the whole "eating dogs and cats" quip from the Tuesday night debate (what IS it with JD Vance and cats?) but in all seriousness, Donald Trump's continued reliance of "hearsay" and "TV" for information - particularly anti-immigrant rhetoric - is dangerous and reckless. Kudos to Ana Navarro for calling it out . And to K...

The headline for today's podcast came from the lips of Brit Hume on Fox News, and if that doesn't set the table for the conversation today, maybe it was the handshake she charged towards Donald to give well past midway on the stage to pronounce her name correctly for him. He never said her name; he invoked Joe Biden several times, but never once said her name. George Chidi from The Atlanta...

American University Professor Alan Lichtman has made a near-flawless science of correctly predicting presidential elections since 1984 - having only been wrong once. Well, his 2024 call was announced - and ... well tune in (or get past the NYT paywall here ). While more than half the Georgia GOP Congressional representation still peddles "big lie" fodder, MAGA nuts like Nick Fuentes are...

Georgia House Democrats Friday urged a special session from Governor Brian Kemp (R - NRA) to address what they believe are needed legislative reforms in the aftermath of the Apalachee High School mass shooting. They won't get one, because problem-solving isn't big on Kemp's "to do" list, but proposed legislation like Dr. Michelle Au's "Pediatric Health Safe Storage A...

As families make burial and/or memorial plans in Winder, Georgia, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) pinned the father of the 14-year old shooting suspect with an array of charges, including second degree murder . We've learned more about the 2023 incident where a Jackson County (GA) sheriff's investigator visited father Collin and son Colt in 2023 - yet another "warning sign&q...

You can tell we're desensitized by mass shootings when it doesn't take over your social media feeds. Such was the case yesterday when the U.S. largely went about its business as four were killed in a north Georgia high school at the hands of a 14-year old boy with access to an "AR style" weapon. You can hear the late-night GBI update , with Governor Brian Kemp (for whatever reaso...

Fox News is always gonna "Fox News" with antics from the likes of Jesse Watters (even 'judge Jeanine' gets turned off by him now and then), but they can't un-data their own data. Their latest polling shows Kamala Harris has caught (and likely surpassed) Donald Trump in key swing states and nationally. Ya know what? Those polls may actually under-sell her position, what with t...

Governor Tim Walz stumped in Wisconsin at "Laborfest" while a rejuvenated President Joe Biden joined VP Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh on Labor Day rallying organized labor. Meanwhile, Donald Trump stewed on social media from Mar A Lago (with nothing on his calendar this week) and his VP pick, Senator JD Vance did as most Americans did and just enjoyed an "off-day." The contrasts...

The Harris/Walz bus tour is now in Florida, after putzing around southeast Georgia a couple days, but before they took off, they got to hang in a Savannah cafe for a bit to go two-on-one with CNN'S Dana Bash for the VP and her running mate's first interview atop the Democratic ticket. I likened it to a (painful, for this Falcons' fan) football game - it's "must win" and y...

Atlanta Voice editor-in-chief Donnell Suggs spent a few minutes today giving me some sense what it's like to be working media on a Presidential campaign bus caravan. Plus, we get to go inside that packed, festive band room at Liberty High School to hear VP Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz addressing current and future voters (and leaders). The fallout from the Arlington National Cemetery campai...

It takes a big person to stop, collaborate and listen (sorry; had to) and thanks to frequent show guest Marilyn Marks, executive director at the Coalition for Good Governance, that's not all I've done when it comes to the Georgia Elections Board's antics of late; it's made me come to realize the "MAGA 3" are actually trying enact some policies and procedures to make elect...

Got to check in with my buddy Keith McCants, Bryan County Democratic Party chair, to see how excited folks in South Georgia are that VP Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz will be doing a two-day barnstorming bus tour. We discussed Walz' appeal to rural voters and what "black jobs" appear to be to Donald Trump and more. Speaking of Cadet Bone Spurs, reaction was salty, swift and angry fr...

The Harris/Walz South Georgia bus tour is on (where yet, is unknown) is on ... and the back & forth bickering between their camp and the Trump team about muted mics (it's wild who's for and against 'em ) in the upcoming ABC-hosted debate is, too. Former Trump national security advisor General H.R. McMaster is out with a scathing new book , incidentally, which seems to couple nicely...

Officially accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. Presidency, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a near-40 minute speech, weaving in autobiographical anecdotes and details and laying out a policy vision in a rather neatly-stitched speech. I watched, along with Georgia WIN List members and guests and Manuel's Tavern and got feedback from several women - some of them ca...

If I'm being honest, Governor Tim Walz' speech was just "alright" ... in that I'd heard much of it before in prior stump speeches. Forgive me for being unimpressed; but his high school football teams' championship players and his wife and kids, Hope and Gus, made for spectacular accessories. In any event, I spent a good bit of time revisiting his and Oprah Winfrey's (...