The Ron Show

I am not a religious person, but I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church, so it's not as if I don't have a decent grasp of the values of the white evangelical voting bloc. So how do we square Donald Trump taking 53% of Iowa's white evangelical voter support last night - and since that's actually being a dip from his 2020 and 2016 numbers, is that a harbinger for his prospects this N...

It was eight years ago the audio of a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave to a London audience was unearthed. On December 4, 1964, Dr. King spoke before the British group "Christian Action," days before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo later that month. Dr. King spoke of the American civil rights struggle, economic, educational, police & judicial injustice and South African...

With the latest ("salacious") allegations levied at Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Atlanta-Journal Constitution scribe Patricia Murphy makes a compelling case to wonder what the embattled DA is thinking. Buckle up if you've not already ready this. It's not an easy listen, either. Eavesdropping on Judge McAfee's hearing, in the aftermath, however, all we got was...

Governor Brian Kemp gave his annual "State of the State" address before a joint session of the general assembly today, and I chose to replay and annotate. HERE is the Georgia Democratic Party's response presser.

Busy news day but it can all wait til tomorrow, yeah? Today I got to speak with producer, award-winning screenwriter and actress from Gillian Rabin, along with Georgia WIN List executive director Melita Easters today about the premiere of Gillian's thought-provoking short film, "L-8." You can watch it HERE. Quite the thought-starter! The premise: "Set in a not-so-distant future...

Admittedly, with little else on but football, I've been binging 'Suits,' and I'm through seven full seasons - just the sort of prep I apparently needed for covering local, state & American politics, because - wow - the courtroom drama! So we have a Fani Willis affair allegation - from a Trump ally attorney - tying the Fulton D.A. to a special prosecutor who's not (yet) divo...

If it isn't yet abundantly clear to you by now that Donald Trump fullly intends to stretch out his legal woes long enough to pardon himself, today's legal maneuvers in Fulton County pretty much leave no doubt as to how desperate his team is. I can disagree agreeably with the likes of Martha Zoller, but I can (and do) also point out doublespeak on districts belonging to voters when her pref...

JenChan's , a Cabbagetown/Atlanta dining GEM, has been charging patrons a 4% healthcare line-item surcharge for more than a year. Recently, however, some grousers have groused on social media about it - despite it being easily removable if asked - and it brings healthcare again to discussion. I spoke with co-owner Emily. She and her wife and child have even been physically threatened over it o...

I don't always know when I set up an interview if it's going to be an agreeable conversation, and when I set up today's talk with Alan Holmes, host of the podcast "Hidden Lynchings" and staunch reparations advocate, I wasn't actually sure we'd vibe like we did. See, Alan and I had gone back & forth a time or two on Twitter/X over reparations, the mechanics of it,...

Enjoyed catching up with political consultant Andrew Heaton from Sagamore Hill Consulting. We bantered on Georgia's redrawn maps, the upcoming legislative session and did some 2024 predicting. Good times. Second half of the show, I ceded some time to "Politics Girl" to review her mid-December "impeachment" retort , and then I somehow wound up railing on the GOP's preeni...

So over the holidays, judge Steve Jones took the just-as-partisan, even more racist (but not towards black people, at least as much as before) redrawn Georgia legislative maps and said "eh, this will do." Stunned a lot of folks who predicted at least two of three would need special master re-draws. Oh well; while there's still litigious pushes to alter that, most of the Georgia polit...

Alright; who's up for some uncomfortable political conversations with loved ones at Christmastime? Anyone? Anyone? Fine; I'll do it. The story of Jesus' birth - his parents refugees fleeing hostility - doesn't quite "hit" with the "reason for the season" crowd, but let's spell it out for ourselves if for no one else. Or, let me introduce you to Rev. Mitri Ra...

Oh; Atlanta Public Schools' doled out $1000 bonuses before Gov. Brian Kemp announced he was going to do so for teachers, and now APS says "yeah, we already gave y'all that, so we're keeping what he sends us to send y'all." Teachers feel let down. The state superintendent ain't happy , either. Yikes. Rudy Giuliani's filed for bankruptcy , so is there any juice in t...

Whether it's MAGA movement reacting to the surprise Colorado Supreme Court decision, the slithering in of Prager U indoctrination into public school curriculum , or Donald's latest Hitler-esque "dog whistle," it's impossible to ignore all the whitewashing going on, right? RIGHT? Even the GOP's holding aid for Ukraine and Israel hostage waiting on (air quotes) "immigr...

A steady stream of Trump fanatics , still hung up on Georgia's 2020 presidential tally, rattled on about debunked conspiracies before the Georgia Elections Board today, to no avail. The occasion bears to mind how much the MAGA folks ... well, conservatives in general ... take issue with "democracy." There's also the matter of Georgia's film tax credit and its diminished retur...

When Erick Erickson and Governor Brian Kemp are on the right side of something, you know the nuts have made some noise. A viral Tweet started making the rounds Friday afternoon then through the weekend insisting the governor implored Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger fix a 2020 vote snafu that never was, prompting a Kemp spokesperson to repudiate the actual "fake news." The Atlanta J...

At what point did it occur to you that Republicans are incapable of remorse ? Certainly it didn't just dawn on you when you read three "apology" letters scribbled out as part of plea deals in the Fulton County case against the former President and his co-conspirators, did you? You weren't expecting an apology from Rudy Giuliani , either, were you? Hope not; a judge didn't put...

There's a Congressional seat in Georgia with no incumbent, y'all. Disgraced former prosecutor, New York City mayor & Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani sat quietly in a courtroom while closing arguments were made in the defamation trial where two Fulton election workers seek millions from him in damages. His own attorney is over it. So has Jay Bookman, who excoriates Rudy in his latest op/ed...

Some good news from the Biden administration in that they're planting seeds for connecting Atlanta with other major southern destinations by high-speed rail. A collab of newsrooms thinks the Stop Cop City petition numbers is going to fall short; or maybe not. Who knows. The Fed gives a thumbs up to "Bidenomics," it seems and Hunter Biden is calling Repubs' bluff .

Reporter Rebecca Gaunt, the Cobb County Courier, dropped a bombshell report earlier this week: three Cobb School District employees have deep ties to a known local hate group and its founder, who espoused the "death penalty" for "out" gay people. Knowing this makes some sense of the bitterly partisan communique from the school board's email account earlier this year, and bo...

Some curious associations inside the Cobb County School District's main office warrant scrutiny & we'll have to talk later about a closed-door confab with the staff of the Atlanta mayor & councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari , but ... ... I wanted to get to know the newest Atlant School Board member - Alfred "Shivy" Brooks. He's unique in that he's an actual school tea...

It's been a busy week, so forgive me for only now getting around to looking back on the most recent GOP P̶r̶e̶s̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ Fallback Primary debate, where it looks and sounds a lot to me like establishment candidates Nikki Haley & Chris Christie are a potential tandem. At the very least, there appears to be some establishment coordination to eliminate Vivek Ramaswamy from even being a...

My Tuesday guest, Sen. Elana Parent (D) took to the floor today to quibble with Governor Brian Kemp's latest call for tax cuts & another rebate coupled with the $16 billion surplus the state's sitting on. It was a bit too "fresh" in her mind the hearings she'd sat in listening to department heads reporting back with shortcomings due to tightened budgets and ... well, you...

Andrew Heaton , principal & founder at Sagamore Hill Consulting and senior advisor for Jerica Richardson's congressional campaign , gave me some time to ruminate over a whole host of topics ... redistricting , Marge v McCormick , the potential for a "Cop City" and/or "Palestine" drag for Democrats in 2024 and unceremonious exits by George Santos and Kevin McCarthy.

Two maps are voted through and a third soon will be, after seven days of special session map-gazing and persistent pleas from Democrats for Republicans to do what's right. Pfft. As Senator Elena Parent put it, " This is like the Republicans' mother scolded them and said 'clean your room,' and instead of doing that, they hung up a couple of shirts and left all the dirty underwe...