The Ron Show

I wanted to give a lot of my platform today to voices from the Atlanta "No Kings Day" event, from local grassroots activists like Dom Kelly of the New Disabled South to Rev. Senator Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams . There was also appearances from former state senator Jason Esteves and Atlanta City Council Presidential candidate Rohit Mahlotra. ------ There's also this: the Atlanta...

Georgia Conservation Voters , and their action fund, have a slate of 2025 endorsements : but they're going hard at incumbent Republican Public Service Commission candidates for raising utility rates multiple times in their terms. Paul Glaze, Media & Public Affairs Strategist with GCV, joined me to discuss what's at stake and on the ballot with the two PSC races this election cycle for...

Briana Boyd with 50501 Georgia joined me just as word was breaking that the city of Atlanta had granted the organization's permit to march this Saturday for the second nationwide network of 'No Kings Day' rallies. Hear - from her perspective - what was causing such a fuss and trepidation on the city's part. ------ The New Georgia Project and its associated PAC are no more, as word...

Question: why is Rep. Nikema Williams (D) unveiling a slate of endorsements for municipal races in her district when most of the races are Democrat v Democrat? Is this a slate of debts owed for her ascendancy into the Congressional seat when the late Rep. John Lewis passed? Otherwise, what's the sense in this? It's a bad look - particularly for the former Georgia Democratic Party chair. --...

It was as I surmised in prior days: Benjamin Netenyahu's vested interest in Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidency in 2024 played a large role in why the deal everyone (myself included) is hailing this week wasn't reached more than a year ago. That, according to a key negotiator involved in that 2024 deal . It's not like there aren't breadcrumbs from the election cycle, either. F...

The start of the work week began with the release of the remaining (living) Israeli hostages by Hamas. It's a moment in human history we should all be able to find common joy. The question is this: how did Trump secure a deal that eluded Joe Biden ? I believe (rightly so, reporting would reveal ) Benjamin Netenyahu had a rooting interest in the 2024 Presidential election here. ------ Before an...

We awoke to word that a ceasefire agreement had been reached freeing the remaining 20 hostages from Hamas control with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netenyahu's blessing. What remained unclear, at least initially, was if President Donald Trump knew if Gazans would be free to return to Gaza or be temporarily or permanently displaced. The framework of the '20-point plan' is very shaky,...

Noel Heatherland with Georgia Equality was kind enough to join me Thursday morning ahead of Atlanta Pride to provide a bit of a "temp check" on all things Georgia LGBTQIA+ rights. ------ Shame on Marci Collier-Overstreet, one of two Democrats vying to be Atlanta City Council President, for using the groan-worthy "defund the police" quip at a recent Atlanta Press Club debate , i...

Early polling shows name recognition is putting former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the drivers' seat for the Democratic Party race for Georgia's governor's office in 2026. Hear why I find this worrisome for the party, and why I have a hunch this comes down to a "Geoff Duncan vs. the field" race inevitably. ------ I wasn't the first to say it , but I have another...

"A movement driven by prosperity preachers, extremist politicians, and right-wing power brokers laid the groundwork for Trump’s presidency and is now advancing its agenda under his second administration. This multipronged effort against our national institutions is being led by millennial “kingmaker” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and the new face of Christian Nationalism." T...

Atlanta-based Democratic political strategist Andrew Heaton mixed and mingled with Georgia Democrats at their annual Carter-Lewis Dinner , then joined me Monday to spill the tea. Who was there? Who (notably) wasn't? Who was working the room, who's likely to emerge with campaigns for statewide office that hasn't already? These questions and more are all answered in our post-dinner conve...

I've known Clay & Shelly since 2019; they're an active younger couple with two kids. Both are realtors - in fact they're a married "team" - who have to shell out the full cost of health insurance as small business owners. Clay took to social media to spell out what the federal government shutdown and Democrats' posturing to save ACA credits (and claw back Medicare/Med...

There's an ask, since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, for a return to "civility" in our political discourse. I'm here to tell you that "civility" is a luxury for only the privileged, and it's more obvious now than ever. When Elon Musk is calling for the shuttering of the Southern Poverty Law Center and he and FBI director Kash Patel see the Anti-Defamation League...

Go figure, a dysfunctional, MAGA-controlled federal government has ground to a halt; while there's a cynical explanation as to why the Trump White House and his Congressional bootlickers are okay with this , courtesy of 'Politics Girl' Leigh McGowan, a New York Times op/ed puts it plainly: "The American people deserve and ought to demand better options." I'm actually not...

Admittedly, I've been a little distracted the last couple weeks, caring for an ailing cat and being a part of a caretaking team for a dear friend. Both passed away over the weekend so I'm just diving back into some things I've missed of late, one of them being the Tom Homan sit down on "Real Time With Bill Maher." On the one hand, I'm a little baffled by Maher's recen...

Author ("Southern. Gay. Teacher." and "Gay Arab American and Middle Eastern Men") and former Fulton County educator Randy Fair joined the show today to share with me what prompted him to write an op/ed in the South Florida Sun Sentinel (paywall ... wah wahhh) defending teachers' free speech rights. I read the op/ed for the audience prior to the conversation, so you won'...

Atlanta Journal Constitution op/ed columnist Bill Torpy penned a piece in early September finger-wagging at progressives over word choice and his perceiving them to be 'haughty and arrogant,' owing to their 'moral superiority' as a reason the Democratic Party is losing elections and the voter registration game , lately. He cited the recently resigned CDC official Dr. Demetre Daskal...

Sterling Hill - aka "Sterling Thrill" - is a dear friend of mine. We go back to 2009 when he entered a contest to be a radio deejay and came in second place (though he eventually got the gig). Sterling and I not only worked together, we've been friends from the jump. One thing we once had in common was a comfortable ability to discuss our atheism. Here's the thing: Sterling found...

Well, Georgia Democrats didn't snatch a state Senate seat from the GOP last night , despite their candidate - Debra Shigley - outpacing 2024 numbers, but liberals needn't dismay. Her 9-point improvement on 2024 results for her party bode well for 2026, and with the majority of the GOP seeming to be in no hurry to release the Epstein files and with the economy in malaise - and by MAGA's...

Geoff Duncan's entry into the Georgia Democratic Party's gubernatorial field for 2026 has drawn a lot ... of criticism, skeptics, and yes, some signs of support. Former Gwinnett County Democratic Party chair Bianca Keaton isn't having it. The founder and chief strategist at The Center of Mass, now a candidate consultant, likens Duncan's entry and those who support him to 'elect...

It's election day in Georgia's 21st Senate district and Democrat Debra Shigley has enjoyed a lot of support for her campaign to wrest a red-leaning suburban Atlanta enclave from the GOP. High-profile names like Senator Jon Ossoff, Representative Lucy McBath, former gubernatorial (at least we believe she's still 'just' a former candidate, for now) Stacey Abrams, DNC chair Ken Ma...

My roommate and I are pretty different people in a number of ways, not the least of which is his grasp of (and my indifference to) things like DragonCon, cosplay, online gameplay and social interaction outside of traditional social media. His interest in a lot of that, along with is being a regular listener of the LawFare podcast "Rational Security" lead him to recommending a recent epis...

A Lavonia, Georgia hospital getting out of the 'labor and delivery' business leaves four counties and those pregnant living in them an hour or more away from a still-functioning L&D facility. This is largely the result of Medicaid funding cuts (and I'd argue, Georgia never accepting Medicaid expansion funding since 2010). This is where I mention all four counties going overwhelming...

Chanel Haley, deputy executive director at Georgia Equality , is frankly one of the lucky few in the trans community. Despite the long odds for navigating adolescence, coming out, transitioning and finding her way towards earning an education and occupational success, Chanel still faced bias and oppression along the way. She joined me today to weigh in on casually-made anti-trans statements made t...

On Sunday's 'Meet the Press,' Utah governor Spencer Cox likened social media to a 'cancer' on society, putting a lot of blame on social networking for gun deaths in the U.S. Listen, I know the inherent ills social media can deliver with swiftness, but he's focusing on the "circulatory system" delivering the tumors (bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, racism) and not th...