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New Georgia Poll Is Bad News for Stacey Abrams, Worse for Raphael Warnock

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It should be expected that a Democrat who could not win her own state in a year the Republicans were not expected to do well would not have a snowball’s chance in a Georgia summer of winning a gubernatorial race in 2022. But it’s much tougher for incumbents, even in years their party is in power, to lose to candidates who are perceived as weak given past performance on the campaign trail.

Yet, a new poll out today shows that Stacey Abrams, who is polling eight points behind Governor Brian Kemp, can’t do any better than about 45 percent in the polls (today’s has her at 43.5 percent). The problem is that Warnock is only able to pick up the same amount of support. What’s worse for Warnock is that Herschel Walker hasn’t hit his ceiling yet.

The Phillips Academy Poll shows Warnock trending downward from his high of 50 percent in the beginning of July while Walker is continuing to trend upward from recent polling.

Warnock is leading by 64% among Black voters even though both Warnock and Walker are African American. Warnock also has strong support among low-income and urban voters, where he leads by 23% and 16% respectively. Conversely, Walker receives most of his support from rural voters, where he is up by 20%. Georgia’s suburban voters, a key voting block in the 2020 election, favor Walker by 5.1%.

That last sentence is a big red flag for the Warnock campaign. The suburbs helped turn Georgia’s two Senate seats blue in 2020 and when coupled with a resurgence of the rural vote in Georgia, a lot of whom stayed home in the 2020 runoff, that could potentially mean that Walker is actually about 2-3 points higher than where he is polling currently.

Biden and Waknock
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

The Democrats have a ceiling in Georgia that is just exacerbated by the current political climate. That 43 percent or so that Warnock and Abrams are picking up is probably the true Democratic voter segment. The true Republican voter segment is likewise in the mid to high 40s. Warnock cannot distance himself from Biden enough and show that he’s for Georgia voters enough to pick up more independents right now. Walker, however, can benefit from the deteriorating position of the Democrats across the country, especially in a southern state like Georgia, and can pick up more independent voters without having to do a lot more than he’s doing right now.

Warnock won on a very strange fluke in a very strange year. He can’t recreate those circumstances. He can win some independents back (there is still plenty of time for him to do so), but the national Democratic scene and the economy don’t offer him any assistance.

Stacey Abrams Commits a Disqualifying Self-Own in Desperate Attack on Brian Kemp

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Though Democrats are notoriously lacking in self-awareness, one thing they are keenly aware of at this stage of the 2022 midterm election campaign season is that the economy is the top priority for most voters in America, and if sizeable majorities are continuing to feel the pain of inflation come election time, Democrats will not fare well at all.

This is why you’re seeing so many of them from Joe Biden on down insult the intelligence of the American people by trying to redefine words like “recession” and “inflation,” and by gaslighting the hell out of folks by lying about what the bogusly-named “Inflation Reduction Act” will do.

All of this brings me to what Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams proclaimed on the Twitter machine this week about the state of the economy – or, as she framed, it, the state of Georgia’s economy.

Contrary to the Biden administration’s whopper about how we had “zero” inflation in July, Abrams did acknowledge the fact that inflation is a major issue. Except in the tweet she wrote about it, she put the blame for inflation and the rising costs of goods and services on … Gov. Brian Kemp:

Umm… I’m no economics expert, and I certainly haven’t won a Nobel Prize for it like Paul Krugman has, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how any of this works. I mean had she put “Joe Biden’s America” where she put “Brian Kemp’s Georgia” she would have been 100% correct because last I checked, Gov. Kemp – no state governor, in fact – is in the business of printing his own money, nor does he have control over federal monetary policies.

Further, Kemp has nothing to do with rent in Georgia being too high, that’s another thing we can thank Democrats for thanks in no smart part to inflation and policies put in place by Democrats during the coronavirus pandemic that forced landlords to foot the bill for months for renters who either couldn’t afford to stay there or who didn’t want to pay the rent.

What has also hurt the state’s economy, I should point out, are Georgia Democrats like Stacey Abrams and Sen. Raphael Warnock, both of who sabotaged their state for political gain in 2021 over the Georgia election reform bill, deliberate actions which ended up costing the state the MLB All-Star game and all millions in revenue that would have come with it.

Either Stacey Abrams thinks Georgia voters are too stupid to realize she’s trying to pull a con here …

… or she legitimately does not get that the inflation and sky-high price issues Americans continue to face have nothing to do with her opponent:

Either one is disqualifying, in my humble opinion.

Flashback: Stacey Abrams Becomes an Albatross for Democrats

LA Times op-ed about music festival wrong on many levels

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As a Georgian, I have to tell you that I’ve heard more about the Midtown Music Festival in Atlanta since it was canceled than I ever heard about it before. While Atlanta is big, I can’t help but wonder just how great it would be for the city’s economy if just Atlantians were going to attend.

Economics doesn’t work that way.

Yet some are calling the cancelation a blow to the city’s economy. That’s from the headline of this LA Times op-ed that seeks to offer an “alternative.”

Bad gun laws have claimed yet another victim, but not the kind you might be thinking of. This year’s Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta was recently canceled because the organizers believed Georgia law did not allow them to prohibit firearms at the event. The cancellation might have saved lives, but it cost the local economy an estimated $50 million. And there may have been a way to hold the festival while still allowing organizers to prohibit firearms at the event.

The cancellation of the Music Midtown Festival occurs at the intersection of two legal truths regarding gun law restrictions: Private landowners can exclude people with firearms, but cities and counties in Georgia cannot restrict firearms on public land. The music festival fell somewhere in between. It was going to be held in a public park that festival organizers had rented for two days. According to the lease, the festival could exclude people without tickets, but under recent Georgia case law, the festival could not exclude people carrying guns.

We can derive several important lessons from the cancellation of the festival. The first lesson is narrow: Georgia case law is plainly wrong. Any time the government temporarily transfers to a private party or entity the right to exclude others from a public space, that right should include the right to exclude people with firearms (no less than wedding crashers). The space is private, not public, for the duration of the lease.

Except that the land is still owned by the public and therefore can come with certain stipulations. That includes being unable to interfere with people’s right to keep and bear arms.

Yes, I know, the authors are Yale Law professors, which means they’re supposed to know more about the law than I do.

However, they’re not attorneys in Georgia and aren’t necessarily versed in the law here.

They have an alternative, though. A solution they say will allow the “problem” to be solved.

However, partial privatization of public land in this circumstance can provide a solution to this problem. Private landowners are not preempted by state law from prohibiting firearms on their property. My right to bear arms stops at your property line.

Except, in Georgia, it kind of does.

No, you can still determine you don’t want guns, but you can’t actually keep them out. You can ask anyone discovered to have a firearm to leave, but as long as they do so, there’s not much else you can do.

That’s true of all private property.

But the authors think this is a viable solution.

Short-term “privatization” through a lease could have solved Atlanta’s music festival problem. Although the Atlanta City Council cannot decide to ban guns in its parks because of state law, it is free to enter into a short-term lease — renting the park to a private party.

The council could have made it clear that the rental also transferred to the festival organizers the right to decide who could enter the event. Even in Georgia, with its misguided case law, cities have the right to transfer short-term ownership rights in land to private parties. The privatization approach has already been applied in Missouri.

And yet, the case that is generally blamed for this particular instance involved the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, which has a long-term lease with the city. The courts didn’t exactly side with the Gardens, so why would a music festival with an even shorter lease get preferential treatment?

Remember what I said about these guys not necessarily understanding stuff here in Georgia?

Further, I’m beyond sick of people pretending this law is somehow responsible for the cancelation of a music festival.

That case was from 2019. The law it’s based on is from years before.

In other words, the music festival organizers had years to figure this out. They had more than enough time to either find a private venue or make other arrangements with the musical acts in question. They had ample opportunity to adjust as needed so the festival could continue.

They didn’t.

Instead, they dragged their posteriors until it was too late to figure out anything else, then blamed the laws that had been on the books for years as if they were somehow new.

Had the law just been passed, they might have had something that would look like a point. Instead, though, what we have is a lot of talk by people who should know better saying the law is to blame for the organizers’ failure.

These two are just the latest examples of that.

Georgia Farmer Has Concerns About Bill Gates Being the Largest Farmland Owner in America

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Will Harris, a fourth-generation farmer in South Georgia, says he has concerns about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Reportedly, Gates has become the largest private individual farmland owner in the United States.

Harris is the owner of White Oak Pastures, a 152-year-old, six-generation family farm in Bluffton, Georgia. Harris’ first concern:

“Hell yeah I have concerns about Gates controlling farmland. Just like I don’t want a child abuser controlling even one child, I don’t want him to control a single acre … First, land is precious … It may be more precious than anything. I hate to see someone, who has no idea what to do with it, be put in a position to control it. How well do you think that I would do running a tech company or financial institution? It’s the same logic as letting a guy like Gates manage something as complex as an ecosystem. He lacks the understanding to steward it properly.”

Harris continued with his second concern:

“Second, the whole deal has been kept way too secretive … An article that was dated May 4, 2021, informed us that Gates has purchased over 200,000 acres in 18 states. Georgia was not listed as one of the 18 states, but an acquaintance of mine sold his farm located in Georgia to Gates prior to that time. What else are they lying about?”

Harris’ third concern is Gates’ mindset, thinking technology will be the be-all and end-all to any problem. Haris said:

“Third. Gates believes that the cure for all problems is more technology … Everything looks like a nail if your only tool is a hammer. I have a deep understanding of how misapplied technology is responsible for most of the land management problems that we are experiencing today.”

His fourth concern is that Gates “is heavily invested in plant-based protein.”

“He does not understand that proper animal impact is not responsible for climate change … In fact, proper animal impact is an essential component for the mitigation of climate change. This environmental mitigation cannot be replicated within a monocultural pea and soy farming operation.”

Harris’ fifth concern:

“Fifth, ask the farmers of India and Africa how beneficial Gates’ influence was to their agricultural systems … If you research the failed AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) program you’ll get a sneak peak [sic] on the repercussions of letting a businessman make farming decisions. That billionaire-leopard ain’t gonna change the spots that made him the most powerful man in the world.”

He concludes with a direct letter to Gates:

“If you are truly interested in the welfare of people, land, and climate, please come to my farm and let me share what I know, based on my 67 years of experience … You have an open invitation.

Harris posted these concerns to warn people about Gates’ land purchases and his plant protein climate change investments.

As I reported last week, beef prices are expected to increase even more as farmers are forced to sell off cattle herds.

Atlanta news station: Controversial GA law didn't spike shootings

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The city of Atlanta has sort of dominated a lot of the news around guns and gun control of late. That’s because of a festival canceling there in the city and the cancelation being blamed on state gun laws.

The fact that those laws have existed for nearly a decade and the state supreme court decision that would have impacted the festival was decided in 2019, so organizers clear had time to figure out a Plan “B,” but whatever.

However, the law at the center of all this controversy is deridingly called the Guns Everywhere law. Yet, interestingly, one of the Atlanta news stations reports that the law didn’t actually increase shootings in the city.

A Georgia gun law enacted eight years ago, cited as the reason for this week’s surprise cancellation of Music Midtown, required public parks to be among the places legal gun owners were allowed to carry firearms.

Opponents of that law said it would spike gun violence, but Atlanta crime data indicates that argument is debatable.

…

And while gun violence did go up, Atlanta police data shows that:

  • From 2010 to 2014, the number of shooting incidents in the city rose by 26%.
  • From 2014 to 2018, they rose by only 19%.

“Democrats promised that the sky would fall, and it didn’t,” said Brian Robinson, who was a top aide to Deal in 2014.

In other words, the increase following the law’s passage–it passed in 2014–is less than it had been for the same period before its passage.

Once again, anti-gunners claimed the streets would run red with blood, only they didn’t.

And really, why would they? Criminals were already carrying wherever they wanted regardless of what the law said. All the bill did was give gun owners more opportunities to carry a firearm, reducing the number of prohibited places in the state.

And really, Atlanta is kind of the crime epicenter for the entire state.

While crime rates were going up there, they were trending downward for the state as a whole. So if there were going to be negative consequences of that law passing, you’d see them in Atlanta.

Except, we don’t.

If anything, it reduced the issue significantly, which isn’t surprising either since we know guns save lives.

This makes all this nonsense about the Piedmont Park music festival so ridiculous. The law in question not only isn’t new but hasn’t led to problems either. At no point should this have happened. The fact that it did almost suggests organizers intended to stir up debate on the gun issue.

I can’t say definitively that they did, but it seems awfully convenient that someone was willing to tell the press that the issue was a law from 2014 and a state supreme court decision from 2019 despite the fact that it would make the organizers look like idiots to a lot of people.

Regardless, the law in question isn’t a problem. It’s never been a problem, and even the Atlanta media is forced to look at the facts and say, “Nope. The law isn’t an issue.”

That ought to tell you something.