Author Archives: Tom Baxter

here was a story in the Columbus Ledger last week which puts much of the news from the Golden Dome in sharp perspective.

You can’t exactly say that having the way cleared so that he could get an endorsement from the Republican National Committee is the worst thing to happen to Lt. Gov. Burt Jones this year.

Last week marked the end of an 88-year-old record, as the Gallup Organization announced it will no longer publish favorability ratings of public figures, including the president.

he Democratic strategist James Carville used to say that “business” candidates were like bananas: the longer they stayed on the shelf, the worse they looked.

’m one of the most counted people in the United States, and maybe you are too. I’m a registered voter in Fulton County.

Georgia and Minnesota don’t share a border, but last week they came just a smidgen closer to each other.

For a General Assembly which has come to town trumpeting affordability as its goal, a revision to a recent report published last week by the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts should have been a dash of cold water in the face.

Suppose history had unfolded in a slightly different way, so that computers driven by huge steam engines had existed in Queen Victoria’s day, and giant helium-powered airships had been deployed in the American Civil War?

As this election-year General Assembly nears, the state of Georgia finds itself in much better shape than many of its citizens.

hen the Affordable Care Act subsidies end next week, nearly 300,000 people in Massachusetts and 400,000 in Pennsylvania could see their premiums skyrocket. In Georgia, the number affected will be up around 1.3 million.

In a bulletin published last week, the Georgia Department of Revenue took on a question that might have piqued the curiosity of the philosophers of old. It concerned the end of the penny.

’Tis the season of medical deadlines, this year more than ever.

You might have thought Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was stretching it last week when she spoke about her fears for herself and her family. You might even have thought she had some of that coming. Take a look, then, at Indiana.

ess than a week after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on The View, President Donald Trump abruptly folded on the question of releasing the Epstein files. There’s a straight line between these developments, if this wasn’t already obvious from their posts on Truth Social and X.

The Public Service Commission races in Georgia last week probably had the least to do with Donald Trump directly, and the most to do with the issues that are likely to dominate politics over the next several years, of any statewide elections in the country.

Last week, in between preparing his poverty-stricken state for the cutoff of SNAP benefits, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry weighed in on LSU football. That alone would have kept social media buzzing for days. Then he said the magic words, and set the internet on fire.

One night in 1898, a fire broke out on the USS Maine, which was anchored in Havana Harbor, igniting the warship’s ammunition and sinking it with the loss of 266 sailors.

When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that the hospital which Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ father is proposing to build in Butts County is to be surrounded by data centers, a spokeswoman for Jones called it a non-story.Even if you don’t agree, you can see her point.

It’s just a guy in a suit standing next to an empty podium. But keep that image in mind, and if at any time over the next few years you’re upset about your power bill or outraged about the data center they’re building near you, remember it.

It’s been widely noted by historians of the Second World War that the victors in that conflict — the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union —mobilized women far more quickly than the losers: Germany, Japan and Italy. In light of last week’s speeches to the brass at Quantico, this might be worth some review.