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Georgia’s a nice place to live. No state taxes on pensions. Snow, once every 10 years or so where I live. But get a snow flurries which doesn’t stick or just a forecast of snow, there’s a run on the grocery store. There’ll be no milk, bread or eggs for a week.

As for congressional districts. We have 9 Republican, 5 Democratic. Georgia is roughly 35% black, all 5 democrats are black, 35% of Georgia’s congressional delegation. All Republicans white. For the longest time the majority minority or majority black districts have been mandated by the federal courts. I don’t think that applies anymore, but when drawing the Congressional districts, majority minority districts were adhered to. What that does is basically, in general place democratic voters into 5 districts and republican voters into the remaining 9. Call it legal gerrymandering by the courts. Without the majority minority districts, you’d probably have a 7-7 split in Georgia’s congressional districts.

While these majority minority districts certainly enhance black voters, that is if black voters must have a black representing them, it dilutes the Democratic vote when it comes to congress by placing most of them into 5 districts. Since Georgia just registers to vote, no party registration, one can only go by Cook’s PVI or partisan voting index which lists Georgia as R +3. Which simply means in the recent elections Georgia votes more Republican than the rest of the nation by 3 percentage points. That’s close to being even, independents decide who wins. Unlike nationally where Republicans must win the independents vote in order to win national elections, in Georgia, Democrats must win independents in order to win statewide.

East Palestine, OH = Voting for candidates who promise fewer regulations and "smaller government" has consequences.

My thanks to each of you who have offered concern and condolences during my battle with a severe leg and blood infection that has had me down for most of the month. Your thoughts were much appreciated.

Not back up to full speed yet, but wrote the first column in weeks Friday and hope to resume a full schedule next week, RR is renewed for another year, and thanks to those who helped make it possible with contributions and suggestions.

Any ideas and suggestions on how we can improve things here are encouraged and are welcome as we head into what, I'm sure, will be a turbulent year in politics and government.

Doug

Glad you're feeling better Doug.

Doug Tweeted. Biden wants to hike taxes to protect Medicare. A tax hike would help shore up the key trust fund that pays for Medicare.

Once again, I agree. Raise the Medicare tax. It’s currently at 2.9% with half paid by the employee and the other half by the employer. Raise it to an even 4%, 2% paid by each. Medicare Part A is scheduled to run out of money in 2026 or go bankrupt as the saying goes. Something needs to be done. The question is of political will?

Donald Trump has been invited to testify next week before a NYC grand jury investigating alleged hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair quiet. The opportunity is for Trump to be able to tell his side of the story.

Legal experts believe an indictment is imminent.

An indictment is nothing. Still no jail time. At the most, he will be allowed to buy his way out and pay a fine. Funny how the middle man had to do jail time, but the boss won't.

Depending on the judge, the judge could restrict his travel - which is the norm for those facing a criminal trial.

That would hamper Trump's ability to campaign.

...but imagine, a person running for POTUS while under indictment, facing a criminal trial.

In several states, they have passed "bathroom bills" that require people to use the bathroom for the gender they were assigned at birth. Even people who have had full gender reassignment surgery and are taking the appropriate hormones for their new gender.

This means a person with no breasts, a full beard, and a surgically-constructed penis, has to use the women's restroom. While one with breasts, a surgically-constructed vagina, etc. has to use the men's restroom. This should lead to some interesting arrests and lawsuits. It could also lead to a lot of men with fake birth certificates using women's restrooms, because they claim they were female at birth!

It's obvious Republicans are freaked out by trans people, but their reaction actually makes their worries worse!

NO ONE has ever claimed that Rwingers think things through or are stellar thinkers.