by Dave Williams | Jun 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia politicians are reacting to President Donald Trump’s weekend decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites mostly along party lines.
Republicans have rushed to support the president’s action, while Democrats criticized Trump for ordering the bombing without congressional authorization and warned it could drag the U.S. into a lengthy war.
“America can never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Gov. Brian Kemp posted on social media. “Thank you to President Trump, our service members and intelligence personnel, and administration officials who conducted this successful operation.”
“It’s one of the best operations that I’ve seen in quite a long time,” added Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., next year. “The operational security was incredible.”
While praising U.S. troops, Democrats objected to Trump’s decision to move forward with the air strikes without consulting members of Congress.
“I pray for the safety of U.S. military service members deployed around the world and express my admiration for their courage and professionalism,” Ossoff wrote in a prepared statement. “Congress must be fully briefed on (the) operation and consulted on the administration’s strategy.”
“President Trump … has now entered another Middle East conflict,” added Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. “He has not sought congressional approval and has not sufficiently explained why this operation was necessary right now. … And this is not the first time the American people have been told it will end quickly. The people deserve to hear more than they’ve heard so far.”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, departed from the GOP party line in opposing the U.S. air strikes and warned of dire consequences, echoing concerns among Republican base voters who historically have backed Trump’s “America First” agenda.
“Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in a foreign war,” Greene posted on social media. “This is not our fight.”
Meanwhile, Georgia political leaders at the state level took the partisan positions of their respective camps.
“Iran messed around and found out the hard way – President Trump means business and delivered on his promise of peace through strength,” said state Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas. “Iran must never be able to hold a nuclear arsenal.”
“I am thankful for the safe return of all service members involved in (Saturday) night’s air strikes,” said Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones, D-Augusta. “(But) I believe, like so many others, that diplomacy is the only way we can truly resolve this crisis.”
by Dave Williams | Jun 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Seven Georgians have been indicted in federal court for allegedly conspiring to ship thousands of parcels containing fentanyl and methamphetamine across the country using a dark web vendor account.
While the indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Athens more than a month ago, two of the defendants weren’t arraigned until last week. Myron Ned Stodghill, 31, of Fairburn, and Jabari Ayinde Cooper, 29, of Atlanta, and the other five defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine and face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The other defendants are Steven Ehizojie Oboite, 32, of Conyers; Eric Xavier Bechet, 31, of Dunwoody; Rashad Cortese Kinloch, 28, of Dunwoody; Reginald Tyrone Douglas, 31, of Dunwoody; and Joshua Jamal Charles, 25, of Atlanta.
Search warrants executed on May 19 at various locations in metro Atlanta turned up about 5 kilograms of fentanyl-based powder, about 1 kilo of cocaine, several pounds of marijuana, about 200 pills, six firearms, a Jeep Wrangler, and a Tesla Model S.
The indictment alleges that a dark web vendor controlled by Oboite and Bechet called WallStreetBets began distributing large quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other controlled substances. They shipped parcels of the illegal drugs from Georgia to many locations within the United States, reporting 2,777 sales on the “Previous Vendor Feedback” section of a dark web market.
The packages shared common characteristics like padded or bubble-wrap lined mailing envelopes, prepaid shipping labels generated by a third-party postage provider that accepted cryptocurrency as payment. The sender’s name was a business that did not exist, and the return address was a seemingly random single-family residence or apartment complex in Georgia.
The packages typically contained pieces of candy in addition to the controlled substances.
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case with assistance from the IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Athens-Clarke County Police.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Alabama company that planned to mine titanium dioxide next to the Okefenokee Swamp has agreed to sell its property to an environmental fund, ending — for now — a threat to more than 350,000 acres of designated national wilderness that is home to several endangered and threatened species.
The Conservation Fund announced Friday that it had agreed to buy Twin Pines Minerals’ property on Trail Ridge near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, ending a six-year effort to protect North America’s largest blackwater swamp.
“By purchasing this land from Twin Pines, The Conservation Fund will ensure that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge remains wild and unspoiled for all Americans,” Stacy Funderburke, the Fund’s vice president for the central Southeast region, said in a statement.
Funderburke said in an interview that the Fund had agreed to pay about $60 million for the nearly 8,000-acre property. The transaction will occur in two phases, with the first phase Friday involving a transaction for 40% of the purchase price and the final closing July 31. He said his organization continues to raise money for that final phase-two transaction.
Twin Pines had no comment but confirmed the sale through a spokesman.
The fund pulled together money from private donors with the help of advocacy group One Hundred Miles.
“Twin Pines’ decision to sell their land to a conservation buyer instead of to a mining company is a respectable response to the hundreds of thousands of voices who have spoken out against the mining proposal,” Megan Desrosiers, president and CEO of One Hundred Miles, said in a statement.
Alice Keyes, a vice president of One Hundred Miles, credited “the unbelievable public outcry” against mining the swamp.
About a quarter million people submitted comments against the mining project to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and to the state of Georgia, said the Southern Environmental Law Center, which worked against the mine.
“It was one of the largest public campaigns that I have ever been involved in,” said Keyes, who has worked on environmental issues for three decades.
The Okefenokee is a rich ecosystem hosting bald eagles, bobcats, black bears, and 13,000 alligators. Wood storks, indigo snakes and red-cockaded woodpeckers are among the endangered and threatened species that rely on the swamp.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who has been involved in the effort to stop the mine, called the purchase “great news for all Georgians and our beloved natural treasure.”
Threats remain, though.
Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee, said the purchase was a “huge victory” to protect a natural treasure “from a dangerous project promoted by an atrocious company. But the threat is not over by a long shot.”
The Conservation Fund struck a deal with DuPont in the early 2000s to stop a different titanium dioxide mine.
Marks is worried that Chemours, which spun off from DuPont a decade ago, could still mine nearby private property, and said the General Assembly should pass the Okefenokee Protection Act, legislation that has stalled.
Funderburke agreed that a couple other private properties nearby could also be mined, but said the Twin Pines sale reduced the risk. He said the company’s inability to secure a mining permit after six years of trying could discourage other mining efforts. And he said that such a large mine so close to the swamp would have set a terrible precedent.
He said other options besides outright purchases exist, such as buying conservation easements.
“The threat is not over, so the drumbeat should continue,” Funderburke said. “But this is a really important milestone in the fight against mining in the Okefenokee.”
That drumbeat has been growing louder.
Sonny Perdue, a former Republican governor of Georgia, has pushed for protecting the swamp. The long-serving cabinet member during President Donald Trump’s first term is now chancellor of the University System of Georgia. In April, Perdue urged U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to support the years-long effort to get the national wildlife refuge designated as a United Nations World Heritage Site.
The letter, which Perdue sent on Board of Regents letterhead, cited a study by an environmental conservation group that said the designation would be an economic boon for the area around the Okefenokee.
Others have used the economic argument as well. The Southern Environmental Law Center noted that the Okefenokee draws more than 700,000 visits a year, supporting more than 750 jobs and generating about $65 million in annual economic activity for the four counties around the Okefenokee.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — This fall, thousands of Georgia students will attend a private school or study at home, and state government will help them pay for it.
Republican lawmakers led a push last year to give families $6,500 a year per student toward private education.
Georgia already had a state-funded voucher program, but it was limited to students with disabilities or certain medical conditions. Another program for all students was funded through tax credits rather than money directly from the state treasury.
The new state-funded “Promise Scholarship” program doesn’t require a disability. It only requires that students live in the attendance zone of a public school performing in the bottom 25% statewide. The student either must have attended it for a year or be a rising kindergartner.
As of Monday, nearly 13,000 had applied for a scholarship and more than 8,300 were considered preliminarily eligible, which translates to a cost of between $54 million and $84 million for the upcoming school year.
The application period runs through June, so more may apply, and there will be two more windows to apply during the upcoming school year.
The money can go toward tuition and fees at approved schools. It can also offset home school costs, paying for curriculum and even medical and therapeutic services by approved providers. Transportation costs are covered, too, at up to $500 per year.
As of Monday, about 60% of the preliminarily eligible students had said they wanted to attend a private school, the rest choosing home school or other educational support services or not yet making a selection, according to the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which operates the program through a public non-profit organization. Nearly 400 private Georgia schools had been approved or were approved but still completing the registration process this week, with 150 applications denied. More than half of the approved schools were in greater metro Atlanta, with about three dozen in the city of Atlanta. Columbus, Macon and Savannah also had numerous approved schools.
More than 300 service providers made the approved list. About a third of them were outside Georgia, with several in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York and Florida.
Critics contended that most of the families that used the scholarships would be wealthy since they would be able to cover the cost between the state subsidy and tuition that can run to $10,000 or more.
So far, about three quarters of the preliminarily eligible students are from households earning less than 400% of the federal poverty threshold, or $106,600 a year for a family of three and $128,600 for a family of four.
Opponents of the program, including most Democrats in the General Assembly and public-school advocacy groups, argued that fly-by-night schools would take the money without properly educating the students. In the end, they said, these students would return to public schools and become their burden.
So the GOP lawmakers who pushed the bill added a requirement that all students in the program must take either the same state exams as public school students or one of three national “norm-referenced” tests to be selected by the state.
Private schools will have to report the results, along with other information, such as attendance rates and graduation rates.
Program proponents argued that public schools could not properly serve all 1.7 million students attending one in Georgia.
Shakia McCrary’s son, a rising second grader, will be among those leaving his neighborhood public school this fall.
He has learning disabilities that can lead to misbehavior if he is not kept on task, she said, describing how a teacher would put him on speaker phone so she could calm him down.
His public school in Fort Valley, south of Macon, lacks enough specialized staff to give him the attention he needs, McCrary said. So she is considering two private schools within a half hour drive because, she said, they have smaller class sizes.
The state-funded scholarship will cover all but about $1,000 of the tuition cost at each school, said McCrary, who works for a federal health insurance program.
She is thankful for the promise scholarships.
“Private school, it crossed my mind, but I knew that I just couldn’t afford it and still be able to live comfortably,” she said. If not for the state funding, her son would be heading back to public school this fall, she said, and she would be dealing with the same issues.
Republican lawmakers had been pushing for years to get the program approved, finally gathering enough votes to squeak Senate Bill 233 into law last year.
Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, the Senate majority caucus secretary, sees the subsidies as an “incredibly popular” issue for his party.
“This school choice program is not just a life changer for the students and families that participate. It’s also a party expander,” Walker said at the Georgia GOP convention in Dalton in early June. “School choice introduces new constituents to our Republican values. It allows them to understand that it’s conservative Republicans, not liberal Democrats, who are fighting for better opportunities for working folks and families.”
On Thursday, fellow Senate Republicans voted to nominate Walker as their next president pro tempore. The full Senate will vote on his promotion to top-ranked senator when the body reconvenes in January.
Meanwhile, one group backing SB 233 is now promoting the scholarships, hoping as many parents as possible will access the $141 million that lawmakers allocated to it this year. Americans for Prosperity has placed four billboards around DeKalb County advertising the program, and volunteers have handwritten about 5,000 postcards to likely parents they think should know about it, said Tony West, the organization’s director in Georgia.
“We worked very hard to see Senate Bill 233 pass,” West said, “and now we want to work just as hard to make sure it’s a success.”
by Dave Williams | Jun 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate fell slightly in April to 3.5%, seven-tenths below the national jobless rate, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
“After holding steady at 3.6% for nearly a year – and recent job growth – we’re proving once again that Georgia’s business-friendly environment and competitive workforce deliver results,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Barbara Rivera Holmes said.
The number of jobs in Georgia increased by 4,900 in May to an all-time high of 4.99 million. The job sectors with the most gains included health care and social assistance, which gained 4,000 jobs; administration and support services, which posted an increase of 2,400 jobs; and accommodation and food services, which grew by 1,900 jobs.
Wholesale trade jobs declined over the month by 1,600 jobs, while the ranks of construction workers decreased by 1,400 jobs.
The state’s labor force fell by 4,111 last month to nearly 5.4 million, as did the number of employed Georgians, which dropped by 1,386 to almost 5.2 million.
On the positive side, unemployment declined by 2,725 to 189,026. The number of first-time jobless claims also was down by 1,901 in May to 19,135.
