Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and state Rep. Calvin Smyre made the rounds in Washington on Wednesday, pitching a $3.9 billion, high speed rail project that would put Columbus and Atlanta within an hour's reach of each other.
They met with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and top staffer for Vice President Joe Biden, a noted rail aficionado.
“This is a very doable project,” Tomlinson said. “It’s smaller than most of the ones that we’re looking at [around the country]. Cost-wise, comparably speaking, it’s bite-sized, something that can be an early success.”
She added that private money would have to be leveraged along with taxpayer dollars to make it work.
Smyre, perhaps the best-connected Democrat in Georgia, said he bent Biden’s ear himself recently after his speech to the National Urban League in Cincinnati. Columbus attorney Edward Hudson joined the meetings as well.
Tomlinson said the meetings were “very positive” and the group now must apply for a federal grant to conduct an environmental study, which will cost about $4 million, probably early next year.
The line would go from Atlanta to Newnan to Columbus in 61 minutes, with top speeds of 220 miles per hour. Which would allow you to leave Atlanta at noon, do a little white-water kayaking in Columbus, and be back by supper time.
Tomlinson envisions it as the first link of a chain that would run to Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., and then to New Orleans.
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One of the more surprising series of Tweets arising from the troubles in Ferguson, Mo. came this morning from Erick Erickson, the talk radio provocateur:
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On WGAU (1340AM) in Athens, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss offered up one of those Kafkesque moments – on the topic of U.S. intervention in Iraq against those who would set up an Islamic caliphate. The brief transcript:
Chambliss: "It's not only ironic. Inside of Iraq, we're on the same sides with the Iranians. But there is no border now between Iraq and Syria. It's pretty well porous to the point where it doesn't exist. The same folks that we're in opposition to inside of Iraq, we're on the same side of inside of Syria – fighting against Bashar al-Assad's forces.
"I know people have a difficult time getting their arms around this…."
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Gov. Nathan Deal has said little about his education plans should he win a second term, beyond a vow to rejigger the school funding formula. That changed Wednesday when he previewed two coming proposals during his back-to-school tour.
The first is an expansion of “ungraded” schools that let students more freely move up and down the education system without the downfall of failing a grade. The second is a proposal to give top teachers additional pay to keep them in classrooms.
“We need to look at an organizational structure that may include ungraded classes so that a child is not stigmatized by being held back," he said. "If they are in an ungraded situation and they can move along and progress appropriately they can rejoin their peers and never have the stigma of having failed a grade.”
The governor said giving high-achieving teachers a pay raise would reward them “so they don’t have to go into administration to get a pay raise.”
He didn't elaborate on either proposal, though we can expect to hear more details from his campaign in the coming days.
“Those are the kinds of ideas that we think we’re going to explore," he said.
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This week, Gov. Nathan Deal's office proudly announced that Georgia organizations would receive $3.4 million in AmeriCorps funding from Corporation for National and Community Service.
Not a big deal. But the largest check in the bunch, worth some $377,000, will go to Hands On Atlanta, the volunteer group that got its start in some bar at North and Highland, hiring some U.S. senator’s daughter to run it, ultimately merging with some larger group begun by some former U.S. president.
If Tyler Perry can send a check to Nathan Deal, why shouldn't one of the governor's agencies endorse Michelle Nunn's old friends?
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It's safe to say Gov. Nathan Deal's campaign has a Google Alert for former President Jimmy Carter.
The ex-president, grandfather of Deal opponent Jason Carter, called for a tax on carbon pollution and said climate skeptics were some of the nation's "biggest handicaps" at an energy summit on Tuesday in Aspen.
"I would say the biggest handicap we have right now are some nutcases in our country that don't believe in global warming," he said, drawing applause and laughter. "I think they are going to change their position because of pressure from individuals, because the evidence of the ravages of global warming are already there."
Carter recalled that during a recent trip to Alaska, the top news story was that the state no longer would have polar bears in 25 years.
And in Norfolk, Virginia — where Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were married 68 years ago — seawater is coming into the city streets through storm drains, he said.
"I would guess that even the most right-wing Republican senator and Congress member within the next five or six years are going to have proven to them in the United States and other places that they've got to change their position," he said. "I think what's going to happen in this country is going to convince the most recalcitrant congressman that we've got to change, too."
Deal spokeswoman Jen Talaber questioned whether his grandson agrees with "his chief-fundraiser" on a new carbon tax. Said Talaber:
"It's pretty safe to assume Senator Carter agrees with his fundraiser-in-chief on carbon taxes, but I'm sure we'll get the same laughable song and dance about how he doesn't agree with his grandfather on absolutely any major issue of the day. Senator Carter proudly touts his endorsement from the Sierra Club, which supports cap-and-trade and opposes the deepening of the Savannah Harbor. He's insulting Georgians' intelligence if he insists that he never agrees with any of his top supporters."
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An atheist group threatened to sue a Hall County High School this week because it "promot[ed] Christianity on the football team by integrating Bible verses into functional team documents and team promotions in various ways," according to Access North Georgia.
Fox News picked up the story, and a politicians began to weigh in. U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, an ordained minister, was not pleased and issued a scathing statement. Again via Access North Georgia:
He continued in the statement released to the press, referencing the gathering of about 200 students on the football Wednesday morning for prayer.
"This morning, while Chestatee students gathered on their football field to support their school leadership and exercise their rights, unspeakable human rights atrocities continued to happen across the world in places that have no regard at all for religious freedom. It's utterly disgusting that while innocent lives are being lost in Iraq and other places at the hands of radical religious terrorists, a bunch of Washington lawyers are finding the time to pick on kids in Northeast Georgia. I want the football players and all the students at CHS to know I support you, I'm here for you, and yes, I'm praying for you," said Collins.
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You know those worries that Republicans had about losing the Latino vote? Never mind. From Politico:
Three major Republican Senate hopefuls – Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Scott Brown of New Hampshire and Terri Lynn Land of Michigan – are airing commercials blasting their Democratic opponents for supporting "amnesty" and attacking "lawlessness" and "chaos" on the border. Other candidates are expected to join them.
By “other candidates,” we’re thinking David Perdue.
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Atlanta Progressive News tells us that Bill Bozarth, the former executive director of Common Cause Georgia, has successfully used Georgia's 5 percent petition law to get on the ballot in the state House District 54 race.
Bozarth is running against Republican Beth Beskin and Democrat Bob Gibeling for the north Atlanta seat vacated by Republican Ed Lindsey. Bozarth was required to collect signatures of 1,776 voters who were registered as of the last election.
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