Weekly News Roundup, December 30th
"President Musk" starts Immigration war with MAGA and More...
by Tom McMahan
With Christmas behind us and the New Year looming, time to post the highlights from our newer info sources as part of our post-election effort to change old media habits. The spotlights…
President Carter
I’ll have a full article tomorrow on yesterday’s expected but still sad news. A great life lived and one that holds a mirror up to what we’ve become politically over the course of my life. Historian Heather Cox Richardson has a good summation in her daily article. President Carter wrote a number of books in his life. As a historian myself, I recommend Turning Point, a good political history of Georgia and the 20th Century American south.
State and Local News Sources
As part of our effort to re-imagine how we get our news, we also want to support and re-invigorate local news sources. To that end, our Committee and state party tech guru Kitty Cox has published an interactive Georgia county map, with links to each county’s print and web-based news outlets. We’ll be adding more in the weeks ahead, so check it out and stay up on local news around the state much easier!
Local Housing
The housing crunch isn’t just for large cities, it’s here in Dade County too. First the news broke from local news source Discover Dade about a possible 78 acre development just south of Trenton on Sales Lane. The City of Trenton will have to annex the land first to provide city utility services.
The Sentinel has followed up with two stories. The first focuses on a questionable business history of the potential developer, Texas-based D.R. Horton. The second goes into some detail about Dade’s current housing problem, focusing on the difficulties developers face in building homes here. Another Sentinel article on this is expected soon.
My take: We need the housing. It’s a net positive for the community, and for us politically long-term. Our population has stagnated, and we need more housing to facilitate at least some modest growth. It will bring a younger, more diverse population into our community, which will be good for our school system. D.R. Horton has built 2 subdivisions in north Walker County and is in the process of building a third. I’m not dismissive of Horton’s issues, but shady practices are hardly unknown in the real estate industry, as the upcoming occupant of the White House embodies every moment of every day. We do need to watch out for environmental impact of too many homes too fast though.
Eye on MAGA
Wow! Somebody didn’t have a Merry Christmas, and that “somebody” was big chunks of MAGA-land! If you haven’t read up on the “Tech Bros vs OG MAGA” feud that erupted over the past week in regards to immigration, check out Ron Filipkowski’s daily MAGA update from the MeidasTouch Network. I’ve linked the latest one above that summarizes the outcome, but its worth going back and seeing just how nasty this one got. It’s going to leave permanent scars I think, and it complicates Trump’s upcoming moves in regards to immigration. Ron has great stuff every day, subscribe!
A “New” Source for Economic news
Actually, it’s an old source in a new place. Long-time New York Times editorialist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman (pictured below) has left the Times and started his own Substack. Subscribe and get great breakdowns like his recent one on insurance companies in the wake of the murder of UHC CEO Brian Thompson.
Other links
I’ve got a ton of links folks have sent me over the past few weeks. I’m going to go through and will be adding them in the comment section below throughout the day. Thanks everyone and keep them coming! We’re back to weekly updates now.
Another take with more info on the Tech Bro vs MAGA nastiness - https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/just-dont-come-for-my-immigrants?r=104h1x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
On the increasing use of "philanthropy" for outright corruption - https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-0d0399f0-b965-11ef-850b-bda10c9d99c7