Flagpole’s New Home

Well, it’s almost official. If we can get the damned lease signed, Flagpole will be moving at the first of the year into the beautiful old house at 220 Prince Ave, across from The Grit. If we don’t get it signed, it’s back to the drawing boards, but we’re optimistic and excited. We’ll have more room and better visibility in a great location. In later life the house has been a travel agency, a law office and a funeral home, not to mention sometime campaign headquarters for the local Democratic Party. Why not a newspaper office?

Harold Update

Local CPA to the stars and star himself Harold Williams is making some progress at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, fighting his paralyzing injury. He has not moved into an apartment but is still in the same room and will be there for a while. So, it’s time to send him another card to: Room 419, Shepherd Center, 2020 Peachtree Road NW, Atlanta, GA 30309-1465.

Playing Politics

Gov. Nathan Deal, along with Paul Broun and the other Republican senatorial candidates, is just the latest in the long line of Georgia politicians who have run against the federal government for their own political purposes, regardless of the effect on their people.

Gov. Eugene Talmadge, in the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s, turned against the federal poverty relief program when he realized that he could not control it. For the same reason, he opposed Social Security and the other New Deal programs. Talmadge was one of the most popular governors Georgia ever had, but the people finally realized that his politics blocked benefits they desperately needed, and they repudiated Talmadge.

Deal, Broun and the others have based their campaigns on saving the state from Medicaid and Obamacare, and so far Obamacare has done everything it could to make them appear right. The denial of Medicaid expansion and the billions of dollars that would pump up our lagging economy is nothing but Republican political posturing at the expense of those with great need but no influence. On that point, read Timothy Egan’s excellent piece “The South’s New Lost Cause” in the Nov. 22 New York Times at goo.gl/mFhkA6.

So far, Deal and Broun and the others can look like prophets. They told us Obamacare was no good, and look a’here: what did we tell you? What happens if Obamacare does get fixed and starts finding people better health insurance at affordable rates, with no penalty for prior conditions? Will there come a point when people look at Deal and Broun and the others and realize that those candidates have been playing politics with the health of Georgia families?

In 1936, Georgia House Speaker E.D. Rivers ran for governor as a New Deal supporter and won. Eugene Talmadge ran for the U.S. Senate as a New Deal opponent and lost. Will history repeat? Will the tide against Obamacare turn in time to lift Democratic State Sen. Jason Carter to victory in the governor’s race and cause Democratic senatorial candidate Michelle Nunn to win against Paul Broun or one of the other Republicans?

Too soon to say.