AJC’s Alleged Bias and Georgia’s Hidden Legislative Games

The Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion (AJC) is crit­i­cized for its reluc­tance to pub­lish neg­a­tive sto­ries about Democ­rats and its align­ment with the estab­lish­ment wing of the Repub­li­can Par­ty, sub­tly push­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­da tied to “Project 2030.” The Geor­gia State House, led by Jon Burns, is described as dom­i­nat­ed by a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty despite its Repub­li­can label, with the AJC shap­ing nar­ra­tives to favor this dynamic—painting Repub­li­cans in a spe­cif­ic light before cri­tiquing them. Unre­port­ed by the AJC, the Zeldin-led EPA uncov­ered $2 bil­lion in tax­pay­er funds ear­marked for a Stacey Abrams-linked group, part of a sus­pect­ed Biden scheme to fun­nel $20 bil­lion to dubi­ous orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing one report­ing just $100 in rev­enue in 2023. In elec­tion integri­ty debates, Geor­gia House Repub­li­cans advanced a bill to exit the ERIC vot­er data group, though Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er oppos­es it, and Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp is unlike­ly to sign it, sug­gest­ing it’s a sym­bol­ic ges­ture to appease vot­ers. Efforts to make the State Elec­tion Board (SEB) inde­pen­dent from Raffensperger’s office stall, while a cost­ly $66 mil­lion pro­pos­al to remove uncon­sti­tu­tion­al QR codes from bal­lots is debat­ed against a cheap­er $15 mil­lion soft­ware update, high­light­ing leg­isla­tive iner­tia and mis­di­rec­tions.

• Every sel­dom does the AJC run any­thing neg­a­tive about the democ­rats. The AJC is also very close to the demo­c­rat wing of the repub­li­can par­ty. They are ok with the estab­lish­ment. The AJC has played an active role in nudg­ing things in the direc­tion the democ­rats want to go for their Project 2030. The GA state house and Jon Burns are the demo­c­rat major­i­ty. Now the AJC will paint the repub­li­cans a cer­tain way then bring them in and then attack. 
• You didn’t find this in the AJC… Zeldin EPA dis­cov­ers $2B in tax­pay­er funds ear­marked for Stacey Abrams-linked group. It was sus­pect­ed that some orga­ni­za­tions were cre­at­ed out of thin air to take advan­tage of Biden’s scheme to quick­ly park $20B out­side the agency. An agency that report­ed just $100 in rev­enue in 2023 was cho­sen to receive $2B. 
• There are a cer­tain num­ber of law­mak­ers that know if you throw out the bait for elec­tion integri­ty you can reel in and get a fish in the boat. GA house repub­li­cans advance bill to with­draw state from vot­er loca­tion data group, ERIC. Remem­ber when… why would the house put a bill up to remove GA from ERIC? This sounds good. But wait a minute the SOS Raf­fensperg­er did not say he want­ed to be removed. They throw the car­rot out to the peo­ple of GA but do not com­plete any bills to move the SEB into an inde­pen­dent agency. If this bill pass­es and gets to the sen­ate, it is pret­ty appar­ent that Kemp will not sign. This is a bill to whip peo­ple into a fren­zy. Where is the SEB bill for them to be com­plete­ly inde­pen­dent of the SOS to give them author­i­ty they don’t have. The SEB is still a line item in the SOS. Remem­ber last year when we worked so hard on SB189 to remove the QR code and Raf­fensperg­er sat in the bud­get com­mit­tee hear­ing to stop the fund­ing that could cost $66M. But GA law­mak­ers are decid­ing whether to spend as much as $66M to remove the com­put­er OR code from bal­lots, which is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and against the law, in favor of a $15M soft­ware update. Raf­fensperg­er’s argu­ment is say­ing that the machines are in the 7th year of a 10 year deal.  We spend $100K a year to be in the data­base, it will be cost­ly to remove from the data­base to be in anoth­er data­base. They are try­ing to keep the QR code on the bal­lot. ERIC is the cov­er for the many pieces of leg­is­la­tion they are try­ing to pass unbe­knownst to the peo­ple of Geor­gia.  
• There are 300+ house bills and 150+ sen­ate bills, and there are a lot of scary bills out there that they are nego­ti­at­ing under the Gold Dome.