Georgia gave us REM and The B-52s, delicious peaches, yummy Vidalia onions, and now may give us a historic Senate

By Hal Brown

Archives are on the right

This story is dedicated to my dear friend who lives in a town of 200 which is about 20 miles south of, and 200 years back in time, from Athens, Georgia.

Georgia has pleased the pallet of the nation with delicious peaches and Vidalia onions, and rocked out with Athens based bands REM and the B-52s

 Less known nationally is that way back in 1987 a group of Athens residents who attended a forum on AIDS at the University of Georgia in February 1987. The group initiated AIDS Athens which is still active today (website here). The year is significant. Consider this from the CDC Museum website:

 The first year of the AIDS epidemic seemed isolated to a few individuals in a few cities, so it received little media attention. When cases were reported in infants and people with hemophilia, widespread panic struck Americans. Those with AIDS were often stigmatized. In 1985, Ryan White, a teenage hemophiliac living in Indiana, contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion. Parents in his community feared he would expose their children to AIDS, resulting in Ryan being barred from attending school.

In 1986, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued the Surgeon General’s Report on AIDS. In it, he called for a comprehensive program of sex and AIDS education, urged the widespread use of condoms, and dispelled myths that HIV could be spread by mosquitoes. In 1987, CDC launched an unprecedented national campaign, America Responds to AIDS (ARTA). The goal of ARTA was to increase awareness and understanding of AIDS, to prevent HIV infection, and to encourage people to seek more information and counseling. CDC also began a program to support HIV prevention efforts with national minority organizations that provided HIV prevention expertise to community-based organizations, developed HIV prevention programs targeting minorities, especially African Americans and Hispanics, and supported groups that used culturally sensitive AIDS prevention programs to address their communities’ needs.

I don't know if it was the first such organization in the nation but it certainly was among the first.

Of course Georgia also gave us Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter.

Now we have something else that Georgia may give us thanks to the decisions by the state's Republican leadership to back Herschel Walker for Senate. They can read a pie chart:

Had they managed to find someone they thought could be a great male white to run against Senator Warnock they surely would have lost decisively 

As it happened thanks to a deviously disruptive independent running as a Libertarian by Oliver Chase there will now be a runoff election.

Now the Republicans are saddled by one of the worst Senate candidates in recent history. Not only is Walker woefully ignorant and beset with trying to deal with what one could call his women problem,  he is unstable and unpredictable. The GOP is saddled with a candidate prone to putting his hoof in his mouth, an impossible contortion for a horse but something Walker manages to do on a regular basis.

One obvious result of a Warnock win is that it will diminish the power Sen. Manchin has. It also has major ramifications for the appointment of judges, including Justices to the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur. This is from Reuters:

If Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock were to win the Dec. 6 Georgia runoff election against Republican challenger Herschel Walker, that would expand Democrats' majority to 51-49. That would give Democrats an additional edge in passing the few bills that are able to advance with a simple majority of votes, instead of the 60 needed for most legislation.

It would also dilute the influence of Democratic Senators Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona, "swing" votes who have blocked or delayed some of Biden's major initiatives, including expansions of some social programs.

I will leave it to the pundits to elaborate on what else a one seat advantage in the Senate will mean for legislation. One additional thing is that the power sharing agreement of a 50/50 split would no longer apply (read more). 

Suffice say it is so significant that the Republicans have no choice but to go all in on supporting Walker and holding their collective breath that he doesn't say something totally cray-cray or have an accusation leveled against him that he can't lie his way out of.

Update: News like this can't thrill Republicans:

Excerpt:

"Now let me tell you this here: If we was ready for the green agenda, I'd raise my hand right now," he said. "But we're not ready right now! So don't let them fool you like this is a new agenda, this is not a new agenda! We're not prepared, we're not ready right now! What we need to do is keep having these gas-guzzling cars, because we got the good emissions under those cars. We're doing the best thing that we can!"

This is not the first time that Walker has spoken confusingly about energy and environmental policy.

Earlier this year, for example, Walker seemed to suggest that China was taking America's "good air" and replacing it with "bad air."

"Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move," Walker said. "So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got we to clean that back up."

See my related Walker story: