Observations©
By Donald S. Conkey
Monday is Memorial Day 2011 – a national holiday to honor those men and women who gave or were willing to give their lives to defend the freedoms all Americans cherish.
While the vast majority of all Americans hope that those veterans who have died in establishing and preserving America’s freedoms for nearly 240 years have not died in vain there is a small … Read more...
By J. Randolph Evans
2010 was a watershed election in Georgia politics. Republicans swept
every state constitutional office and took firm control of the Georgia
Senate and House.
2012 will be a watershed election in Georgia for a completely different
reason. While the Presidential election will certainly impose a healthy
level of partisanship in the November General Election, the 2012
nonpartisan judicial elections will also be big.
By Les Dunaway
The economy will be THE underlying issue in politics for the foreseeable future. America has, finally, woken-up to the fact that spending money we don’t have must stop. Now the conversation is turning to how do we dig out of the hole the tax & spenders have gotten us into. To answer that question, we must look at what’s likely and/or possible for the next 20 years. … Read more...
Observations©
By Donald S. Conkey
Graduation, whether it be from high school, from a technical college or university is always a family event worth celebrating – especially for the graduate. It is an accomplishment worth celebrating. And my family is no different – we will be celebrating the graduation of two grandchildren, grandson Cody Barnett from high school in Gainesville Georgia and granddaughter Erin Shaw from Brigham Young University in … Read more...
By J. Randolph Evans
On May 16, 2011, the Georgia Supreme Court by a 4-3 margin struck down
as unconstitutional the law that allows a state commission to supplement
local schools with charter schools. For students in charter schools –
like the Ivy Prep School, an all girls school that ‘provides rigorous,
college preparatory program for young women’ (68% African-American and
40% from low income families), the court’s decision dampens … Read more...
By Donald S. Conkey
Was the killing of Osama bin Laden a coup or was it a diversion. Perhaps it was both! It was a coup from the standpoint of him being on a presidential “hit list” for over ten years, but it was also a diversion to divert attention away from the ten years America has been spending itself into near bankruptcy. The question now, after the CIA found … Read more...
By Les Dunaway
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Meredith Whitney looks at the state of the states. With the end of stimulus money and the end of QE2 (quantitative easing) just weeks away, this is timely. In January we talked about the states “The States – America’s PIIGS?” in relation the EU countries.
Several states have used stimulus money to put off dealing with systemic problems – … Read more...
By J. Randolph Evans
On May 7, 2011, first lady Michelle Obama, echoing President Barack
Obama, addressed the success of the United States military in killing
Osama bin Laden. She made her remarks in Iowa, the first state to
decide in the 2012 election cycle. The last time she was in Iowa was to
campaign in the 2008 presidential election.
Observations©
By Donald S. Conkey
On May 6, 1999 the Tribune published my first Mother’s Day tribute to my mother. Ironically the day it was published was the day Mother was buried in the family cemetery in Huron County, Michigan.
That was a difficult day. But sooner or later most of us figure it out that mankind came into mortality for a grand purpose: to be tested and tried and … Read more...
By J. Randolph Evans
Several Republican candidates for President appeared in Greenville,
South Carolina on May 5th, in the first of many “debates” to come. Not
every candidate or potential candidate made his or her way to South
Carolina, the home of the third state to decide in the nomination
process (after Iowa and New Hampshire). Indeed, several political
heavyweights who are considering a presidential run decided to pass on… Read more...
By Les Dunaway
The long expected housing double dip has happened. Diana Olick, Reality Check, reports that March 2011 numbers are lower than the March 2009 trough. In a second piece she discusses reasons for the dip. Unfortunately, her analysis has since been damaged by today’s unemployment report. In her 23 March 2011 analysis she states “The pros are that the job market is slowly recovering. Jobs are key to … Read more...
By John Douglas
All of us can remember what are called “gotcha moments,” moments in time when something important happened and we can recall years later where we were when we first heard the news. Such was the attack on Pearl Harbor for our older citizens, the assassination of President Kennedy for my generation and the attacks of 9/11/01 for most of us. This past week we added another gotcha … Read more...