I cover politics, business and crime in Atlanta -- often all at once.
Feb 15 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
At the press conference about the Fulton County hack today, county officials said they couldn't take questions there, but to submit them by email, which I did immediately.
The county's response? They won't answer them.
It's got to be worse than it looks, and it looks bad.
I asked: Was information merely scrambled by the hack, or did hackers gain access to nonpublic data? If so, what kind? With regard to the courts, did hackers damage / gain data access / gain read-write access to evidentiary files stored in criminal cases?
Dec 28, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
A teacher in a South Carolina classroom could be fired for correcting her today.
When Republicans say they want to get rid of "CRT" or "DEI" in schools, this is what it looks like: lying, straight up, in public, about white supremacy and racism in America.
We can argue about the particulars about how slavery the continuation of white supremacist policies and attitudes explains modern racial disparities without holding white Americans to account for the sins of slavery. But Republicans want to avoid that conversation entirely.
Nov 22, 2023 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
I'm at Fulton County court, picking up a copy of the APD death video of Johnny Hollman.
They're releasing it on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Consider that.
APD just posted it.
The fringe right of the Republican Party is insisting that it will use the power of the state to violently repress its political enemies if it wins the next election, and will violently resist the state if it loses the next election.
Maybe they just want to be violent?
To be clear: they're little bitches.
There aren't actually enough of them to do more than we saw on January 6th. They're outnumbered. They are, dare I say it, outgunned. Every rightwing nutjob prepared to engage in political violence in this state could meet in a Waffle House.
Sep 2, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Let me say this plainly: hip hop media - the magazines and reporters covering the music and the industry - by and large cannot report honestly about what is happening on matters of crime and violence because their sources will stop talking to them.
The amount of violence tied to the industry isn't just remarkable. It's statistically implausible as random chance. It is orders of magnitude - multiple standard deviations - from normal, even accounting for socioeconomic factors.
Jan 28, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The Memphis video reminds me of the way people used to describe how Atlanta's REDDOG anti-drug unit worked. Memphis' police chief, Cerelyn Davis, oversaw REDDOG before it was disbanded for its murderous abuses. Atlanta tried - and failed - to fire Davis for an act of corruption.
People are praising Davis for immediately firing the cops and for soberly describing the horrors of the video ahead of time. (The criminal charges are a function of the DA's office.)
But she created the SCORPION unit as one of her first acts as chief when appointed in 2021.
Jan 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Tyre Nichols - on the ground, being abused - couldn't turn over fast enough for five cops, and ran away after being pepper sprayed. The cops were salty because they caught the spray too. So they beat him to death when they caught him.
And they said they would do as much.
When they caught him the second time, he was plainly trying to comply without, you know, exposing his midsection to blows at the same time.
He sounds like me. Like, unaccented dork American English, calling for his mother as they killed him.
Jan 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari, a veteran of protest movements and a progressive voice on the Atlanta City Council, released a statement a few minutes ago about Cop City and the violence trailing in its wake. It's a thoughtful read.
@lilianaforatlanta instagram.com/p/Cn73fI7u7yx/…
"In the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, most recently Tyre Nichols, and countless others, it is appalling that any law enforcement agency in our state would not utilize body cameras" ...
Jan 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Folks worried about rioting tonight in Atlanta have one thing going for them: it's going to be in the low 40s when the Tyre Nichols video recording drops tonight.
I'm not looking forward to it. But I will look.
Rage will be valid. Violence won't. Find peace where you can.
As described by people who have seen it, Nichols was restrained after running from a traffic stop for reckless driving. He had been pepper sprayed before running. Nichols is a slight man, surrounded by five cops, who beat him for three minutes straight.
Jan 26, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The Atlanta Objective with George Chidi: Losing Control theatlantaobjective.substack.com/p/losing-contr…
As an aside to the above piece, I'd like a moment of personal privilege. I am struggling mightily with writing of late, something that I've only started to break out of this week. I've had a massive project going for a few months ago that I can't turn, and it's frozen everything.
Jan 3, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
@_MikeTurner They insure the artist on behalf of the business. Families get nothing except what they've insured privately. But that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the implied valuations of the artists relative to the value of their contracts.
@_MikeTurner Consider: an artist gets signed for $50,000 plus a chain, or some stupidity like that. They also have a "360 deal" that entitles the label to a percentage of revenue from all sources.
Dec 12, 2022 • 9 tweets • 6 min read
@All_Gravy_Baby@NoBuckhead Oh. You've talked to "several" cops in Buckhead. Such authority you now possess on the subject. Truly, I should ignore the mountain of data and years of research and decades of experience.
You're entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that your opinion is poorly informed.
@All_Gravy_Baby@NoBuckhead Here. I'll help.
You seem to be pinned to the idea that the physical size of Zone 2 matters relative to crime rates and police coverage, like there's a set number of cops that stake out an area like an outfielder or defensive back covering territory. That's not how this works.
Jun 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Corporations kept 11% of GDP as profits last quarter, and the quarter before it. The long-run average is 7%.
A fully functional federal government would raise corporate taxes to cover the cost of college and lower health insurance premiums until profits revert to the mean.
Some perspective: We have GDP of about $25 trillion. Corporate profit is about $2.93 trillion of that. If we taxed the part that was above the historical average, we'd have $1 trillion - that's about $7,700 for every household in America.
That's how out of whack the economy is.
May 10, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The rapper @youngthug, Jeffery Lamar Williams, was arrested a few hours ago at a rented mansion in Buckhead.
@youngthug Young Thug is being held at Fulton County Jail, ostensibly on narcotics and gang charges. I am working to confirm the exact charges. This appears to be the beginning of the state gang racketeering case alluded to by Fulton DA Willis last month.
May 8, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I like Fort. We're friends. Set that aside.
I think we need to have a conversation about @repdavidscott, in the Doctor Who "don't you think he looks tired" sense of it.
Because I have now heard from several people who've seen him recently that he is ... unwell.
And when I say "unwell," I mean that he may no longer be physically or mentally fit to serve in high office. I make no character judgements or attacks on his politics when I say that. Politico reporters started picking up on this months ago.
Just reading this brief in detail from the USDOJ on the unbelievable stonewalling @GA_Corrections is giving them. What the actual fuck. How bad must it be, if they're trying this shit.
GDOC wanted the Justice department to sign an NDA to do an inspection of a prison and talk to prisoners ... while under federal investigation.
Mar 19, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
A man was found shot to death in a car at the I-20 underpass. Two days ago, the parent of one of Young Thug's children was murdered outside of a bowling alley. These things are directly connected and part of the larger gang violence problem in Atlanta.
#gapol
Seven years ago, Donovan "Peanut" Thomas, a noted Inglewood Family Bloods gang leader (watch for the #llnut tags) was murdered in Castleberry Hill. Police have never charged anyone for that murder, but they have suspects.
One of those suspects is Shannon Jackson.
Mar 4, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
What the hell is this. This legislation came out of nowhere 10 days ago. It appears on its face to prohibit municipalities from providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness.
#gapol#atlanta
Some state senator drove by encampments on the way to the capitol and decided the best thing he could do is to force them to sleep in the cars they don't have or in pillboxes instead of, you know, an actual apartment.
Mar 3, 2022 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
I'm at The Batman. And yeah. It might actually be better than The Dark Knight, no slight to Heath Ledger intended. I can't believe I'm saying this. I am ... overcome.
Colin Ferrell is utterly unrecognizable and brilliant. Zoe Kravitz is brilliant, and more than eye candy. But the movie revolves around Pattinson confronting the tarnished ideal of the hero.
This movie will be discussed.
Nov 20, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
As we wrestle with the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, remember that all wars are borne from miscalculation.
America's far-right believes that it has no path forward with politics; that the bullet will supplant the ballot, soon.
They believe if it comes to a gunfight, they'll win.
They're wrong. They're wildly outnumbered and deeply unpopular. Open armed conflict will result in a unified effort to crush them.
But the Rittenhouse verdict will bolster militants. They can now argue their chances on guns to people looking for an excuse to kill.
Feb 28, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
So, @nprdina and @vicwj, ye of the three-naméd news reporters, we need to talk about this story.
I'm a writer in Atlanta. I have been covering political extremism here for about a decade. And I am horrified at the journalistic malpractice on display.
npr.org/sections/insur…
"Bruno Cua was best known in his small town of Milton, Ga., as a great builder of treehouses. These were big, elaborate creations with ladders and trapdoors and framed-out windows."
