Georgia Taxpayers Lose $160,000 for Every Job Created by Film Tax Credits

“A new audit of Georgia’s Film Tax Credit program found that the state “loses money” on the program. A lot of money, actually: about $160,000 for every job the program creates. Georgia is now spending about $1.3 billion annually on the program, but it generates a return on investment of just 19 cents per dollar, the auditors conclude.”

“There’s no doubt that Georgia’s program has influenced where movie and TV production takes place. The new audit concludes that the program has induced “substantial economic activity in Georgia,” but that’s simply evidence of the fact that lighting a lot of money on fire will eventually produce some heat. The underlying numbers suggest that Georgia’s subsidies are doing a poor job of generating economic growth or creating jobs.”

https://reason.com/2023/12/18/georgia-taxpayers-lose-160000-for-every-job-created-by-film-tax-credits/

Georgia offered Medicaid with a work requirement. Few have signed up.

“A GOP experiment forcing low-income people to work to qualify for public health insurance benefits is stumbling in Georgia.

The state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, expected 31,000 Georgians to sign up in the first year of the program, which started in July. Through four months, only 1,800 people enrolled — and critics blame the paltry expansion on an overly complex program with too many hurdles for people to clear.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/26/georgia-public-health-insurance-expansion-00132698

Did the U.S. orchestrate the Color Revolutions!?

although the United States heavily funded pro-democracy organizations, and generally preferred the new governments and the attempted moves toward democracy, the United States did not direct these movements. Peoples in these countries had grievances and disagreements with their governments and pushed to replace them.
That said, these revolutions likely would not have succeeded without U.S. help. The U.S. spent money to help locals: build civil society, monitor elections, execute exit polling, and build independent media. The U.S. and the West also pressured the semi-authoritarian regimes to not suppress the protests. The United States encouraged democracy and built capacity that could be used to peacefully fight for democracy, and locals used this capacity to create the Color Revolutions. So, the U.S. was heavily involved, but not in a directive capacity, just in a support capacity, and this support was focused on the ability to push for democracy, not particular opposition parties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjQ-5N7RIF4

Did the U.S. orchestrate the Color Revolutions!? Video Sources

Democratisation, NGOs and “colour revolutions” Salman Rushdie. 2005. Shalimar the Clown. OpenDemocracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/colour_revolutions_3196jsp/ What Happened to the Colour Revolutions? Authoritarian Responses from Former Soviet Spaces Donnacha O Beachain and Abel Polese. 2010. Journal of International and Area Studies. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43107207?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents “Surfing the wave”

Trump’s Georgia Indictment Raises Familiar Questions of Knowledge and Intent

“the proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a criminal conviction. Eastman (who is one of Trump’s co-defendants) said Trump had been “made aware” that the claims about ballots cast by dead people, felons, and unregistered voters were “inaccurate.” But even if someone told him the numbers were wrong, and even if Trump was paying attention, it would have been perfectly in character for him to continue believing them.
The federal indictment is filled with examples of information that Trump ignored or rejected because it conflicted with his stolen-election narrative. That stubborn resistance can be interpreted either as evidence of his dishonesty or as evidence of his longstanding tendency to embrace self-flattering delusions and never let them go.”

“At a certain point, as George Mason law professor Ilya Somin suggests, willful blindness to reality is hard to distinguish from deliberate deceit, and this example vividly illustrates that point. But in assessing Trump’s state of mind when he made unsubstantiated claims like these, a jury will have to decide whether there is reasonable doubt as to whether he knew they were false.”

Another Georgia Probe Finds No Evidence of Conspiracy To Steal 2020 Election

“The allegations involving those two election workers—Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea Moss—were “false and unsubstantiated,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, announced.., as his office officially closed a two-year probe into the incident. The investigation had launched at the behest of Georgia state Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (R–East Cobb) and included the FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The final report includes details of interviews with Freeman, Moss, and other workers present during the ballot counting at State Farm Arena on the night of the 2020 election. Those interviewed provided “a consistent account” of the ballot-counting process, and matched what investigators saw on the video footage. As for that supposedly damning video footage, “There was no evidence of any type of fraud as alleged,” the report concludes, and there was “no evidence was provided to show that Freeman or Moss deviated from” the established process for storing boxes of legitimate ballots.

Additionally, the FBI interviewed the creator of an Instagram account that surfaced in December 2020 and purported to belong to Freeman. In posts to the account, the user (whose name was redacted in the final report) claimed to have participated in ballot fraud, but later admitted to the FBI that the content was fake.”

“also details the extent to which state investigators double-checked the election results. Audits conducted after Election Day “did not identify any issues or discrepancies to suggest fake or fraudulent ballots were scanned and counted in the 2020 General Election results,” and a subsequent recount requested by Trump’s campaign “also did not identify any discrepancies to suggest fraudulent ballots were introduced and counted in the tabulation process.””

“Trump, meanwhile, continues to push the claim that the election was stolen.”

Georgia Sets Early Voting Record, Despite Controversial Voting Law

“Georgia Republicans passed S.B. 202 to overhaul the state’s voting law just two months after losing both of the state’s Senate seats to Democrats and four months after President Donald Trump lost reelection. The so-called “Election Integrity Act of 2021″ sought to undo pandemic-era changes to voting rules intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”

“there is plenty to dislike about the bill: In addition to sharply narrowing who can request absentee ballots, it significantly curtails the number of ballot drop boxes a county is allowed to have. The New York Times estimated that the four counties comprising metro Atlanta would go from 94 drop boxes to 23. The law also removed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who famously resisted Trump’s entreaties to “find” enough votes to flip Georgia to the former president, as both the chair and a voting member of the State Election Board.

That board further has the power to “suspend” state and county election officials and appoint “temporary” replacements in their stead. In the months after the law passed, it remade entire counties’ election boards by replacing Democrats with Republicans.

Clearly, Georgia’s voting law has issues: The ability of the state to directly meddle in counties’ election boards is a fundamentally illiberal exercise of power, and based on the timing, it seems obvious that the law was intended to placate Trump’s ego.”