A new 'Morning Consult' poll of Georgia voters - weeks before his tariff antics even took form - shows Georgia voters were already weary of his fomenting economic uncertainty. Georgia Recorder commentary guru Jay Bookman twice (twice!) forewarned of Trump's tariff antics potentially negatively impacting Georgians and now the pundits on yesterday's "The Georgia Gang" find themselves in agreement that the mixed messaging is worrisome. Oh, and today, China banned a small list of exports to the U.S. that will definitely affect those Georgia manufacturing jobs Governor Brian Kemp was so proud of.

Whelp; Sean Hannity has "us" figured out: we're coalescing behind using he term "chaos" to describe this (what, not the first?) Trump presidency. He's right; James Carville opined in the NYT Monday that it's an apt descriptive, and one that Democrats should use to attack his agenda.

In normal election years its hard to get voters engaged in public service commission races. In 2025, Georgians have the rare opportunity to elect two to the five-seat PSC board, and the candidates are adding up. With data centers potentially impacting your utility bills (and why should they?) and rates continuing to climb while Georgia Power rakes in eye-popping profits, these two races could become high profile.

An opportunity for utility customers to rebuke their rate increases has to be tantalizing. Having a new consumer watchdog pop up is even more good news for utility customers / voters.

------

International students in South Carolina, here in Georgia and throughout the country are seeing their student visas get revoked. Agein, something about 'due process' and first amendment rights being 'inalienable.'

------

Lastly, my innate reaction to the news that former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms considering a gubernatorial run hasn't really come together quite as well as the AJC's Bill Torpy managed to word it, so I'm endorsing his rationale that she's a 'dream candidate' ... for Georgia Republicans to run someone against.

Wednesday was the rare reprieve from Wall Street hemorrhaging so naturally President Donald Trump felt the need to take a victory lap. Thank goodness Trump saved us from Trump when he put the pause on most tariffs, after realizing people were "getting yippy."

So what's wild about all the suffering Americans and their 401(k) accounts are enduring is, it may all come down to Trump leaning on advisor Peter Navarro's belief in tariffs. Okay, no, what's really wild about that is that Navarro was a Jared Kushner "find" from writing books on trade policy while citing an expert named 'Ron Vara.'

Ron Vara doesn't exist. The name itself is just an anagram using the letters from "Navarro."

Oh, and while he was out celebrating his one day blip in the green, it's important to point out the damage done the days before wont' be simpy undone anytime soon - if ever.

Because we're enduring (still!) the first '100 days' of another Trump presidency, there's naturally going to be discussion of Donald and those in his orbit profiting off of a situation. Such is the case as Trump himself took to Truth Social to implore his followers to snap up stocks hours before he paused his tariff rollout. Or when Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) "bought the dip" and snapped up some plum stocks at a timely moment.

As he's good at doing, Jay Bookman brought the damage closer to home in his latest op-ed explaining how the tariff uncertainties will be felt in Georgia.

------

Uhm, an unknown number of international student visas are being revoked at Georgia schools and apparently in South Carolina, too. Oh, at Purdue University, now, too.

University of Georgia professor emeritus Peter Smagorinsky penned an op/ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution last week that caught my attention: "How Trump’s battle with U.S. colleges is making Canadian universities great."

Like 'Handmaids Tale" ex-pats, America's distinguished scholars are seeking "safe haven" to continue doing their work outside the U.S., and Canada seems to be benefitting quite a bit. Peter joins me to discuss the fallout.

------

We may actually be at the point of the long-awaited MAGA "fever break" as Donald's reckless tariff actions these last two weeks have impacted retirement accounts. Don't believe me: listen to Ben Shapiro shriek or Eric Erickson exasperate on his show, or better yet: read these "scalded dogs" tweets from MAGA voters who now (now!) regret voting for Trump. Tanker truckloads of "MAGA tears."

It typifies MAGA and conservatism, though, no? Only when they're impacted are causes that others have championed important to them.

The consequences are only now starting to show themselves at checkout; Atlanta-based Delta Airlines' Q1 earnings statement shows the Trump brand of "economic chaos" is already impacting their bottom line. Their CEO calling Trump's tariff strategy "candidly, a bit chaotic."

Ouch.

The "period of mourning" we've all sleep-walked through since election night last November may be subsiding for most of us, but Sunday's '60 Minutes' segment - detailing the callous disregard for due process and lack of contrition (let alone empathy) for those wrongly sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison - was, for me anyway, a setback.

I kept telling myself "this isn't who we are as a country," while watching it, but having let it set in a couple days, I've come to realize it's exactly who we are; and what we are is "awful." Even the Supreme Court confirmed it to be so.

Among those appearing to be sent to CECOT by mistake is a 31-year old makeup artist and theatre buff - a gay Venezuelan who fled his home country because of his sexuality (being gay is rough in Venezuela) and political persecution last spring. He arrived at a legal port of entry and filed for asylum; you know, "the right way." Yet his wrist tattoos honoring his parents feature crowns and well, to Trump-era ICE folks, that clearly (note: sarcasm) means "Tren de Aragua," the notorious Venezuelan gang.

Then there's the guy who - 14 years ago in his teens, and on social media - flashed the "rock on" / "devil's horns" hand signal - or to out-of-touch tight-ass white people "Tren de Aragua gang sign!!!!"

Just when you think this administration has shown us all their shortcomings, they show us there's still more in the tank.

Unfortunately, it reflects on all of us.

It's been a minute since 'Atlanta Voice' editor-in-chief Donnell Suggs and I last spoke, and with so much to discuss, today seemed like as good a day as any to reconnect.

Suggs got to spend a wire-to-wire day with Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens recently, so naturally, I had questions. With his re-election campaign's coffers brimming with cash, is that positive or negative in the eyes of Atlantans? Will 'Cop City' be a drag for him? His 11th hour pivot on 'Beltline rail?'

Recent word that former mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is looking into a gubernatorial run had me wondering if she's more popular with the Atlanta voter base than conventional wisdom might bely.

Will Senator Jon Ossoff lose support from black voters because of attack ads targeting his vote on trans sports participants?

Will looming tariff costs to the average American household keep folks from traveling this summer? Like to the new Universal Epic Universe theme park journalists like Suggs had the opportunity to get a sneak peak of?

It's easy to punch down after the results of the 2024 election left Americans wondering if Democrats can rebound, but The more we wade into this disastrous second Trump presidency, the more I contend the American people are realizing they got duped more than Democrats fell short.

That doesn't absolve the party of their shortcomings and flaws, but you have to give credit where it's due, and in the case of Georgia's legislative Democrats in particular. Their numbers - suppressed by gerrymandering - were never going to provide them much ability to derail divisive and ugly bills, but they grinded into late hours in the closing days to give it their best effort. Notably they threw everything they had at HB 127, a well-intentioned bill that got poison-amended to include an erasure of anything "D.E.I." in public education. Despite their efforts, it passed in the Senate but died in the House needing to get those Senate amendments voted on.

Pity.

Still, a lot of bad bills will be on Brian Kemp's desk awaiting his signature, like a license to discriminate, using "religion' as the thin veil. Well, this is where we come in.

EDITED TO AD: "We" did show up Saturday, no? Atlanta's "Hands Off" rally was one of dozens, nationwide, all drawing thousands in cities big and small, blue and red.

Fantastic, but we're still 19 months out from 2026 midterms and the divisive tactics the right uses to fracture Saturday's unity are still there: trans rights, Gaza/Israel for example. Can the anti-Trump, anti-DOGE, anti-Musk movement stay unified?

We'll see.

Who among us isn't a little "Ferris Bueller," right? Outside of those rare, constantly driven and meticulous types, we all take little breaks and skirt by when we believe we can.

The second Trump presidency seems like a lot of that - Donald and company just gliding by without putting in much effort to "show their work" but definitely there to hand in their assignment anyway.

Such was the case with Trump's "Liberation Day" Rose Garden ceremony yesterday. So much pomp and circumstance for a day when many economists - even conservative lawmakers and farmers - believe Trump just ignited a trade war that's going to lead to a recession - or worse.

Pffft; only commoners like us every really feel the kind of pain that comes with a recession (or worse) Even the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump's "Liberation Day" simply "buy another yacht day" for the well-connected and well-heeled.

But say Trump and company actually do think sparking a global trade war via tariffs is somehow - for the first time in modern history - going to usher in some economic nirvana.

They say that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It was on 'Ferris Bueller's Day off' the he missed his economics teacher droning on about 'Hawley-Smoot' tariffs fanning the flames of the Great Depression, for example. Even noted C and D student George W. Bush knew the folly in adopting the "evil triplets" of "isolationism, protectionism and nativism." It was her, after all, who gave something of a 'master class' and precautionary warning about those "triplets" and a reminder the damage "Smoot-Hawley" (or is it "Hawley-Smoot?" did in the 1930s, in a CSPAN Q&A fourteen years ago.

My God, George W. Bush sounding professorial by comparison.

Then there's the formula used to decide the rate of reciprocal tariff being levied. One economist and author termed it a "back-of-the-envelope" calculation.

It was back on November 21st last year that I had Georgia Recorder columnist Jay Bookman on to discuss the many and varied ways Trump's tariff, tax and deportation policies were going to impact Georgians' budgets. The reaction yesterday, throughout Georgia's economics circles was "pretty insane."

Jason Cecil - like all of us - is defined by more than just a job; he's a husband, Dekalb County Ethics Board alternate, President of the LGBTQ+ recovery community-serving GALANO Club, to name a few of his attribuets.

His job at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) was really important, too, though. Until yesterday, he had been a Public Health Analyst in Global Immunizations since 2003, focusing on polio eradication, measles elimination, and immunization systems strengthening, before a promotion to the CDC division on Global HIV and TB. To hear him tell it, his was the division hit hardest by yesterday's cuts.

Remember the DOGE-Elon Musk-Karen Leavitt-Donald Trump lie about $50 million for condoms "to Hamas?" Well, Mozambique in Africa has a Gaza province and none of those intellectual heavyweights distinguished between the two and even the monetary figure (and condoms, altogether) were overblown. It's the division Jason had been working in - global HIV and TB - that all along was " major, multi-pronged effort to address HIV and tuberculosis — not a dump of condoms."

Well, Jason's no longer working in a capacity to deliver results for the George W. Bush-launched PEPFAR: the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It was on World AIDS Day in 2022 that Bush returned to Washington (a rarity) to tout the two decades of PEPFAR's accomplishments. Yes, that Bush.

Anyhow, Jason was kind enough to join me today to share his RIF experience, reaction, emotions and insights into what being a federal employee in such a necessary agency has been like since Trump was re-elected last November.

Were contingency plans being made? Any "offloading" or "lifeboating" of research and data? What was the mood in the hallways like? What's next for career civil servants like him?

Outgoing state senator Brandon Beach - because he can fog a mirror - knows Donald Trump and Trump's seventeen co-defendatns were all guilty as hell in conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. How he sleeps at night after filing a bill to allow Trump to recoup legal fees from Fulton County taxpayers is beyond me, frankly. The ironic twist on it being that he was recently appointed by the president to serve as U.S. Treasurer and has the audacity to push legislation using the  "significant’ appearance of impropriety” argument, invoking the Fani Willis/Nathan Wade coupling as fodder.

Joining me to fume over that is Rep. Shea Roberts. We touched on that and the state of the Georgia Democratic Party & a few other topics of note as she and the rest of the legislature wind down the 2025 session.

"Cousin" Shea struggled to come up  with a bill she'd voted on in awhile she felt good about, but perhaps one submitted by fellow Democrat Mary Margaret Oliver that passed by a 163-4 margin offering some modicum of relief for Georgia renters might meet muster, yeah?

Also, Rep. Lucy McBath put the brakes (for now, anyway) on her exploring a gubernatorial run, leaving Georgia Democrats with a pretty open field (for now, anyway), but also leaving Congressional hopefuls eyeing her seat waffling or waiting in the wings, too.