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Georgia Tag

On the eve of the special election in Georgia's 6th district, news of President Trump's approval hitting 50% on Rasmussen's Presidential Tracking Poll is being blasted from the rafters by Drudge and retweeted by the President himself.  However, Rasmussen's appears to be an outlier, though Gallup has him up by two points at 41%. This is an important point because Georgia's 6th, Newt Gingrich's old district, only barely went for Trump last November, and the progressive Democrat, Jon Ossoff, began his campaign as a "Make Trump Furious" effort and in doing so, has intentionally made the special election a referendum on Trump.

While losing the House seat vacated by Tom Price in Georgia's 6th district will make little immediate difference in real terms for  Republicans, doing so will provide an unwelcome boost of morale and momentum to anti-Trump regressives.   Democrats and "resist we much" activists across the country know this, understand the momentum such a victory would create, and are unleashing all of their resources on this tiny, mostly conservative district near Atlanta. Team Obama, Hollywood has-been Samuel L. Jackson, and outside volunteers and money are flooding into the district with the hopes of scoring a win on Tuesday for the anti-Trump "resistance."  To that end, they are all rallying behind progressive Democrat Jon Ossoff.

As we learned from Scott Brown's (R-MA) supermajority-breaking special election win in January of 2010, special elections can and sometimes do serve as harbingers for midterms.  There are three upcoming special elections to replace House members who have joined President Trump's cabinet, and each is turning out to be unexpectedly challenging for the GOP, who are expecting a low turnout in the wake of the Republicans gaining control of both Congress and the White House. Kansas, Georgia, and Montana will hold special elections this spring, and if the Democrats pick up one or more of these seats, their "resist we much" campaign will get a much-needed boost.

In the summer of 2014, Justin Ross Harris left his 22-month-old son Cooper in the car for seven hours as he went to work. Harris claimed he forgot to drop Cooper off at daycare, but prosecutors revealed he sexted with numerous women, including the day his son died. A grand jury indicted Harris in September 2014. On Tuesday, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sentenced Harris to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The school choice fight rages on in Georgia. On the ballot this year is a constitutional amendment that would create a statewide "Opportunity School District". In 2012, Georgia passed an amendment creating its charter school program. Opportunity School District (OSD) is one of the last remaining pieces of Georgia Governor Deal's education reform initiative. Its function? To assist in the turnaround of failing schools. According to the proposal's official site, OSD is, "ased on similar, successful initiatives in Louisiana and Tennessee," and, "would authorize the state to temporarily step in to assist chronically failing public schools and rescue children languishing in them."