A convergence of faith

Gov. Kemp signed the controversial "constitutional carry" bill into law on Tuesday. (Riley Bunch / GPB News)

It’s now legal for most Georgians to carry concealed weapons without a permit after Gov. Brian Kemp signed one of the most controversial measures of the 2022 session into law.

Pro-gun groups like the NRA lobbied for this expansion of gun rights for a long time, and in his 2018 campaign for governor, Kemp promised he’d take it up. But it wasn’t until this year’s session, the last of his first term, that Kemp made what he calls “constitutional carry” a top priority.

Critics say it’s a dangerous law, passed only for Kemp and other Republicans to appeal to their base in an election year.

GPB's Riley Bunch has more.

Herschel Walker speaks to reporters in early March. (Riley Bunch / GPB News)

GPB political reporter Stephen Fowler has published a story detailing concerns that Herschel Walker failed to provide key information on his personal financial disclosure form, according to three campaign finance experts who spoke to Fowler.

The missing information means that Georgians might have difficulty in spotting possible conflicts of interest Walker could have if elected to the Senate.

• From the story:
  “A review of Walker’s financial disclosure shows inconsistencies in reporting sources of income and positions (both compensated and uncompensated) held, as well as a failure to list any sources that paid Walker more than $5,000 in 2020 and 2021.”

Fowler also reports that Walker is the wealthiest candidate in the race, with a reported net worth of between $29 million and $65 million. (Federal law requires only that personal income disclosures are reported in ranges not exact figures.)

Speaking of Walker ...

Herschel Walker is represented by an empty podium at the first GOP Senate primary debate of 2022. (Jonathan O'Brien/WDUN)
 

Questions about Walker’s disclosure form could have been ammunition for his opponents to pepper him with had he shown up for the first major GOP U.S. Senate debate, which was staged in Gainesville this past week. But he didn’t.

Walker has said he won’t participate in any debates until he faces off against Raphael Warnock as the Republican nominee for Warnock’s seat.

In his absence, the five Republican candidates on the stage were left flinging attacks at an empty podium reserved for Walker:

• “I’m certain that every coach he had in the past instructed him you’ll not play in the game if you don’t show up for practice.” — Gary Black
• “This is an interview process, and if you don’t show up for the interview, you don’t get the job.” — Kelvin King
• “He’s doing the Biden basement strategy. We saw what that got us.” — Latham Saddler

Walker’s resistance to primary debates may only be strengthened by the results of a new poll from Emerson College and The Hill, which shows Walker with nearly 60% of the GOP vote.

It’s a sign of how much his opponents are clutching at straws when they say they see some hope in the fact that earlier polling had Walker at 70%.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (File)

While Republicans are vying for the right to face him in the general election, Sen. Raphael Warnock is learning you’re almost certain to anger someone when you take a position on immigration policy.

He’s taking fire from immigration groups upset with his criticism of President Biden’s decision to end a Trump-era policy of banning most asylum seekers from entering the country. Warnock, like some other Democrats up for reelection this year, took a stand opposing the lifting of Title 42.

• “I think this is not the right time, and we have not seen a detailed plan from the administration,” Warnock told a gathering of reporters. “We need assurances that we have security at the border and that we protect communities on this side of the border.”

In response, a coalition of immigrant advocate groups and Latino organizations sent Warnock a letter calling his statement “deeply disturbing.” Warnock’s office said he stands by his criticism.

It’s just one more example of the fact that as long as there is no comprehensive immigration plan supported on both sides of the aisle, weighing in on immigration policies puts any politician in treacherous waters.

Gov. Brian Kemp (File)

With early voting starting in just a few weeks (May 2) and election day in the primary looming in little more than a month (May 24), it may appear that Brian Kemp is in a good position to beat David Perdue for the Republican nomination for governor:

• The Emerson College poll of GOP voters shows Kemp leading Perdue 43% to 32%. Other polls have also shown Kemp with a substantial lead.
   
• The Kemp campaign is awash in cash while Perdue is struggling to raise significant money — meaning Kemp can keep running TV ads all the way through the primary. Perdue has meager resources to mount a major TV campaign right now.
   
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters got access to an internal Kemp poll which shows Kemp leading with 49% of the GOP vote. That’s near the margin he needs to win without a runoff. (We’re always cautious about leaked internal candidate polls.)

On the other hand: 

• Unlike the Kemp campaign poll, Emerson College shows him well below the 50% threshold.
   
• There’s a Trump GOP base that remains angry at Kemp for refusing to decertify the 2020 Biden victory here. They don’t much care that Kemp had no legal avenue for doing that. They just know that Donald Trump has told them Kemp must go. Will they show up to vote in big, angry numbers?

Gov. Brian Kemp (File)

Kemp got a taste of the Trump base’s anger with him at a Fulton County Republican Party event this past week. Though cheered on by many in attendance, a vocal handful attacked him, calling him a “liar” for claiming he had no legal right to take action to give Georgia to Trump in 2020.

The AJC’s Greg Bluestein tweeted about the disruptions.

Refugees wait in a line after fleeing the war from neighbouring Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

The United Nations reports that more than 4.5 million Ukrainians have now fled their country as the unprovoked Russian invasion continues. UNICEF says more than half of Ukrainian children have been displaced, some to other countries, others to locations away from the war’s ravages.

In 1939, the British author Michael Bond saw a different wave of young refugees. He was in a British railway station when he saw large groups of children carrying little suitcases and wearing tags printed with their names and addresses — the children of the kindertransport, an organized effort to save Jewish children from the gas chambers.

Bond never forgot. More than 20 years later, those children became an inspiration for his beloved books about Paddington the Bear. Mr. and Mrs. Brown, who adopt Paddington, first see him in an English railway station, wearing his blue rain slicker and red rain hat, carrying a small suitcase with a tag pinned to his coat: “Please take care of this bear. Thank you.”

In an interview with The Telegraph in 2017, shortly before he died, Michael Bond told the newspaper:

• “So Paddington was, in a sense, a refugee. And I do think that there’s no sadder sight than refugees.”

Watching the stream of people uprooted from their lives in Ukraine, seeing so many children sleeping and playing in shelters and eating in makeshift kitchens, it’s easy to see that Bond was correct: There really is no sadder sight.