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Tropical Storm Irma forms off the Cape Verde Islands with winds in excess of 45 MPH. The National Hurricane Center will begin issuing advisories on this storm beginning at 11:00 AM EDT. Source: Hurricane Center PR.

Since 2007, John Culpepper had been anticipating this moment: the unveiling of a statue to the common Confederate soldier in his hometown of Chickamauga, Georgia. In November of last year, three days before Donald Trump won the presidency, it became a reality. Culpepper founded the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the self-described historic honor society that's been keeping the Confederate legacy alive for more than a century. Culpepper greeted visitors with smiles and handshakes as they filed into rows of white folding chairs behind the towering, shrouded statue. Most of them were his neighbors from Chickamauga, a...

Judicial Watch Pursues Comey FBI Scandal Election Integrity Update: Georgia’s Right to Clean Voter Rolls Judicial Watch Sues for Anti-Israel ‘BDS’ Lobbying Records Judicial Watch Pursues Comey FBI Scandal Former FBI Director James Comey sits in a firestorm of his own making. By his own admission, he created and then leaked memos to ensure that a special counsel would be appointed to investigate President Trump. It looks as if Comey broke government rules and laws as part of his machinations. Special Counsel Mueller is unlikely to investigate his friend Comey, and so it is up to your Judicial Watch...

ATLANTA - The NAACP has called for a boycott of the NFL. The organization says the league treated free agent Colin Kaepernick unfairly for his headline grabbing protest during the national anthem. --SNIP-- Kaepernick has not been signed by an NFL team. This boycott is not just here in Georgia. It is nationwide. The NAACP says they are planning to send a strong message to not only commissioner Rodger Goodell, but NFL owners like Arthur Blank.

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — A Gwinnett County magistrate judge and longtime local politician has resigned from his court position after being suspended over controversial posts he made on Facebook. Jim Hinkle, a part-time judge who has served on the court for 14 years, resigned Wednesday, Chief Magistrate Judge Kristina Hammer Blum said in a written statement. Blum had suspended Hinkle indefinitely after his Facebook posts came to light on Saturday. “For 14 years, Judge Hinkle has dutifully served this court,” Blum said in her statement. “He is a lifelong public servant and former Marine. However, he has acknowledged that his statements...

CNN posted a map on August 17 showing the location of approximately 1,500 Confederate monuments and/or official symbols in the U.S. The map will, no-doubt, serve as a hit-list for the frenzied Workers World Party members and others seeking the removal and destruction of Confederate statues in city after city across America. CNN reports, “Roughly 1,500 Confederate symbols still exist on public land more than 150 years after the conclusion of the Civil War.” It explains that 718 of the Confederate symbols are “monuments and statutes.”

Why is John Stith Pemberton a hero? Well it is really quite simple... He invented Coca-Cola! ....John Stith Pemberton, a Confederate Lieutenant Colonel, served in the defense of Columbia, Georgia, during the Battle of Columbus. During this battle, he received a nasty saber wound on his chest. This wound led to a morphine addiction. In an effort to create a 'cure' for his addiction, Pemberton formulated an early version of Coca-Cola, "Pemberton's French Wine Coca." Later on he used this formula to develop the very first Coca-Cola...

Updated 17 Aug 2017 at 6:20 AM In the aftermath of violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, progressive activists nationwide have demanded, and in some cases illegally carried out, the tearing down and removal of statues and monuments to Confederate leaders and soldiers on public space. Now Black Lives Matter activists have gone even further — going so far as to call for a ban on all Confederate imagery — even in private possession. Inspired by Germany’s post-war laws banning any and all Nazi imagery, Black Lives Matter activists on Twitter called for a similar ban on...

Protesters vandalized and attempted to take down the Peace Monument in Piedmont Park in Atlanta on Sunday, mistaking it for a pro-Confederate statue. The protesters were marching in response to the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday where one woman died after being deliberately hit by a car, and two law enforcement personnel were killed when the helicopter they were in crashed. “The Atlanta march traveled from Woodruff Park to Piedmont Park Sunday, where some damaged the Peace Monument, erected in 1911,” a blog on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website said. “The sculpture features an angel standing above a Confederate soldier,...

A civil rights leader says there are more important causes than taking down Confederate statues. Former Atlanta Mayor and UN Ambassador Andrew Young said fighting to have the Georgia Confederate flag replaced may have been a mistake. “I think it’s too costly to refight the Civil War,” Young said Wednesday at a news conference in which he and fellow civil rights icon C.T. Vivian endorsed Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell to succeed Kasim Reed as the city’s next mayor. Young said civil rights leaders should have spent more time fighting for issues such as education and housing. The Georgia...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called for the removal of the giant carving that depicts three Confederate war leaders on the face of state-owned Stone Mountain, saying it “remains a blight on our state and should be removed.” “We must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the union,” Abrams said in a series of tweets posted early Tuesday, a response to the deadly violence sparked by white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, Va.

THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WCTV) -- Multiple authority groups are on the scene of an officer-involved shooting in Thomasville. The Thomasville Police Department, Grady County Sheriff's Office, Thomas County Sheriff's Office, Georgia State Patrol and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are all on the scene. A suspect has been critically injured and is being treated at a local hospital. Someone at the scene posted a video to Facebook moments after the shooting. Due to the sensitive nature of the title, some of the natural sound from the video and some of the comments, WCTV has decided not to embed the video, but...

One of the gubernatorial candidates is calling for the removal of Confederate statues and monuments from around the state, including Stone Mountain's Civil War carving. The Democratic party front-runner for governor, Stacy Abrams, said the carving of three Confederate leaders at Stone Mountain, which is designated by state law as an official Confederate memorial site, should be removed. “It is 2017, and now is the time for us to have a conversation about removing the last vestiges of that type of hatred and that type of vitriol toward minority communities in Georgia,” Abrams told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot. The Georgia...

STONE MOUNTAIN, GA (CBS46) - Former Georgia House Minority Leader and candidate for governor of the state Stacey Abrams is calling for the Confederate carvings on Stone Mountain to be removed. Abrams tweeted that the carvings is a "blight on our state and should be removed". She also tweeted that "Confederate monuments belong in museums where we can study and reflect on that terrible history, not in places of honor across our state". The Confederate Memorial Carving has images of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and were not complete until a dedication ceremony...

A protester climbs a Confederate monument with a chain in an attempt to topple it Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017, in Atlanta. The peace monument at the 14th Street entrance depicts an angel of peace stilling the hand of a Confederate soldier about to fire his rifle. Protesters decrying hatred and racism converged around the country on Sunday, saying they felt compelled to counteract the white supremacist rally that spiraled into deadly violence in Virginia. The group that erected an Atlanta monument depicting a Confederate soldier vowed Monday that it will be repaired after protesters splattered it with red spray paint...

Tensions rose as the lone policeman on the scene was surrounded by black-clad antifa protesters shouting “pig.” Black Lives Matter protesters put themselves between the police officer and the antifacism crowd. The gathering soon dispersed. The memorial and march were organized by All Out Atlanta but drew many other participants.

ATLANTA, Ga. - Several civil rights organizations are coming together to condemn Saturday's violence and rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and march in the streets of downtown Atlanta. Leaders from Bend the Arc Jewish Action, Color of Change, Human Rights Campaign, and Muslim Advocates are gathering Saturday night to condemn the violence. The organizers of the rally say they will urge President Trump to call the rally a "white supremacist convention."

Atlanta, GA—Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who also serves as the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, cautioned against President Trump’s rhetoric on North Korea at the Netroots Nation conference on Friday, initially saying that the foreign leader was acting more responsibly than Trump. He later said he regretted the remarks.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The long August congressional recess, which Republicans hoped would begin a conversation about tax reform and must-pass budget measures, has so far seen another round of angry town halls focused on President Trump and the stalled effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Over just one day, in three small towns along Georgia’s Atlantic coastline, Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Ga.) spent more than four hours answering 74 questions, many of them heated. Just three focused on tax reform; nearly half of all questions focused on health care. “We did our job in the House,” Carter said...

An Atlanta gym owner is making no apologies after his ban on police officers and members of the military caused a local backlash. The controversy started when passersby noticed a sign posted in front of EAV Barbell Club in the city’s East Atlanta Village neighborhood and brought it to the attention of local NBC affiliate WXIA. “Do whatever the f— you want, correctly, except crossfit cultism. No f—g cops,” the sign reportedly read. The gym’s owner, Jim Chambers, said he took the sign down and regretted the profanity, but the policy still stands. “We’ve had an explicitly stated ‘No Cop’...