Free Republic

Sarah Palin visits South Fulton in April to campaign for Karen Handel. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin weighed in via Facebook this morning with a couple of Georgia GOP U.S. House runoff endorsements: former state Sen. Barry Loudermilk of Cassville in the 11th and surgeon Bob Johnson of Savannah in the 1st. It’s another tea party stamp of approval for Loudermilk and Johnson, who have the backing of national groups as well. When Palin backed Karen Handel in the U.S. Senate primary, the Handel campaign reported a surge of donations. Here’s Palin’s full post: Just back from a beautiful weekend...

Former Soviet minister and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who is credited with helping end the Cold War, died Monday after a long illness, his spokeswoman tells the media. To remind you of the former leader's career, NPR's Corey Flintoff has this report for our Newscast unit: "White-haired and dapper, Eduard Shevardnadze was the face of Soviet foreign policy during the era when President Mikhail Gorbachev was attempting to liberalize the Communist bloc. "He was admired by counterparts in the West — but many Russians came to blame him, along with Gorbachev, for the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. "Shevardnadze...

Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has died aged 86, media reports say. Mr Shevardnadze became foreign minister of the Soviet Union in 1985. In 1992, he was appointed head of state of the newly independent republic of Georgia. He led the country out of instability and civil war but in November 2003 was toppled in the "Rose Revolution" sparked by opposition allegations of irregularities in parliamentary polls.

ATLANTA | Federal investigators are probing a whistleblower's allegations that applications for veterans seeking health care benefits may have been improperly purged from the VA's Health Eligibility Center in suburban Atlanta. Eligibility Center program specialist Scott Davis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that health benefit applications for more than 10,000 veterans may have been improperly purged from the Health Eligibility Center's national data system in DeKalb County. The center doesn't process all applications, but helps manage the national enrollment computer system and offers enrollment guidance for VA hospitals across the country.

... State child services workers got a tip June 17 and found the boy in a dark room with only a mattress, a box spring and a plastic jar apparently used as a toilet, Gwinnett County police said in a statement. The boy had been in the room, without toys or books and without going to school for most of two years, and a lock was put on the outside of the door in January 2013, police said. Investigators found no signs of malnourishment or abuse to the 13-year-old or his nine siblings, who were not confined, according to police....

Dealing a defiant blow to the Kremlin, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a long-delayed trade pact with Europe on Friday that Moscow had bitterly opposed. He then declared he would like his country to one day become a full member of the European Union. In so doing, Ukraine’s new leader, a billionaire confectionary magnate, has in effect raised a risky bet on the West that has cost his country hundreds of lives and the loss of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and has set off a low-level civil war in its eastern border region. By signing the trade...

A Georgia man has been charged in the death of his 22-month-old son after he left the boy in a hot car for seven hours. Justin Ross Harris told police that he forgot to drop his son off at daycare before going to work. However, investigators say they have evidence that indicates Harris is lying. Sources tell FOX 5 Atlanta that someone used his work computer to search how long it would take for an animal to die in a car.

Signing ceremony of the Association Agreements with Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine EU leaders sign Association Agreements with the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova Iurie Leanca, and the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. The political part of the agreement with Ukraine was signed in March.

KYIV, June 24 /Ukrinform/. Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has said he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly declares a truce to reinforce militants in eastern Ukraine to strike a decisive blow.

<p>Liberal radio host Mike Malloy is reacting to broadened firearm carry rights in Georgia and open carry demonstrations around the county by promising to cause a public panic, perhaps resulting in the death of the person lawfully--and openly--carrying a firearm, if he sees such an individual.</p>

Remember these sixteen names when they run for office again. The sixteen Republicans who voted to proceed were Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine). Bob Corker (Tenn.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John McCain (Ariz.), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.). List courtesy The Hill.com. As reported by RedState yesterday, this bill would allow doctors to add a person’s name to the national database currently used for background checks, and list them as...

Long ago, Bryant Collins learned the value of choosing the right path. "I've been in a lot of bad situations," he admitted. But this past Friday, Collins found, on the side of Highway 72 in Georgia, a chance to save a life. A baby girl had crawled through the woods, 300 yards from home. "I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby," Collins recalled. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby...almost in the highway." After calling 911, Collins stayed with the baby for two hours...

On June 10, the House Appropriations Committee made clear the way many on Capitol Hill view national defense. By a raised-hands vote of 13 to 23, the Committee rejected an amendment from Congressman Jack Kingston—a Georgia Republican—to redirect $339 million from operation and maintenance funds, deemed excess, to retain 234 A-10 close air support aircraft in the U.S. Air Force inventory. Even though the committee found $1.6 billion to increase the Obama Administration’s budget to buy hardware, it could not find a penny to retain one of the most extraordinarily effective weapons in the U.S. arsenal—and one of the cheapest...

SMYRNA, Ga. (AP) — Like an eager date, Leo Smith showed up at Mount Zion First Baptist Church with a bouquet of flowers in hand. He wasn't seeking romance. He was seeking voters. As the minority engagement director for the Georgia Republican Party, Smith is helping to lead an effort to recruit African-American voters in pivotal states, a priority for a heavily white party staring with uncertainty at a country that is fast becoming more brown.

A woman reportedly shot dead her husband in front of a packed suburban Atlanta supermarket before then turning the gun on herself. Paula Strange, 54, is said by police to have shot dead 52-year-old husband Bruce Strange at a Marietta, Georgia Kroger just after 5.30 p.m., authorities said. It happened only minutes after an argument over dinner at a nearby restaurant, a source told MailOnline. The Kennesaw, Georgia couple was eating at a Mo’s Southwest Grill in the same shopping plaza where the shooting occurred less than half an hour before they were both dead, a person who answered the...

CNN has updates on the story of the Georgia SWAT team that threw a flash bang while executing a no-knock warrant that severely burned a nineteen-month-old baby. Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell says the deputies involved are "devastated" and that they've been called "baby killers" and received threats. "All I can say is pray for the baby, his family and for us," the sheriff told CNN. Terrell has insisted his officers and those of the local police department did nothing wrong and blamed the target of the warrant (not found at the house that was invaded) on the attack on...

Open Carry Walk in Eureka Springs Montgomery County is a rural county just Southeast of the center of Georgia.  The population of the county is under 10,000 people, so I was a little surprised to come across this account of a deputy accosting a person openly carrying a holstered pistol at the local Walmart.  From opencarry.org, SFCRetired relates:  A fun evening at Wal Mart on Atlanta Highway. When I walked in the door, the young deputy sheriff crooked his finger at me in a "Come here" gesture. That got my blood pressure easing up immediately as I am most...

A 43-year-old Griffin police officer and father of seven was shot and killed outside of a Waffle House early this morning while working an off-duty security job in full uniform, authorities said. Three suspects are in custody after the shooting death of Officer Kevin Jordan, an ex-Marine who had been with the Griffin Police Department for four years and often worked security at the restaurant on weekend nights, police spokesman Mike Richardson said. The altercation began when two men and a woman who allegedly caused a disturbance at a Waffle House on U.S. 19 were asked to leave the restaurant...

A 19-month-old toddler was critically injured after a police flash bang was tossed into his bed during a police raid at a Habersham County home on Wednesday. “It’s my baby. He’s my only baby. He didn’t deserve any of this,” said Alecia Phonesavanh, the mother of the child. “It landed in his playpen and exploded right in his face,” said Phonesavanh. The child is now being treated at Grady hospital and has a 50 percent chance of survival.

CLARKESVILLE - Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell now is talking about the high-risk warrant service that resulted in burns to a 2-year-old child early Wednesday. The child was burned when narcotics agents, assisted by members of the Habersham Special Response Team, used a distraction device as they entered a home at 182 Lakeview Heights Circle outside Cornelia. "We had prior information on it," Terrell said of the circumstances of the home and its occupants. "The individual had been involved in an altercation with another male involving a possible AK-47 [rifle] several months ago, and he was arrested on some weapons...