Fresh Loaf

Or the latest Harry Potter novel. We’ll never know for sure, now will we?

A kind man then offers to take the petitions from Isakson and shred them. Nah, just kidding, he was just being a helpful gent.

On Wednesday night, the Democratic Party of Georgia will host a rally and outdoor viewing of President Barack Obama’s address to Congress about health care reform. The event starts at 6:45 p.m. and will be held at The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. For more information, visit the DPG’s Web site.

If Republicans are staging a similar event against the proposed reform, please shoot us a line or leave details in the comments.

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Gov. Sonny Perdue sat down with Georgia’s Congressional delegation today to discuss how the state will iron out a water-sharing deal with Alabama and Florida now that a federal judge has ruled metro Atlanta’s use of Lake Lanier for drinking water is illegal.

While governors of the three states check their day planners, the Peach State’s congressmen will weigh whether they want to make the issue a national one or keep the focus on Lake Lanier.

At an Aug. 14 panel discussion with business leaders and other elected officials, Isakson said his office has discovered more than 45 federal reservoirs might be in the same predicament as Lake Lanier — essentially, they were never intended to be used for drinking water, but somewhere along the way local governments started dipping in straws.

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Southern Voice posted a story today breaking down how Georgia’s representatives in the U.S. House and Senate stand on LGBT legislation, as well as their scores from the Human Rights Campaign.

Not surprisingly, it usually comes down to geography, with the strongest support by those representing the Atlanta area and the least support by those representing rural areas. Here’s the full chart.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, continues to take the lead on pro-equality issues but Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Decatur, has quickly joined alongside Lewis. The pair have become two of Georgia’s — and the nation’s — largest voices in Congress in moving pro-equality legislation forward. They were the only two members of the Georgia delegation to vote no on both the Protection of Marriage Act and the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They were also co-sponsors on six pro-equality bills, including the hate crimes bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

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U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., visited the Atlanta Press Club today and spoke about rail, water woes and the nation’s standstill economy. (He said it might take five years for the nation to recover.) Isakson also said the closing of the Hapeville Ford Plant might have hurt the region’s chances for the Atlanta-Lovejoy rail line.

Maria Saporta and the AJC’s Kristi Swartz wrote great summaries of his speech. Grayson Daughters also produced a video of Isakson’s talk.

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Man, the Beltline can be pretty confusing, huh? So can writing about transit agency disputes.

To put it plainly: The vision of a 22-mile loop of transit, parks and trails is now in jeopardy after the state Department of Transportation and AMTRAK unexpectedly announced they had their own heavy-rail plans for the project’s northeast section along Piedmont Park.

On Wednesday, members of the Beltline Network, a citizen group that supports the project, will meet for a special-called meeting to discuss how to keep the $2.8 billion “Emerald Necklace” — the largest public-works project of its kind in the country — on track.

Liz Coyle, chair of the Beltline Network, writes in an “urgent” e-mail sent yesterday to members (emphasis added for the more civic-minded Fresh Loaf readers who want to get involved):

I am calling a special meeting of the BeltLine Network on this Wednesday, January 28, at 4:30pm at Trees Atlanta, 225 Chester Avenue. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss and strategize a community response to a threat to BeltLine transit. I will provide more details as available at the meeting, but to summarize the situation and get right to the point, AMTRAK has begun condemnation proceedings on the NE Corridor of the BeltLine. This is in response to Norfolk Southern Railroad (NSR), Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. (ABI) and Atlanta Development Authority (ADA) pursuing rail abandonment on the Northeast Corridor (aka the “Decatur Belt”) with the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB), a necessary step to advancing light rail transit in the BeltLine corridor. Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and AMTRAK have filed Motions to Stay the abandonment proceedings.

More on Coyle’s e-mail and the issues — and questions — surrounding this dispute after the jump.

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It takes an energy crunch for Congress to start using their heads. Jim Galloway, the nicest nattering nabob of negativism over at That Other Paper, reports U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., wants to give rail a chance.

Undeterred, Isakson is about to reach across the aisle again, this time to John Kerry, the Democrat from Boston. The purpose: A revival of this country’s rail system, which — with luck — could give birth to a high-speed passenger train that would careen from Birmingham, through Atlanta, to Washington.

The senators are writing a bill that could be introduced sometime this month, Galloway says. A draft is supposedly being e-mailed back and forth between Atlanta business bigwigs. (Note to bigwigs: Please send it my way as well. I promise I won’t release it on here. Hehehe.)

Isakson said the bill would fundamentally alter our method of capitalizing rail transportation, putting it on a footing similar to the way we fund airports, freeways and seaports. Governments, a combination of state and federal, would acquire the right-of-way and build tracks. User fees would pay for upkeep, levied by private rail corporations that would live or die on their own performance.

By some accounts, the Kerry legislation also permits the raising of $200 billion via bonds to finance a limited number of high-speed rail lines across the country.

(Hat tip to Icarus at Peach Pundit)

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A man calling himself Rudy Giuliani astounded Marietta citizens yesterday by swooping down on the suburb and crashing a well-attended rally organized by supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Operating under the guise of a “campaign stop,” Giuliani took the The Good Doctor’s peaceful foot soldiers by surprise. While the followers of Paul’s dark horse campaign rallied in the park, Giuliani holed up with fellow Republicans Sen. Johnny Isakson and state House Speaker Glenn Richardson in the Brumby Chair Co., hoarding media that had surely intended to cover all things Ron. Supporters were aghast at how a guy who used to be the mayor of some city in the upper corner of the country could steal the media spotlight.

“I don’t know who this guy thinks he is,” said Marvin Finkelstein, a nonexistent ham radio enthusiast from Mableton, referring to Giuliani. “We wanted to visit the Square on a Sunday and rally up some supporters. Then ‘America’s Mayor’ — what does that mean, anyway — decides it’s time to check out rocking chairs. The gall!”

OK, so there was no Marvin Finkelstein, and it was really a Giuliani campaign stop that the Paul supporters crashed. But judging from the turnout, it was easy to get confused.

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