What’s being said about Georgia

Should Georgia click ‘buy’ on Amazon deal?

The Rome News-Tribune published a guest editorial this week suggesting Georgia shouldn't throw out up to $1 billion in incentives to persuade Amazon to build a second headquarters in Atlanta. Sam Burnham, a Rome resident and self-described advocate for rural life, says past history indicates that the 50,000 jobs Amazon is promising won't go to locals. But they will bring more traffic, higher housing costs and increased demands for water and landfill space, among other things. He suggests alternative uses for the incentive money, including bringing broadband to struggling rural areas.

Ligon’s campus free-speech bill called potentially the nation’s most far-reaching

The National Review has published a piece this week by Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, about state Sen. William Ligon's campus free-speech legislation (Senate Bill 339). Kurtz writes that the bill is based on a template from Arizona's Goldwater Institute that he helped develop. Kurtz says Ligon's legislation is on track to become one of the "most far-reaching campus free-speech bills in the nation." He says the bill would ban so-called free-speech zones, discourage campuses from rescinding speaking invitations and allow lawsuits to be brought over free-speech violations, among other things.

Push on for Georgia to do more to cut smoking

The American Lung Association wants Georgia to do more to help people kick the smoking habit, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer is reporting. According to the paper, the association is calling on Gov. Nathan Deal and other state policymakers to increase tobacco control program funding, substantially boost the price of tobacco products and urge local governments to pass smoke-free ordinances to protect the public from secondhand smoke.