by Ty Tagami | May 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
BRUNSWICK – We arced toward the blue sky, punching through cotton ball clouds as the fearsome acceleration pressed me into the ejector seat with a force that equaled multiples of my own weight.
The Blue Angels will be dazzling a crowd at an airshow over Brunswick this weekend. They barnstorm the country promoting the U.S. Navy and Marines, in a display of mastery in the air.
Beforehand, they take a couple of people up for the ride of their lives. Usually, one of them is a media representative, and I drew the lucky straw.
I went up Wednesday after a local official returned from his nearly hour-long flight. He was sweaty and he looked spent, but he insisted he had enjoyed the experience, especially flying upside down, the expanse of green forest spreading out to the Atlantic Ocean under his head.
Although this F/A-18 Super Hornet was decades old, it was still capable of screaming at near Mach 2 and potentially surviving up to 10 times the force of gravity, or 10 Gs.
As I waited for the local official’s flight to end, people on the ground asked if I was nervous.
No, I lied. What could go wrong?
Before we went up, both of us got a briefing. Crew Chief 7, also known as Silent Bob (they all get nicknames) had laid out photos of the cockpit on a conference room table.
Don’t touch the objects with black and yellow stripes, he warned. That would result in “irreversible change” to the aircraft. He used a similar euphemism to explain the outcome of pulling the black and yellow hoop between the thighs: “bonus flight.” It would trigger the explosives beneath your seat, rocketing you up through the (hopefully) open cockpit canopy.
Despite that warning, he still walked us through what to do in the rare event that the pilot ordered ejection. Push your helmeted head back on the headrest and look up for the parachute.
When I arrived in the morning, Silent Bob was methodically going over the plane. He opened a panel in the fuselage and inspected the pasta bowl of electric wiring underneath. He hopped up and down behind the aircraft so he could peer into the nozzles of the twin jet engines. He slid his eyes slowly over the fuselage. He propped himself next to the cockpit, reviewing the controls and instruments. You could see him mentally ticking off a checklist.
If I was able to control my nerves, there were two reasons: Silent Bob and the pilot, Major Scott Laux. The pilot’s surname is pronounced “locks,” so of course they called him Goldie.
As Goldie triggered the motor on the translucent canopy, and it descended to seal the aircraft – and my fate, he told me he was here to make this an enjoyable ride. We would do many of the maneuvers that the Blue Angels execute during their show, but he would always check with me first and allow me to reject any of them.
I knew I’d never get another opportunity like this, so that was unlikely. But it was nice to have the option.
Silent Bob had strapped down my ankles, thighs, hips, and chest with the elaborate harness system, ticking off the steps by counting out loud.
During our briefing, he had explained the Anti-G Straining Maneuver, or AGSM. Most fighter pilots these days wear compression suits that squeeze their bodies during aggressive maneuvers, forcing the blood to stay in the brain.
Without this, the down-body pressure created by powerful accelerations and directional changes could cause blackout.
“In the world of aviation this is called a G-LOC, aka G-induced loss of consciousness, and remains a significant cause of loss of aircraft and pilot in both military fighter aviation and civilian acrobatic aviation,” says a medical website established by a U.S Air Force flight surgeon. “Throughout the 1990s, for example, the USAF lost approximately one aircraft per year due to G-LOC.”
Due to the precision required of Blue Angels pilots, they eschew those inflatable compression suits.
Hence, the AGSM: when the pilot says “three-two-one go,” you squeeze the muscles in your calves, your thighs, and your butt, then you suck in a breath, tighten your belly, hold to a count of three, push out the oxygen, then suck in and tighten again, repeating until the maneuver is over.
Now, on the runway, Goldie told me to arm the ejector seat. Silent Bob had said it was the only black and yellow lever we were allowed to touch.
The aircraft then lifted gently off the ground – like a passenger jet – until Goldie pulled back on the joystick and the fighter nosed up at 45 degrees, hurtling through the clouds.
We leveled off, and he said I could relax for a while and take in the view as we sped toward a Navy bombing range, the open airspace where we would be executing maneuvers.
As a warmup, he accelerated through 2, 3, 4 and 6 G turns, instructing me to lift my arms. They grew heavier and heavier! I scrunched up as hard as I could as he banked into a 6 G turn.
I hadn’t eaten much before the flight. I figured an empty stomach would ease the nausea. My teenage son had helpfully informed me that my strategy would merely lead to dry heaves.
I hate it when the kid is right.
Goldie said nearly all pilots, himself included, get airsick. He said it didn’t happen to him anymore though.
He’d downed a turkey sandwich with jalapenos for lunch.
Next on the menu was a “minimum radius” turn: he rolled the plane on its side in a quick and precise twist that seamlessly transitioned into a tight banking turn that pushed my guts into my hips. That was 7 Gs.
Next, were some aileron rolls that sent the sky spinning under us then back above.
We also did the inverted flight that my fellow traveler had enjoyed before me. Goldie told me to check that my harness was strapped as tightly as possible first, and I discovered that Silent Bob had, indeed, done a thorough job. After Goldie flipped us back upright, he demonstrated what astronauts feel, dropping the plane to replicate zero gravity. I was strapped in so tightly that I couldn’t tell. I flapped my arms about, but they felt normal.
Later, I wished I’d pulled out my cellphone to watch it float around. But then again, the next maneuver, would have sent it shooting through our cockpit like a missile.
Goldie had saved the “sneak to vertical rolls” for last, and I can see why. After that one, I was cooked, done. Get me to the ground.
Three-two-one go!
We instantly pivoted from horizontal to what felt like straight up, then he executed what I conceptualized as an ice skater’s double axle, before looping out of the maneuver back to level flight. I could see my field of vision narrowing, a sign of pending G-LOC.
We hit 7.5 Gs on that one, the maximum safe threshold for the Super Hornet. My body effectively weighed 1,200 pounds. I don’t think I blacked out.
After that, we buzzed the Navy control building, screaming past at low altitude. Goldie also demonstrated slow flight, angling the nose up and dropping the speed to 120 miles per hour, as if setting us down on an aircraft carrier. The stubby wings shuddered.
We floated over Interstate 95 then banked sharply over Golden Isles Airport. My belly was jelly by that point, so I was thankful when we lined up with the runway. Within seconds we were on the ground, and Goldie was instructing me to disarm my ejector seat.
We soon came to a stop, and the cockpit opened. Silent Bob unstrapped me and guided my feet down the blue airship’s ladder.
I considered kissing the tarmac but that seemed a bit dramatic, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand back up.
Back in the conference room, I peeled off the dark-blue jumpsuit and sprawled on the carpet to keep the walls from spinning.
Goldie, true to form, was a calming presence. This dizziness is common, he explained. The maneuvers disturb the fluid in your inner ear, and there isn’t much to do about it. He warned me not to drive back to Atlanta right away, so I took a nap first.
The next morning, I had traded the jumpsuit for a gray suit and tie, as I listened to lawyers argue in federal appeals court. By then, the flight seemed like a fever dream, but the ache in my back and the difficulty of rising from the wooden bench was evidence that I had, indeed, ridden along in the backseat of a fighter jet at over 600 miles an hour.
by Ty Tagami | May 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgians have had a long relationship with beer, an affection that grew during the pandemic before it started to unravel.
Now, many are attracted to a new and different product, something with intoxicating power but without the familiar downsides: hemp beverages.
Beer sales plummeted nationally and in Georgia after COVID-19 subsided. The golden liquid comprises two-fifths of state revenue from alcohol beverage taxes, and income from that tax had been bubbling up about 1% a year before the big lockdown. Then, during fiscal year 2020, which ended that July, four months into the pandemic, it fizzed up 4%. The next year, like a shaken can of beer, the sales tax exploded by nearly 10%, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue.
But sales flattened as the pandemic subsided, hitting negative territory starting in fiscal year 2023.
Breweries started closing, and Georgia was hit hard, said Matt Shirah, co-founder of Scofflaw Brewing in Atlanta.
“Smaller breweries with distribution are experiencing heavy double-digit declines,” he said.
Lawmakers even introduced a bill this winter called the “Georgia Craft Brewery Innovation and Survival Act.”
Observers cite many reasons for the shift away from beer, including a post-pandemic hangover, generational change, rising costs, and concerns about alcohol toxicity.
“I think that alcohol is kind of the tobacco of our generation,” said Ian Dominguez, a fund manager who has long invested in alcohol but is shifting to hemp products. He thinks hemp beverages are entering a period of tremendous growth.
“We think this category is going to be bigger than craft beer in 10 years,” he said. “I’ve never been as confident of something in my career.”
Hemp beverages had a global market valued at $1.16 billion in 2023, according to the industry trade publication Beverage Information Group, which reported projections of compound annual growth at 19.2% to 2030.
Canada and the United States are major markets, as is Europe and particularly Germany — that bastion of beer.
Last month, Shirah attended the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin, where industry representatives, policy makers and others from more than 80 countries were expected to attend. The organizers cited market research that had the overall cannabis market in Germany alone reaching $4.6 billion in less than a decade. Lawmakers legalized cannabis in that country last year.
Cannabis is not legal for general consumption in Georgia, but hemp is legal due to a 2018 federal law called the Agriculture Improvement Act.
As long as the intoxicating component known as tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is 0.3% or less “on a dry weight basis,” it’s no longer considered a controlled substance.
Katherine Russell, policy director for the Georgia Department of Agriculture, told state lawmakers in March that she believed Congress wanted to open a legal lane for industrial hemp, for products such as Hempcrete or for flooring used in construction.
In doing so, federal lawmakers — and President Donald Trump, who signed the farm bill into law during his first term — opened what some are calling a loophole for cannabinoids, the intoxicating substance in the plant.
Subsequently, Georgia began passing laws to allow and to regulate the industry, with new rules coming online late last year.
In the interim, all sorts of hemp products of varying quality flooded Georgia convenience stores and other outlets.
Hemp and cannabis are essentially the same plant, as similar as an azalea and a dwarf azalea, Russell explained, adding that the intoxicating capacity of the plant can be controlled by practices such as the timing of the harvest and the admixture of other compounds, such as hexahydrocannabinol, or HHC, a semisynthetic analogue of THC.
“We’re dealing with an industry of entrepreneurs who are very creative thinkers,” Russell said. “We’ve seen people have novel responses to some of the regulations.”
Gary Long, CEO of a Georgia hemp consumables production company, said highly intoxicating products were getting dumped onto shelves by companies from outside Georgia during the period between the federal farm bill and Georgia’s new Hemp Farming Act, which took full effect last Oct. 1.
Before that, with little in the way of a regulatory framework, state enforcement of the federal limits was inconsistent, he said.
“There are products, or have been products, in our market in Georgia that have far exceeded the federal limits,” said Long, who started out as a licensed medical cannabis provider then, last year, opened ONE59, with a new 133,000-square-foot hemp production facility in Glennville. His products include hemp gummies, absorptive skin creams, and beverages aimed at consumers seeking transparency with ingredients.
“I think the Department of Agriculture is now enforcing the law much more readily than they were,” he said.
This winter, Georgia lawmakers had mixed reactions to the onslaught of hemp products. They unleashed a flurry of conflicting billsthat would have alternately promoted and suppressed the budding industry, including a bill from the Senate that would have banned hemp beverages altogether.
That bill died by the hands of Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, chairman of the House Regulated Industries Committee. Instead of substantial change, both the House and Senate settled on establishing a committee to review the subject. “We’re going to be studying this in depth this summer,” Powell said in March.
Jim Higdon, co-founder of Louisville-based Cornbread Hemp, which sells beverages, gummies, oils and related products, said something similar happened in the Kentucky legislature, where he said distillers used their clout in an attempt to kneecap his industry.
He said hemp advocates limited the impact by asking customers to contact their lawmakers about it.
Higdon thinks lawmakers will eventually embrace hemp for a simple reason. “The tax revenue potential for hemp beverages and hemp products writ large is significant,” he said.
“Wine and spirits are definitely against hemp beverages and want them to go away,” he added. “But the microbreweries and hemp beverages have a symbiotic relationship because what hemp beverages need is a good canning line, and these microbreweries have canning lines with capacity.”
Shirah said it was clear to him by 2023 that he had to pivot Scofflaw into hemp drinks.
“Hemp beverages will drive at least half of our revenue this year and at least two thirds of 2026 top line revenue, maybe more,” he said.
Scofflaw makes several THC-infused beverages, with Strawberry Lemonade and Sweet Tea Lemonade among the more popular items. Shirah said he is working on a hemp-infused, non-alcoholic, malt-based beverage.
Meanwhile, the Hemp Beverage Alliance is high on Georgia. Their national expo will be July 9-11 at the Omni Atlanta Hotel.
Minnesota was among the first states to embrace the hemp industry, and Christopher Lackner, the president of the alliance, said communities there have seen the benefits of the tax revenue. He said Georgia is primed to follow, despite the ban proposed during this year’s legislative session.
“Since the Georgia regulations and rules came in last year, we have all pegged Georgia as the next Minnesota, which is to say, the next hemp beverage marketplace,” he said. “So we’re very excited that this legislative session ended without a ban.”
by Dave Williams | May 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – An eight-count federal court indictment unsealed in the Southern District of Georgia charges 30 alleged members of the Sex Money Murder (SMM) gang and associates with crimes including racketeering and murder.
The suspects were arrested in four Georgia cities – Savannah, Hinesville, Augusta and Atlanta – according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
According to court records and testimony, the defendants trafficked large amounts of deadly drugs – including methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin – throughout the Savannah area. They also are accused of taking part in sophisticated fraud schemes to obtain federal COVID-19 relief and unemployment benefits, causing a loss of more than $850,000.
The indictment also charges Byron Hopkins in the shooting death of a 19-year-old gang member who wanted to leave the gang.
“Today’s indictment is an important step in ending gang violence on our streets and in our prisons,” said Tara Lyons, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. “My office will continuously work with our law enforcement partners to ensure public safety.”
According to court documents, Hopkins and other SMM members intercepted a 19-year-old man in February 2020 and took him to a rural residential neighborhood, where Hopkins shot him to death. The victim had reportedly expressed a desire to leave the gang after accusing Hopkins of having sex with a minor girl who became pregnant.
If convicted, the defendants face up to life in prison for the murder, up to life in prison for the racketeering conspiracy, and up to 30 years behind bars for wire fraud.
The case is being investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the state Department of Corrections, and nine local law enforcement agencies.
The SMM gang is a subset of The Bloods, a gang that originated in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. From there, the gang spread to areas along the East Coast, including Georgia, where it operates inside and outside of prisons and jails.
by Ty Tagami | May 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – As Georgia looks ahead to the 2026 elections, a court fight is still brewing over the election maps scheduled to be used.
The federal court of appeals in Atlanta heard three cases Thursday stemming from those early maps, which were drawn by state lawmakers in response to the decennial population count in 2020.
The outcome could influence the next elections, and it could inform future courts about how to interpret the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits race-based discrimination.
At issue is the way lawmakers responded to a district court’s order to redraw maps that were found to have discriminated against Black voters by diminishing their influence.
The court ordered the state to redo the maps so that more districts were majority Black.
The state redrew them, and the court approved the results, leading to the appeals by the American Civil Liberties Union and by numerous voters.
Lawyers in those three cases made many of the same points Thursday morning.
The plaintiffs argued that the state violated the federal election law by creating new Black majority districts by using Black voters from other Black majority districts or districts where white voters tended to vote with Black voters.
The state’s attorney countered that the law doesn’t prohibit that.
“Are there the right number of districts? Yes,” said Stephen J. Petrany, solicitor general for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. “Are they basically in the right area? Yes. That is the end of this case.”
Judge Adalberto Jordan, one of the three judges hearing the cases before the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, pressed Petrany, saying the plaintiffs were asserting that the state’s remedy “completely excludes” the aggrieved Black voters who used to be part of a racial majority voting area but were now in the minority, by creating new Black-majority districts with other Black voters.
Petrany said not all Black voters were so moved and that it wouldn’t be illegal if they had been.
Abha Khanna, arguing for the plaintiffs in two of the cases — Coakley Pendergrass et. al. v. Georgia Secretary of State and Annie Grant et. al. v. Georgia Secretary of State — said the state was moving voters around on a board without changing the game.
“In the Grant case, there are 185,000-plus Black voters who have suffered a vote dilution injury,” she said, meaning they were shifted into a white-majority area that was unlikely to elect Black candidates while other Black voters in a Black-majority voting district were moved to a new district with a Black majority.
“It was a shell game,” she said.
Ari Savitzky of the ACLU argued for the plaintiffs in the third case, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. v. Georgia Secretary of State. He said the district court failed to do due diligence on the remediation maps.
He alleged that the state simply re-labeled districts and that the district judge accepted them on their face.
“The district court fundamentally didn’t look at these numbers,” Savitzky said.
It is unclear when the appeals court will issue decisions. Judge Jordan said there would be no ruling until another case also pending in the appellate court is decided. That is the case that led to the remediation maps.
Although the state lost that first round and then redrew the maps, it also appealed that court loss.
It’s unclear whether any of these decisions will be made in time to affect next year’s elections.
by Dave Williams | May 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia Board of Regents approved a $70 million plan Thursday to renovate Bobby Dodd Stadium on the Midtown Atlanta campus of Georgia Tech.
The project, to be funded by the Georgia Tech Athletic Association, will create a new premium level of seating on the stadium’s west sideline, replacing the existing president’s lounge and entry lobby with a 7,700-square-foot Founder’s Club featuring 124 seats.
The west sideline renovations also will include eight new Founder’s Suites and eight new elevated suites, plus renovations to 16 existing suites, press operations, and food service.
Fifteen suites on the east sideline will be renovated, as will the Field Club lounge measuring 20,000 square feet. The plan also calls for creating a new Speakeasy Club.
Ten existing suites in the north endzone also are slated for upgrades. Work in the south endzone will involve renovations to three suites, a relocated press area, and booths for security, radio, statistics, and flexible use.
Upgrades to general seating will include new chairback seating throughout the bowl except in the student areas. New video boards will be added at the south end and northwest corner of the stadium.
The project will cost an estimated $39.7 million to build, while $18 million will go toward equipment. The work will be done between the end of the 2026 football season and the start of the 2027 season.
by Dave Williams | May 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch will seek the Republican nomination to run for lieutenant governor next year.
Gooch, R-Dahlonega, announced his candidacy Wednesday in a press release, describing himself as “unapologetically pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-school choice.”
“Georgia deserves bold leadership that will stand up to the insanity of the Democrat Party, protect our families from the invasion of criminal illegal aliens and keep our economy vibrant and strong,” Gooch said. “I see a Georgia that is the gold standard for our great country — a state that leads the way in securing our borders, stopping violent crime, abolishing the state income tax, and defending the values that make America great.”
The 2026 lieutenant governor’s race is expected to draw a crowded field of candidates looking to succeed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is expected to vacate the post to run for governor.
Gooch was elected to the state Senate in 2010 after serving as a member of the State Transportation Board and in Lumpkin County government. His Republican colleagues elected him majority leader in 2022 after he previously served as majority whip and chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
Gooch holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from North Georgia College and State University (now known as the University of North Georgia) as well as a master’s degree in public administration. He owns an environmental services company in Dahlonega.
