(Photo Courtesy of Matti Mattila via Flickr.)

President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address tonight at 9 p.m. Our panel breaks down what to watch for.

The panel

Buddy Darden, former Georgia U.S. congressman

Rahul Bali, @rahulbali, politics reporter, WABE

Sam Olens, @samolens, former state attorney general

Tamar Hallerman, @TamarHallerman, senior reporter,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

The breakdown

1. President Biden will give his annual State of the Union address tonight.

  • This comes as a Washington Post poll finds 62% of Americans think the president has accomplished little to nothing in office.
  • Biden's waning popularity bodes poorly ahead of his anticipated 2024 run.
  • Congressional leaders in Georgia are bringing guests who reflect their policy successes.

LISTEN: Rahul Bali on tonight's State of the Union attendees.

2. Georgia Senate leadership wants to investigate a taxpayer-funded trip to Europe.

  • Two months before they left office, then-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller led a delegation from Georgia to Europe.
  • There's no way to know what was spent on the trip since the General Assembly exempted itself from the Open Records Act.

LISTEN: Tamar Hallerman on the state-funded Europe trip.

3. The sponsor of a bill defining antisemitism for hate crime prosecution received bigoted flyers in metro Atlanta.

  • Several Dunwoody neighborhoods with large Jewish populations received hateful flyers over the weekend.
  • State Rep. Esther Panitch, who authored House Bill 30, was one of the recipients. She is Georgia's only Jewish legislator.

 

4. The family of of the activist killed near the future Atlanta police training facility calls for transparency.

  • The family of Manuel Teran, or "Tortuguita," demanded answers from the GBI's investigation into the alleged exchange of gunfire on January 18th.
  • The GBI has maintained that Georgia State Patrol members who were involved in the shooting had no body cams. They did say they would review any relevant footage from other organizations involved in the Jan. 18 operation.

LISTEN: Rahul Bali on police transparency.

Wednesday on Political Rewind: Emory University's Andra Gillespie joins the panel.

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