Georgia
Jimmy Carter to be honored in Washington funeral and laid to rest in Georgia
Jimmy Carter, the former US president who died at age 100 on Sunday, will be honored with a state funeral before being laid to rest in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, next to his wife, Rosalynn.
The state funeral for Carter will be held in Washington DC on Thursday, 9 January. The date has also been declared a national day of mourning in the United States.
In addition to the state funeral, there will be a public service in Atlanta, the capital of Carter’s home state, following which the former president will be buried in a private service in Plains, where he died.
The longest-lived president, Carter died on Sunday, two years after entering hospice care. Most of the nation saw the former president for the last time at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral last year.
On Monday, the Carter family also accepted an invitation by Congress for Carter to lie in state in the US Capitol.
Congress extended the invitation to the late former president’s family “in recognition of his long and distinguished service to the nation”, the Carter Center said in a statement posted on X.
The invitation was “respectfully and gratefully accepted”, the statement said.
Flags were flying at half-staff on federal buildings and grounds across the US in tribute to Carter on Monday, and they will continue to do so for the next 30 days.
It’s tradition after deaths of acting presidents or former presidents for the US government to order American flags to fly at half-staff, or half-mast, on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels, across the US and its territories worldwide.
The tradition is carried out for 30 days, which means flags will be at half-staff when Donald Trump is inaugurated in Washington DC on 20 January.
Joe Biden gave a short public address paying tribute to Carter, with both official praise and personal anecdotes.
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“It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories”, Biden said.
“Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”
Biden said that Carter told him in the past that he was the first official figure to endorse Carter for the presidency in 1976. Biden was the Democratic US senator for Delaware at the time.
Biden said it “dawned on him” that he and Carter “have been hanging out for 50 years” and he recalled that Carter used to tease him affectionately.
Biden has issued an executive order directing the closure of US government agencies and executive departments on 9 January. US stock exchanges will be closed as well.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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