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**** UPDATE on 5/18/2013: John Padgett wins the chairmanship of the 2013-2015 Georgia GOP. *****
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On May 2, 2013, the most fascinating press release that may have ever been written was issued by the Clarke County GOP on behalf of John Padgett (it appears on GAPundit.com here).

“Fascinating“, not because of its accuracy, but because of its…what’s the freakin’ word I’m reaching for here…ummm….okay, fine, let’s call it the “most bizarre press release ever.”

The press release refers to the documented incidents that happened at the Clarke County (“CC”) GOP Convention held in March of 2012.

This PR is bizarre because it has the following quotes by these two CC-GOP characters:

Carter Kessler: “After speaking with Matt [Brewster, CC GOP Chair], I am confident that we will continue to work together to protect the Constitution, promote liberty, prosperity, and personal freedom.”

Matt Brewster: “Carter and I both hope that no one will misconstrue the events during the 2012 Clarke County Republican Party Convention and place blame on John Padgett,” said Brewster. “John was serving our county as a delegate and had no responsibilities outside of that role. People who suggest otherwise are simply wrong.”

First, people don’t have to “suggest” or “imply” that Padgett was actually not just “serving as a delegate”…because there was a video taken of that convention that Matt Brewster apparently has never seen because it is he who refers to John Padgett as being the person for people to go talk to if they have a problem with the convention (when you click the link below, Brewster is the guy with black hair and long white-sleeved shirt standing at the podium at the end of the convention).

AND…if John Padgett was merely a “delegate”, why would Brewster be referring to Padgett so directly as the person people should go see to talk to?

Here’s the link to the video, and below are crucial time marks for you to pay close attention to:

The 2 minute-20 second mark when Brewster refers to “GOP Secretary John Padgett” to be the designated person to ‘go ask questions of.’

After the convention closes, the woman you see and hear talking about “going to see John Padgett” is Lori Bone, a Ron Paul supporter. She finds Padgett whereupon Padgett starts demanding the camera be turned-off and he attempts to get away from the persistent, but very respectful, Lori Bone, as she corners her prey at about the 2 minute, 44-second mark.

You see Padgett walking away…and at about the 3 minute, 52-second mark, you hear John Padgett state: “I don’t know the Rules…I don’t know the Rules…” in response to Bone’s challenge to him on the fact that Clarke County GOP broke the rules.

Watch the whole video…and watch John Padgett run away from a GIRL! Imagine what will happen when someone like WSB TV News Reporter Lori Geary parks a microphone in front of John Padgett and asks him a question about something going on in Georgia? Is he going to call her “Darlin’” and pat her on the hand and walk away from her and the camera too?

Also…contrary to Brewster’s claim that Padgett was merely a “delegate,” at no time did you see or hear John Padgett claim to Lori Bone that he was at the convention “only as a delegate.”

As far as Carter Kessler’s attempts at reconciling things now with Brewster and the Clarke County GOP…guess I am going to have to remind Brewster, Padgett and John Elliot of this Tweet that John Elliot emailed me last year that these three got so incensed over Kessler tweeting-out in May 2012:

“Carter Kessler (@carterkessler)
5/20/12 3:44 PM
@cynthiamckinney
would love to have you help me out with my campaign for Liberty here in Athens for GA house seat 118″

Yeah…that’s Carter Kessler communicating with former 4th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. (Say, Chairman Brewster? When are y’all gonna have McKinney up in your neck of the woods for a CC GOP meeting?)

Now, Brewster and Kessler’s quotes in this particular press release aside…you should wonder what the true nature of the hate relationship that exists between the Clarke County GOP and BJ Van Gundy is all about.

As a result of that video discussed above, and a bunch of other documentation (including witness affidavits to the multiple rules being violated at the CC-GOP convention in 2012) there was an appeal/complaint filed to reverse the outcome of the CC convention in 2012. The complaint was ignored by the CC committee and by the 10th district committee who were supposed to also review the complaint.

This is a link to a later version of the complaint that (though the date on this is after the state convention last year, the evidence contained herein and on that video formed the basis for a formal challenge to the 2012 Credentials Committee at the state convention) the people who got screwed in the 2012 Clarke County Convention filed against Clarke County GOP.

Van Gundy chaired the State GOP Credentials Committee in 2012. Evidence was submitted by the challengers to the Clarke County GOP Convention (i.e., Lori Boone, Carter Kessler, et al.) to have the CC delegation disqualified for violating Robert’s Rules (especially Matt Brewster’s ignoring the call for “Division”, a basic rule in Robert’s Rules), and therefore violating the 2012 State Call.

After presentation of all the evidence to the Credentials Committee, a vote was called in the committee, and the committee split a vote of 5 for and 5 against to disqualify the Clarke County delegation from being seated at the state convention.

When a vote is tied, that is when the chairman must cast a tie-breaking vote. Van Gundy cast the vote in favor of the challengers…because, apparently, it was clear that the Clarke County Convention violated Robert’s Rules, which is the rule book they were required to follow for that convention.

So, the Clarke County delegation did not get seated at the 2012 State Convention because, not only did they break the rules, they were caught on tape breaking the rules.

That the Clarke County GOP now hates Van Gundy for enforcing clearly written rules is kinda like someone hating a cop for ticketing them for going 90 miles per hour in a school zone.

So…if you are looking to follow a) people that admit they don’t know the rules as Padgett admitted to not knowing, and b) people who don’t care when they do break the rules, and c) people willing to cover-up the breaking of the rules (and expect other people to look the other way as, apparently, Clarke County GOP expected Van Gundy to do)…then Mr. Padgett may be your kind of leader to takeover the GRP.

Since there are a lot of people who are Republican-voters in this state who appear to have very different points of view about what the “Georgia Republican Party” should be about and what it should do for the Republican “cause” in Georgia, I think it is important for everyone, whether you are an old timer, a newcomer, or a middle-of-the-road experienced person in Republican grassroots activism in Georgia, to fully understand several key aspects of the “party” as you go to the State Convention as delegates and alternates…charged with the responsibility of choosing new leadership of the state party for the next two years.

SO…as basic as these points may seem to most of you, I think they bear a new look (or a review) in light of this year’s influx of new folks who…may not actually be aware of a few things:

1) There is a legal entity called the “Georgia Republican Party (“GRP”).” To be an actual “member” of this legal entity, you are either a member due to your volunteer participation in the odd-numbered years of “grassroots building” of this organization, or you are a member (albeit not a “voting member” of the party activities) via making a financial contribution of some sort to the GRP, or you are a member of some designated auxiliary organization of the GRP.

If you are a voter who votes “Republican” every time at the ballot box…but you have not participated in this “grassroots” building of the party, nor are you a financial contributor to the GRP, nor are you a member of any designated auxiliary of the GRP, then you are not really a “member” of the legal entity called the “Georgia Republican Party.”

To be a “voting member” within the GRP, you have to have participated in the actual “grassroots organizing process” that happens every two years, on odd-numbered years, and be an active member of, at minimum, some county Republican party committee in Georgia.

This legal entity operates according to a set of rules called the Rules of The Georgia Republican Party. These Rules define the various county, district, and state party organizations that all make-up the body of the Georgia Republican Party, as well as define what the specific responsibilities are for the operation of all these components to the Party.

If you want to learn about these operating rules, here is a link to them: Rules of GRP

2) Inherent in the Rules…in fact, in the very first paragraph of the Rules, it essentially stipulates the purpose of the GRP by way of referring to who can participate in the GRP…is this basic premise: The sole purpose of the Georgia Republican Party is to elect people who have declared themselves to be in accordance with the aims and purpose of the Republican Party.

“Republican Party” in this instance is NOT a “legal entity,” but a common philosophy of political beliefs.

AND…if you are a member of the Georgia Republican Party…especially if you are in an elected position in the party structure (whether county, district or state), you have agreed to abide by the concept of working for the election of EVERY Republican candidate whose name appears on the November General Election ballot. Period.

Why is this latter part so important to understand? Because, even if you are, say, the State Party Chair…or, 1st Vice Chair…or, 2nd Vice Chair, etc…and you personally only agree with a General Election Republican candidate’s concept of what he/she thinks about being a Republican 50% of the time…or 20% of the time…or 5% of the time…or, even if it is just 1% of the time…the simple fact is this:

Because the Republican philosophy is in agreement 0% of the time with the Democratic philosophy, even if you (as a party officer) only agree 1% of the time with a Republican candidate who is on the General Election ballot, 1% of the time is still a higher percentage of the time than zero percent of the time.

Does that math make sense? Because that is what the GRP is about.

SO…if you are in any kind of leadership role in the state-level of the GRP, you cannot bring your personal feelings about a Republican candidate, whether an incumbent or someone running for office for the first time, into your duties as a leader of the GRP.

AND...if you do, and you seek to either block GRP resources or engage in any activity, quite frankly, that is deemed to be “detrimental to the best interests of the GRP”, you can be removed from office (via something akin to an impeachment) by a 2/3 vote of the quorum of a duly called State Committee meeting called to hear the evidence (See Rule 7.5 of the Rules) …and, if they determine that ANY of your actions taken while holding an elected party leadership position at the state organization level are detrimental to the purpose of electing Republicans to public office, you will find your rear-end voted out and removed from office in the GRP.

And…inherent in each county party committee and each district committee party is the same…exact mechanism in their rules and by-laws. You participate in these committees, and you actively work against a Republican candidate, you can be removed for cause by that respective committee.

So…just for discussion purposes, for those of you who are running for a state level party position, and who have admitted that you did not like Mitt Romney last year, and you didn’t work to try to get him elected…all those activities back then are fine because you were not elected to any position in the GRP.

BUT, these kinds of activities are not “fine” for you to engage in if you are in an elected position with the GRP, and work against any Republican whose name appears on the General Election ballot for a winnable-seat (“winnable” as decided by the numbers and commonsense, because, NO Republican will ever convince enough voters in, say, the 4th Congressional District, to vote Republican. Ain’t gonna happen, no way, no how.)

So, just to be clear, if, say, Phil Gingrey is the Republican nominee on the 2014 General Election ballot for U.S. Senate…and you don’t think he’s “conservative” enough by your standard…and you are State GOP Chair or you hold ANY other elected party position in the GRP…and you either seek to directly impede the election of Phil Gingrey in November 2014, or engage in any activity deemed “detrimental to the party” by the State Committee (e.g., fail in carrying out duties to support every single Republican candidate on the November ballot), you can be impeached.

You need to think about all the aforementioned facts if you think you can run the party the way you think it should be run by ignoring established Rules, because while you may think it oughta be a “rule” that dictates how “Republican” someone is in order to qualify to get on the ballot…the laws of this state prevent you from doing that. And, if, as Chair of the GRP, you attempt to prevent someone from qualifying, you will set the GRP up for being sued for not following GRP Rules.

Now, if you want to criticize candidates, don’t run for a party office or hold any such position in the GRP structure. You can act like, well, me when I call-out Republicans for doing things wrong. I’ve never sought anything higher than a precinct party position for the simple fact that I do not wish to abide by the Rules to keep my mouth shut when I observe State Senator Shouldna-Done-That or State Rep. Are-You-Out-of-Your-Freakin’-Mind? acting in a manner that I disagree with.

Oh…and while I’m sure there are some of you who think the majority of the State Committee are nothing but a bunch of old Goobers, Gomers and Betty Lous from 30 years ago whom you think may topple over and die at any moment…yeah…you keep thinking that…because if you violate the Rules, and, essentially give aid and comfort to the enemy (i.e., enable the Democrats to win a Republican winnable-position), and violate your implied DUTY to the GRP for which you ran for office and got elected promising you would serve on behalf of…you will see an injection of energy in those “old geezers” who will be inspired to come after you via a State Committee investigation and vote for your political death like the kids in Lord of The Flies hunted down and slaughtered like that pig.

3) The GRP is not a “policy” promulgating organization. It is a legal entity formed to communicate the Republican philosophy and to win elections. It is also the entity designated by Georgia law to act as the conduit of the legal process of “qualifying” candidates to run for office. “Qualifying” as used in elections in Georgia is not what the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “qualifying” to be. Qualifying is a specific legal process defined by Georgia State Law (also referred to as O.C.G.A.).

The GRP does not get to choose who qualifies to run on the Republican ballot for public office. This is an Open Primary State, which means the VOTERS who show-up for the Primary, who choose a Republican ballot, and then cast their votes…they are the ones who decide who they want to win the primary and get on the General Election ballot to oppose all comers, Dems or Libertarians.

SO…as you hear from candidates at the convention make all kinds of bullshit claims as to what they will do for you to ensure that such-and-such candidate pays attention to the grassroots, and blah-blah-blah, you need to know…and understand these…two critical…FACTS:

A) It is the role of the GRP to elect Republicans to public office.

B) It is not the role of the GRP to choose which Republican is elected to public office. That choice is made during the open primary by the VOTERS, not the GRP.

The ONLY people who can “hold a politician’s feet to the fire” are the VOTERS in that district/state.

And, in conjunction with these two Facts is Rule 7.6 of the State GOP Rules which says the following: No member of the State Committee, nor the executive leadership of the GRP, nor the state party staff, nor appointed members of the GRP, nor the member of any county party committee, nor the members of any district party committee can use their official title or position in any way to help one Republican candidate over another in any contested primary.

So, with Rule 7.6…it’s going to be really difficult for some of the folks I’ve heard claim that they will personally “vet” each Republican candidate that is on the ballot…because, well, if they are on the ballot, the candidate has already qualified for office (i.e., paid their qualifying fee and filled-out paperwork).

And, the only way to do any kind of “vetting” would be for you to invoke your “official position” to add weight to your “vet”…and if you do that, you are violating the GRP Rules…and in violating the Rules, you’re not acting any differently than the Republicans you might claim to be in “violation of Republican principles” in their elected acts, are you?

And if they are on a ballot with one or more other Republican candidates, you cannot, by virtue of your position as State GOP Chair, or whatever, step into a contested primary and proceed to “vet” anyone.

And, if they are on the ballot in either a non-contested primary, or the General Election ballot…and you seek to “vet” them at either of those points??? Well, then you’ll likely be challenged by the State Committee on your acts and accused of helping the enemies of the Republican Party. Because, at that point, that will be the only possible interpretation of your acts.

Rumors have it that the fix may be in for one Respondent at today’s meeting of the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission* in downtown Atlanta.

Here’s a link to the Meeting Agenda.

On Page 2 of this Agenda is a series of Case Numbers dealing with “Karen Handel.” Four total, to be precise. She is the “Respondent” referenced to above.

With the prefix number of “2010″, they appear to all be cases filed during the 2010 election cycle in which Handel was running for governor.

As you may be aware of, Handel has not announced yet that she is seeking the U.S. Senate race, but she has confided in some folks that she will enter that race.

The “fix” that may be in for Handel is that one of the five Commissioners who will sit in judgement today of whether the allegations against her warrant an investigation by the AG’s office…is actually working on getting his own candidate for the U.S. Senate race in 2014.

That Commissioner is named Heath Garrett. As most everyone knows who has met him, Heath Garrett is likely one of THE nicest guys you’ll ever meet, in Georgia, or anywhere else. That is a fact to recognize.

He’s also in the top tier of Georgia-based political consultants who is always more than ready, willing, and able to sell-out his Republican street cred for money (good money, mind you, but he’ll trade Republican principles for money just about any day of the week, and twice on Sundays).

AND…parallel to the concept of Garrett actively recruiting a candidate for the U.S. Senate race is this ever-so-slightly-too-convenient-case of Garrett sharing office space, and being really good buddies, with the person who is currently the chief strategist for Phil Gingrey’s U.S. Senate run: Chip Lake of Glendale Strategies.

Click here for address for Garrett’s company
Click her for the address for Chip Lake’s company

Both have the address of:
57 Waddell Street
Marietta, GA 30060

And, for those of you unfamiliar with downtown Marietta, this is a pretty podunk-sized building…so, yeah, they know each other.

Now, is all this relevant to anything? Well, yeah, it kinda is. Because, again, Garrett currently sits on the f/k/a ‘Ethics Commission’ and has, not only a 1/5th vote, but can also engage via Q&A to try and mislead the other 4 commissioners into a direction that would be more advantageous to him (and his money-making interests) and worse for someone like Karen Handel who may oppose both his own potential client (whoever it may be) AND a potential opponent to his current office pal-mate’s current candidate for U.S. Senate (Chip Lake’s candidate Phil Gingrey).

Now, golly, wouldn’t it be swell IF the f/k/a ‘Ethics Commission’ actually, itself, had a set of standards in which to operate that stated in a rule (or, be still our beating heart, in an actual law) that the people who sit on the “ethics” Commission cannot be actively involved in POLITICS FOR MONEY???

That way, Heath Garrett (again, nicest guy you ever want to meet) would not have to face this dilemma he will face today because he would not be sitting on this commission now!

But, nahhhh…that concept would make TOO much sense to the yahoos who sit on the Georgia State House Ethics Committee…and who have proclaimed over and over and over…and, yes, OVER to PV that “Look, where would it end if we banned conflicts of interest? No one would be able to serve in the government if we did that! What a silly, silly, silly idea you have, PV.”

So, in conclusion…will Heath Garrett have the integrity to completely recuse himself from…well, quite frankly, ALL these cases dealing with Handel…as well as these other cases dealing with groups like Tea Party Patriots (groups that were a part of the effort to beat the T-SPLOST down last year…which just happened to be the ballot initiative Heath Garrett was working in favor of…and missed-out on a big win bonus because of Tea Party-related groups)?

Gosh, don’t things like “ethics in government” just suck? If we could just…you know….trust our political “leaders,” life would be so much more happier and more carefree. (Sigh…Calgon, take us away for our bubble-bath…)

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* Just as an FYI to those of you who may be kinda new to Georgia politics as to what this 7-word “commission” is all about (i.e., “Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission”).

See, for nearly 25 years prior to 2010, the name of this entity was “Georgia State Ethics Commission.” Four words. Just four of the simplest words that explain everything in 2 seconds or less. AND, a title dreamed-up by the Democrats, of all people.

In the Legislative Session of 2010, newbie Speaker of The House David Ralston hit upon an idea: “This concept of ‘Ethics’ is just too mean-sounding. I’m going to change the name of this commission to this big-ass, more complicated, more-wordy name and specifically insert the word ‘Government’, ’cause people like me do not know that ‘state government’ was ALREADY a part of this ‘commission.’”

Thus the reason why we have the current name of “Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission”…because a Republican thought that ‘bureaucra-cizing ‘ the commission name would trivialize the entity, apparently.

Preface

HB 1 is a bill titled the “Georgia Uniform Civil Forfeiture Procedure Act.” It is due on the Georgia State House floor today (Tuesday, March 5th).

The bill is 92 pages long, has 3,211 lines of text, and contains approximately 40,000 words (line numbers excluded from that count).

If anyone wants to take the time to read the 92 pages, help yourself here.

Or, you can just read this issue of the Vine (which will be shorter than 40,000 words) and get the gist of why this bill is good legislation, and why it should pass with NO amendments that will likely be designed to only water it down to the detriment of the people of Georgia.

Background of the Civil Forfeiture Issue

The purpose of HB 1′s 92 pages and 40,000 words is to actually put into place the “due process of law” that the Georgia Constitution guarantees for people in its very first two paragraphs in Article 1, Section 1:

“Paragraph I: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law.

Paragraph II: Protection to person and property is the paramount duty of government and shall be impartial and complete. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws.”

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. It is the power of law enforcement to confiscate cash, cars, home and other property on the mere suspicion that the property was involved in criminal activity.

The national group Institute for Justice (a public interest law firm that fights forfeiture abuse across the country) has done a national study on civil forfeiture laws in several states and produced a 7-minute video that lays-out the issue for you to understand (Click this link for video here).

On January 29, 2013, the Institute released a report on Georgia’s civil forfeiture laws titled “Rotten Reporting in The Peach State” that details the problems with several Georgia law enforcement agencies who do not provide the proper documentation and reporting of property they have seized.

In January of 2012, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation issued a statement about civil forfeiture, concluding that:
• Asset forfeiture should not be a civil process. Nobody should lose their property until they have been convicted of a crime.

• Law enforcement – police, sheriff’s departments or prosecutors – should not profit from the proceeds of criminal asset forfeiture, which should go into the state’s general fund.

• Expedite and facilitate the return of property to innocent victims of the asset forfeiture process.

During 2011 and 2012, a Forfeiture Rewrite Work Group met in Georgia to review current forfeiture law and determine whether there was a need to standardize the provisions and consolidate into one primary code section to help assure a “due process” was followed consistently. The group included representatives from each of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, the Georgia Attorney’s General office and the Administrative Office of the Georgia Courts.

With the help of Legislative Counsel, the work group drafted a new Uniform Civil Forfeiture Procedure Act (UCFPA) which will be located in Chapter 16 of Title 9, Civil Practice.

UCFPA establishes comprehensive civil forfeiture proceedings taken from the drug forfeiture statute that has guided the vast majority of forfeitures in this state for the last 20 years.

Due Process – The Meat of HB 1

To put it as simply as possible, HB 1 codifies the intent of the Georgia Constitution’s due process and private property rights guaranteed under the state constitution. A Constitution that elected officials all swear an oath to uphold, and one that all law enforcement personnel also swear an oath to uphold.

But, the forfeiture laws, as they currently exist in Georgia, tilt the scales of justice heavily against the concept of property rights to strongly favor the “state” and law enforcement agencies more than they favor the people’s rights to due process before their owned property gets yanked from them.

And, we’re not talking about property used in the direct commission of a crime where the criminal has been found guilty. Civil forfeiture acts currently include the confiscation of property where a law enforcement officer can make a decision on the spot that the property is connected to a crime and confiscate it…without it ever being proven to be directly involved in the commission of a crime.

And, as the current law exists, law enforcement is only required to place a notice in the courthouse that the property has been confiscated. There is no direct notification of the owner(s) of the property required as the law currently exists. Before you conclude that might be “okay” as far as notification goes, consider this: how many times do you visit your courthouse to determine if your property has been confiscated?

The language in HB 1 spells it all out as to the procedures required to confiscate private property, procedures for law enforcement documenting their confiscations and submitting reports…as well as a new legal standard on what “burden of proof” standard to use to determine if it is legal to confiscate the property in question…which is actually important enough to go into a little more detail on…

Burden of Proof: Three Levels

There are actually three “levels” of evidence proof in the American legal system (assuming Georgia is still considered to be part of America, I assume these three levels also apply in this state).

Most everyone knows about the standard of proofs of “beyond a reasonable doubt” (which is used in criminal cases) and “preponderance of the evidence” which is usually used in civil cases.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest level of proof required, while ‘preponderance of the evidence‘ is the lowest level of evidence judgment to use to make a legal decision.

There is a third level which is a middle-of-the-road level to these two extremes: Clear and convincing evidence.

From the Cornell University Legal Website, this is what the “clear and convincing” level of evidence means as a standard: “In order to meet the standard and prove something by clear and convincing evidence, a party must prove that it is substantially more likely than not that it is true. This standard is employed in both civil and criminal trials.”

HB 1 requires that law enforcement use the evidence of proof level of ‘clear and convincing evidence’ to determine whether property should be seized.

‘Clear and convincing evidence’ requires more proof than just someone’s random opinion. They must prove that it is more likely than not to be property that was used in the commission of a crime.

Rumors have it that a specific amendment will be offered from the floor to lower the standard to merely being “preponderance of the evidence,” which will essentially allow the confiscation to continue as it does now, with little proof of property being connected to a crime.

Any amendment like this will just mean someone does not truly believe in the concept of “due process of law” and that all private property is, essentially , lying in wait to be confiscated by some law enforcement person who, at the act of personal whim, could seize it and claim on the basis of a mere “preponderance” of the evidence, keep the property and force the actual owner to expend funds to get it back.

That concept (which is how current law is in Georgia) is anti-American because it assumes the property owner of being guilty of something, and having to prove innocence in order to reclaim his/her seized property.

HB 1 SUMMARY

HB 1 will create more transparency and accountability by strengthening the mandatory reporting requirement of all law enforcement agencies. It will ensure that those individuals proven guilty of a crime do not keep the fruits of their crime , and it strikes a much needed balance in forfeiture law by protecting individual property rights and public safety against those involved in criminal enterprises.

Georgia’s law will now be more in line with the federal requirement for how law enforcement can use forfeiture funds. HB 1 requires that parties provide a proper accounting of what they receive upon seizure, and it allows for equitable distribution among all law enforcement agencies involved with the forfeiture.

HB 1 clarifies some current provisions regarding reporting and eliminates confusion over what the funds may be used for by explicitly defining the specific use of money confiscated — the same as federal law.

HB 1 provides procedural safeguards by placing it within Title 9, as a civil law proceeding and providing court oversight, and simplifies the standard for initiating a claim to recover property wrongfully seized for forfeiture. Innocent people should not lose their property because they didn’t know the “letter of the law” in notice and procedure required to retrieve property they didn’t know was seized.

HB 1 allows either side to make an application to the court for discovery if the party believes there is a need, and the court has discretion to grant. It creates a right of anyone who has a claim to property to appear before the court and defend that interest.

This legislation also lowers the ceiling from $25,000 to $5,000 for non-judicial forfeitures and provides greater due process for smaller claims and gives greater protection to the public.

It also deletes existing language that required a property owner to pay for the state’s legal fees if they lose their claim in court to the property claimed, and not only lose their property, but got a double-whammy of paying money to the agency who confiscated their property for “reasonable costs, including attorneys fees” for daring to challenge the property seizure.

Finally, it will also specify that it is the duty of every local law enforcement agency and multi-jurisdictional task force to send its report to the Carl Vinson Institute.

Vote Yes to pass HB 1 and send it to the State Senate (which will likely demonstrate for us all just how anti-property rights, anti-due process, anti-constitution, AND how pro-statist those state senators and Casey Cagle really are in that chamber…:-).

Unless, of course, anyone in the state house wants to be identified as being anti-due process, anti-property rights, anti-constitution, etc…? Anyone? Anyone?

Warning

The following Vine does contain subject matter quite unsuitable to anyone under the age of 18…or, anyone who just got into politics and thinks every elected official should be treated as a deity.

Two stories must be told before we get to the meat of this edition of the Political Vine. I’m not going to apologize for their subject matter because these are two factual stories that are quite relevant to the entire purpose of this PV. So, please be patient, and read the stories in the order in which they are presented.

Timeline: November 1985

On November 7, 1985, a decision was handed down by the Georgia Court of Appeals (“COA”) regarding the case of a man who was found guilty in the trial court of sodomizing his own 7-year-old son.

The attorney representing the sodomizer for the appeal argued to the COA that, essentially, because the 7-year old may not have been able to define what an “oath to tell the truth” meant, the 7-year-old was not a competent witness.

The COA decided to uphold the lower court’s ruling because the legal standard is not that someone specifically be able to “define” the meaning of an oath, nor that he/she be able to understand the process under which the oath was administered, but that the witness know and appreciate the concept of what it meant to tell the truth, and what it meant to lie, and what would happen to liars if they lie.

The COA cited the trial court’s evidence that the child testified that “…the [child molestor] placed his sex organ in the child’s mouth and anus. The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the appellant guilt of sodomy beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Timeline: September 1986 & April 1987

In September 1986, the Georgia Court of Appeals twice denied an appeal (an appeal and then a “reconsideration” of the appeal) by a convicted child molestor who was convicted of 5 counts of child molestation and aggravated sodomy of his own 11-year-old daughter.

In April of 1987, the Georgia Supreme Court (“GSC”) heard the appeal (and the reconsideration), and denied both as well.

When you read these two appeals, you will be able to construct what had to be going on in the mind of the criminal defense attorney arguing the case for appeal.

The attorney for both the COA and the GSC appeals argued that, essentially, because the daughter had slept in a bed with her uncle when she was 5 and when she was 7, then when the father had relations with her when she was 11, that she had already “consented” to have sex with the uncle, and therefore she could not accuse her father of molesting her.

AND…the criminal defense attorney was arguing to both higher courts that if he was allowed to cross-examine the 11-year old victim on her knowledge of what constituted “sex” that he would be able to show that his convicted client should not be found guilty if his daughter had no problem sleeping with her uncle. (Yeah. That was the logic of the appeal argued.)

Both courts determined that regardless of the times in which the victim may or may not have had relations with the uncle prior to the 5 acts of molestation the father was accused of performing on the victim, the victim could not “consent” to either act and prior sexual activities was not material to the defense’s claim. (Why didn’t the criminal defense attorney know that law about “consent” of a minor?)

Timeline – Interlude

Since you’re dying to know what the heck these two stories have to do with anything currently going on in Georgia, I’ll let you know, and then we’ll continue with the present day Timeline.

In the first case discussed dealing with the 7-year-old son molested by his father, the criminal defense attorney was David E. Ralston (whom you now know as “Speaker Ralston”). Here’s the case to read if you wish.

In the second case discussed, the criminal defense attorney for both appeals dealing with the argument that if a child has sex with her uncle and doesn’t accuse him of molestation then when her father does the same thing, she can’t accuse him of molestation, was also David E. Ralston. Click this link for those two cases to read.

NOW…we return to the Timeline…

Timeline – February 25, 2013

On Monday, February 25, 2013, the Georgia State House “debated” HB 142 (actually, they merely acquiesced to it because there was no “debate”).

HB 142 was solely written by Speaker David Ralston. And, there are some things in there that are good, and some that are not good. (At this moment, I don’t have the time to spend on the bill itself.)

What I have the time to do is present a few excerpts that I find especially indicative of just how freaking crazy some of these folks clearly become when they sit for so long in elected office. Two people in particular who spoke in favor of the bill: Representative Chuck Sims (R-Pharisee), and Speaker David Ralston (The Holiest One).

Currently, the video from yesterday’s house vote on HB 142 is online…and, after I discuss parts of this video, I suspect that either Ralston (or his Head Henchman Spiro Amburn) will direct Chip Rogers & Co. over at Georgia Public Broadcasting to rip the video off of the GPB website so that you won’t be able to witness their actual words. (Click this link for the GA House – Day 23 video if you wish to see the video at the Timemarks described)

Chuck Sims is recognized to speak at approximately the 1:08:28 timemark. Feel free to listen to Sims’s folksy journey as he takes you thru to someone’s childhood act of pushing over an outhouse, Washington’s axing of a cherry tree, and ending-up at the approximate time mark of 1:12:50 where Sims asks the question “Was Jesus Christ unethical? Everybody said he was.”

THEN…continue listening to Sims as he wends his way up to the timemark of 1:13:25 when he transitions to what can only be interpreted to mean that he truly equates Ralston’s dealings with discussions of legislative ethics to Ralston being Jesus Christ. (He does not say this, he implies it and he infers it because there was no other reason to bring-up some statement regarding whether Jesus was accused of being “unethical” before this point.)

And so, Sims apparently believes Ralston should receive extra-special “goodness” attention because he takes the barbs from people accusing the house members of being “unethical.” (However, I interpret this ‘crown of thorns’ that Ralston wears for all the other House members to actually be more indicative of the fact that some individual members of the House are TOO stupid to speak for themselves…and Sims is especially included in that characterization of an inability to speak for himself unless he’s in the House well…protected from talking to serfs and other non-Pharisees).

NOW…let’s look at one comment from Ralston in the well (because I could not take hearing him speak for long at all):

Timemark 1:32:00: Ralston claims that in no version of his bill was there ever an attempt to quash the free speech right of a citizen to express their views to a legislator…and that any other characterization in that realm would be a “Blatant misrepresentation of the truth.”

COMMENTARY

Since Chuck Sims asked the question of “When did Ralston become unethical?”, based on the clear evidence of the type of law that Ralston practiced (i.e., criminal/child molestation defense), and the way he argued those cases, I’m going to answer that question for Mr. Sims: Ralston likely walked into the House with an immoral/unethical mind existing already.

Now, you can argue all you want that everyone deserves a criminal defense (I’m certain I’ll receive emails from criminal defense attorneys to that effect)…but, for someone to be able to…literally, warp their mind into arguing that an 11-year-old girl, because she apparently had sex with her uncle when she was 7, and she didn’t have a problem with relations then, then heck-yeah!…she should not have had a problem with her dad molesting her 5 times when she was 11…yeah, I think something has to be pretty twisted in Ralston’s mind to have been able to argue that as a legal basis for an appeal.

And, not just argue it once, but twice. He ignored the logic of the Court of Appeals’ decision, and continued to display a blatant disregard for the statutory rape and child molestation law to appeal again to the Ga Supreme Court.

One has to wonder what criminal defense attorney Ralston would have cross-examined the 11-year old victim about if he had been granted the appeal? Think about that for a moment.

Would Ralston’s cross-examination have been been worded like this: “Now, Little Girl, you were okay with your uncle messing with you in bed when you were 5 years old…why don’t you just go ahead and admit you liked it when your uncle did it, and you also liked it when your father did it, right?”

Can you imagine the psychological trauma that little girl would have had to experience in dealing with Ralston’s cross-examinination of her had he won his appeal in 1986/1987? To have the opportunity to tear her apart on the witness stand? That is one sick mind, Folks. (And, I doubt that mind ever got “well”.)

The fact that both of Georgia’s high courts denied his claim proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mind is not something that anyone should rely upon to know the difference between right and wrong when it comes to the “ethical behavior” of legislators.

You folks in the State House who worship this guy as your “Speaker” (or, Chuck Sims, who considers David Ralston to be the Son of God)…know this: When David Ralston looks at you, and seeks to “defend” you against the “evil media” and those “evil Tea Party People” that he…actually…may view you as a criminal needing to be “defended”….and/or…for all we know, some of you may actually be child molestors that David Ralston successfully defended, and that explains your “loyalty” to him.

So, when you shake his hand, and you walk around the Gold Dome thinking your Speaker “loves” you and will “protect” you, keep this in mind: One day, he may defend the person who molests your 7-year old boy/grand-child…or, your 11-year-old daughter/grand-daughter and claim to the court that your child somehow invited the molestation to occur.

There are some truly messed-up minds in this state’s Legislature. Now we know why. And, like a fish, it is all rotting from the head all the way down to the tail.

Rumors have it that Georgia Republican Party Secretary John Padgett is now seeking the position of state party chairman. In a letter announcing his decision, Padgett states the following:

“We need a bold Chair for our Party who has a proven track record of conservative grassroots leadership. We cannot afford to put at risk all that our Party has achieved by turning over the role of Chair to weak and ineffective leadership…Trust matters. Experience matters. Leadership matters…I have been waiting for a true grassroots leader to step forward and run for Chair, but none has emerged.”

PV Blinks in Amazement: “Trust matters.” Huh. Really, Mr. Padgett? How ‘trustworthy’ is someone who ignores the breaking of Roberts Rules of Order, and not only ignores the breaking of them, but actually promotes them to be broken?

Perhaps Mr. Padgett is not familiar with this new-fangled tek-nolo-gee called the “Internet” that…has a propensity to allow people who have captured many things on tape and post them on this “Internet:”

2012 Caucus Fraud at Athens-Clarke County GOP Convention

You will note the (cough! cough!) “leader” who calls himself ‘John Padgett’ running away and telling someone to stop recording him as he tries to defend the closing of a convention when a ‘division of the house’ was clearly called for.

Now, you might wonder why it is that Padgett is now running for State GOP Chair. Quite simply, it is because he is mad at BJ Van Gundy, who was in charge of the 2012 State GOP Convention Credentials Committee (which had something like 8-9 other people sitting on it as well), a committee charged with the responsibility of determining if rules were followed in the determination of delegates to the state convention…and a committee that determined that based on evidence like that video-link above, the Athens-Clarke County GOP did violate the State Call and/or the State GOP Rules in conducting a convention.

Therefore, the Athens-Clarke County delegation got their credentials disqualified and they were kicked-off the floor of the convention.

THAT act is why John Padgett is now running for state chair. Because, along with actually cheating, the Athens-Clarke County GOP got caught on tape cheating. And, the Athens-Clarke County GOP is angry at BJ because he and his credentials committee were presented with evidence (and testimony of witnesses) of the cheating.

Now, as a sidebar, PV knows there will be people in the Athens-Clarke County GOP who point out to PV that, yeah, PV was pissed at BJ in relation to several other things last year, the main thing being that his committee didn’t revoke other delegations’ credentials that PV felt deserved to be revoked.

Apparently, the credentials committee had overwhelming evidence presented to them about the Athens-Clarke County GOP convention, evidence that was not similarly presented to them about another county.

PV’s Non Sequitur Sidebar: It is fascinating to hear people, to this day, still rant about the “Ron Paul people” coming into the party to “take it over.”

Let’s see…what happened last year in spite of the various county and district GOPs working hard (all over the country, by the way) to violate rules to prevent liberty-minded, Ron Paul-supporters from participating? Here’s a hint: MITT ROMNEY STILL LOST!!!

You folks who THINK you deserve some sort of air of superiority of any significance because you succeeded in blocking those folks out of the process might as well be sniffing glue. Because YOUR candidates, your delegates, etc. didn’t accomplish sh*t for getting a Republican elected president, did they? In case you lost track, THAT was the only purpose of last year’s national election cycle.

All that money WASTED. All that time WASTED. All that effort spent devising ways to deliberately, and systematically, cheat people last year…WASTED.

And now, of course, all PV sees is a bunch of hand-wringing “establishment Republicans” whining about Obama’s lying and cheating and ignoring the Constitution, and blah-blah-blah. Gee, ever heard of this concept called “Karma?”

If you think you deserve a “blessed country” by just spending your time uttering patriotic phrases like “God Bless America,” but you fail to give Him a good reason why He should take the time to do that for you, especially when He witnesses how you treat your fellow Republicans by cheating (see Athens-Clarke County GOP video here), then, maybe it’s not “Obama and the Democrats’ fault” that this country is headed in the direction that it is headed, but it is all your fault.

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* A “steroid-injected horse” is one that has been doped to be given an edge in a horse race. That is considered to be ‘cheating’ in the horse-racing circuit. If your definition of “a true grassroots leader” means someone who knowingly lies or cheats or steals and/or blatantly supports people who engage in those activities, whether it be in politics or anything else, then John Padgett may be your kind of “horse” for State GOP Chairman.

The latest act by the liar known as Brian Laurens is a mailpiece that he sent out late last week that presents an “endorsement” of his candidacy for HD 21 by an organization in Georgia that expressly never gave any such endorsement, nor do they ever engage in such methods in political races, AND who are demanding a retraction from Laurens. You can read all about that issue here on Jim Galloway’s AJC blog.

I say “latest act” because I’ve known Brian Laurens to be a liar dating back to 2011 when I described his encounter with a candidate named Geraldine Wade in the HD 43 race ( See PV story here and follow-up story to that one here).

Since then, Laurens has racked-up an impressive quantity of other stories that reflect his character (or, lack thereof) in these publications:

Ga Pundit Story 1-Traffic Stop

Ga Pundit Story 2-Laurens lying

Ga Pundit Story 3 -False Endorsement

Cherokee Tribune-Laurens gets tossed from meeting

AND…the best summary of why Laurens should not be elected (ever, by the way, to any office) can be found in the succinct summary assembled by The Perspicacious Conservative blog available here.

With regard to my first comment above, along with a reference Miss Perspicacious makes to “Chip Rogers,” let me explain to you the proof of just how pervasive a liar that Chip Rogers is, and then perhaps you will all get a better understanding of how bad an influence Chip Rogers is/can be on any organization (OR person, in the case of Brian Laurens) for which he is a member of (whether in the state senate, or in Georgia Public Broadcasting, or anywhere else he might end-up in the future):

In 2004, when Chip Rogers was first running for state senate, he was in a primary against Craig Dowdy. Very close to the primary date, Dowdy’s signs were getting systematically destroyed, and Dowdy got fed-up with it, and started monitoring his signs late in the evening.

At one point, he actually caught two “kids” (seniors in high school) who were working for Chip Rogers’ campaign in the act of destroying his signs. He called the police, filed an incident report, and the kids got hauled-off to spend the night in jail.

The kids told the police that they were told by Rogers to destroy as many of Dowdy’s signs as they could find.

Then when the police called Rogers that evening and asked if that was true, what was Chip Rogers response to this? A flat-out denial that he EVER instructed anyone to destroy Dowdy’s signs. So, the kids spent the night in jail, and Chip Rogers went on to win that primary.

Funny thing, though…after that primary, for whatever reason, Rogers’ decided to come “somewhat clean” and admit that it was he who ordered that Dowdy’s signs be destroyed, but even that “clean” is tinged with his bullshit crappola double-talk of “I unfortunately had somebody working for me who told somebody else to do something stupid and somebody else did something stupid and now we’re in this situation.”

Since then, in which every time Chip Rogers had an opponent, there was a sign-destruction war to which Chip always denied that his campaign was engaged in, the most recent one being the Rogers v. Beach campaign in July 2012.

Were this just one incident, perhaps people could see fit to overlook the lies of Chip Rogers. But, when you bother to read the researched story of Rogers’ involvement in gambling and sports betting activities in the 1990s, anyone who has ANY sense of what is right and what is wrong, would be able to come to the conclusion that he is one majorly bad apple.

A bad apple who now sits in a $150,000 per year salaried job in public broadcasting, put there by Governor Nathan Deal (a man who clearly does not care about having moral or ethical people associated with his governorship).

Now that Chip Rogers is gone from electoral office, he’s apparently trying to leave his legacy of dirty campaign tactics to his protege, Brian Laurens. Man, I just hope the people in this Cherokee County house district have better sense than Laurens himself and do not vote him into the state house.

Rumors abound today that U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss has decided to retire at the end of his term in 2014, and not seek reelection.

This Press release was sent out by the Office of Governor Deal:

Office of Communications
(404) 651-7774
Jan. 25, 2013

Deal: “Chambliss a statesman who has led on nation’s priorities.”

Upon the announcement today that U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss will not seek a third term, Gov. Nathan Deal praised his service to Georgia.

“Saxby Chambliss’s tenure in the Senate saw tumultuous times for our nation, from wars against terrorists to the fiscal crisis that threatens us today. Representing us, Saxby became an expert and a leader on these most important issues. Having served with Saxby in Washington for many years, I understand the gravitational pull of Georgia soil because I too felt the call of home. Saxby didn’t wake up every morning and stick his finger in the wind; he started each day asking what he can do to ensure his grandchildren inherit a country every bit as great as the one enjoyed by our generation. History will remember Sen. Saxby Chambliss as a great Georgia leader and an American statesman; I will remember him as a friend.”

Who should replace Chambliss?

I could take the time to list all the potential prospects who should run for Saxby’s seat. But, that would be a lengthy process, involving a lot of writing and analysis, and who really needs to read all that to get to the same conclusion I have reached (inside of thirty minutes, no less, but involving approximately 1 million of my active neurons)?

Governor Deal would actually be the best replacement for Senator Chambliss if he would run for it.

While I understand there will be some people whose spitfire response to me will be “What??? What about THIS guy, and what about THAT guy, and what about so-and-so Congressman, and…blah…blah…blah…”

This is my logic: Deal has a VERY unique background in politics that no one else actually has who is a potential candidate: He served in the Georgia State Legislature, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he will have served as the state’s highest executive-level officer for 4 years by the end of 2014.

That is a powerful, political experience-based resume. Most people in the U.S. Senate have ZERO executive-level experience. It is a different brain-skill capability to think as an “executive” as opposed to a “legislator.” That’s just a fact of what happens in the job.

Any U.S. Representative who runs for Saxby’s replacement does NOT have the executive-level experience and knowledge that Nathan Deal has…which would enable Deal to personally be able to consider the impact of federal legislation on a state’s finances and operations.

He has true “hands-on” knowledge in that realm that no one else that I can think of who would be eligible to run for the position has.

There is a big article on the AJC website today that details what appears to be some potentially dishonest dealings by DeKalb County’s CEO Burell Ellis and some vendors who have scored some sweet contract deals. You can get informed here: Vendors in DeKalb government probe earned millions

Mentioned in this article are 6 private entities who are under specific focus by the DeKalb DA’s office in connection with their receiving contracts from DeKalb:

The Ferguson Group (a lobbying company)
Massey, Watson, Bowers & Hembree (a lobbying company)
Inland Waters Pollution Control (an underground pipe repair company)
MWH Global (an engineering and construction services firm)
Rural/Metro Corp. (an ambulance company)
Sentinel Offender Services (a probation services company)

Also revealed in that article is this tidbit of information:

“In separate instances that involved Sentinel’s and Rural/Metro’s competitors, county officials either terminated or tried to terminate contracts with those competitors. The effort involving Sentinel’s competitor failed after a judge pointed out that the county didn’t have the legal authority to terminate probation services contracts.

In the other case, the county did cancel a contract with Rural/Metro’s competitor in 2010. A month later, Rural/Metro was awarded an “emergency” yearlong contract that has been extended and remains in place.”

NOW…what PV finds especially intriguing is this concept of an “emergency” contract. An “emergency” contract is awarded to a vendor by the governing agency that has issued an “emergency RFP/RFB” that short-circuits the normal route (and, normal legal processes required by the governing agency) of bidding for services.

You may or may not recall a couple of stories covered by FOX 5′s Dale Russell just a short while ago concerning the Fulton County Development Authority and their award of an “emergency contract” that continued to be renewed without any normal bid process. Here are links to the two stories:

Lavish spending by Fulton County Development Authority

Fulton Co. Development Authority’s spending on outside contracts questioned

It is this second story that exposes the fact that a lobbying contract was awarded based on an “emergency” bid process. In an emergency bid process, the premise is that there is an urgent need for something, so it is legal for a government agency to ignore the normal rules to seek bids, review bids, and award bids.

However…what is suspicious in the Fulton County Development Authority (“FCDA”) case is that the chairman of the FCDA is in a business relationship with the lobbyist who won the “emergency” lobbying contract. And, it is a contract that has been re-issued for two years following the first year’s “emergency” instance to the same lobbyist. (One would think that once a government entity got past the “emergency” event that they would be able to re-set the process to have a normal bidding process be opened-up.)

Circling back now to current-day in DeKalb County, there are a few interesting factoids PV has discovered as a result of this story:

1) Bruce Bowers was a registered lobbyist for Rural Metro Ambulance from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2011. Recall the paragraph cited previously from the AJC story regarding Rural Metro Ambulance being “awarded” an emergency contract in 2010 after the previous vendor had their contract terminated early with no apparently truly valid reason given (PV suspects it was this terminated vendor who followed the money and tipped-off the DeKalb DA to suspected shenanigans within the county)

2) Brandon Hembree is still connected to Rural Metro Ambulance as a registered lobbyist, having started on January 1, 2006 when Bruce Bowers started that contract as well.

3) Lewis Massey is also still a currently registered State and Local lobbyist for Rural Metro Ambulance

To the reader who may not understand this situation, lobbyists, in addition to lobbying the state legislature, are also sometimes employed by private companies to act as, essentially, “business development lobbyists” to secure contracts with local governments. When you look at the registration for Bruce Bowers, Lewis Massey and Brandon Hembree, you will note two levels of lobbyist registration for Rural Metro Ambulance: State and Local. “Local-level” lobbying means the ability to lobby local government officials to create new business opportunities for the clients who hire them. Nothing illegal about that…as long as the activities are all above board.

However, if the AJC story is accurate that the previous vendor for the county’s ambulance service was terminated and then an “emergency contract” had to be let because they terminated the previous contract and had no ambulance service coverage for the county…then that points to 1) a minimum that the county is pretty freaking INCOMPETENT, and 2) that it looks like backroom deals were made to push Rural Metro Ambulance forward into getting a sweetheart, easy deal with the county via a fabricated “emergency vendor service bid” that was created by insiders to benefit cronies of the insiders.

Finally…in that AJC story, Bruce Bowers is quoted in reaction to the AJC’s question about Massey Bowers, et al. name appearing on the search warrants as stating: “My partner and I were both surprised to see our firm name involved in this inquiry…Unfortunately, we have no idea or knowledge, beyond what we have read in the media, of what is being looked at in this situation and, to date, we have made no inquiries.”

PV Note to Bruce Bowers: No inquiries, huh? No idea at all as to why your lobbying firm might be mentioned in an investigation with vendor contracts in DeKalb County? No knowledge, eh?

Just how did your client Rural Metro Ambulance happen to find out about this “emergency need” for services by DeKalb County? Were you guys just sauntering past the water cooler of the DeKalb County Purchasing Department and overhear something like “Well, dang! Now that we fired that other ambulance company, we need a NEW ambulance company. Wherever will we find someone to qualify? And, quickly?”

So, according to today’s Political Insider over at the AJC, Jim Galloway reports on what the agenda will be for the Senate Democrats.

The most striking one to PV is Senator Jason Carter’s proposal to reduce the GPA eligibility requirement from a 3.0 GPA down to a 2.0 GPA in order to be granted a HOPE Scholarship.

So, let’s see if we get this straight: Georgia already experiences grade-inflation in high schools whereby the teachers and/or principals are pressured by parents to “fix” the grades so that Little Johnny/Little Jill receives a higher grade from a class than what they truly deserved, and is able to graduate.

Proof of PV’s assertion can be found in articles like this one in the AJC from 2010: Remedial classes cost Ga. colleges millions.

Why are there so many students requiring remedial classes? Because they did not learn the basics in high school. Why did they still graduate high school without knowing these basics? Because of grade inflation granted by the high schools in which they ‘graduated’ from.

So, assuming that some percentage of high school graduates are already getting grades inflated to hit that 3.0 required to obtain a HOPE Scholarship (i.e., receipt of money from a challenging source of steady, reliable funds: the Georgia Lottery) now, approximately how many more kids would clearly be unqualified to attend and learn college-level classes if the GPA threshold was reduced to 2.0?

Here’s a guess: Tens of thousands more people who are simply not educated enough in the basics to be able to learn what needs to be learned in college to obtain a college diploma.

Senator Jason Carter’s motives for this type of proposal are as clear as the blue sky: He wishes to bankrupt the HOPE Scholarship program, and to depress the quality of college education by throwing more unqualified students into the college public money bucket who will drain the bucket of quality education resources.

While this type of activity may earn him the Order of Obama (or whatever medal the Democratic Party awards people like Carter who seek to generate more ways to suck MORE tax dollars out of people…sort of like the Order of Lenin), this type of proposal should be D.O.A. in the Georgia State Senate.

Of course, with the array of UGA grads who are elected to the State Senate, both on the GOP and Dem side, they may actually like this proposal…because, when it comes to acts of sheer dumb-ass-ness, especially in Georgia government, UGA grads are very well-versed in that arena.

Georgia State Senate Passes Resolution to Limit Lobbyist Gifts

ATLANTA (January 14, 2013) – The Georgia State Senate boldly passed a resolution on the first day of the 2013 legislative session that will amend the Senate Rules and cap gifts from any registered lobbyist or group of registered lobbyists at $100 per item, event or meal. The new rule originates from proactive efforts by the Georgia State Senate to solicit input from both Senators and citizens on how to effectively address lobbyist expenditure concerns.

“Today, on day one of the legislative session, the Senate took decisive action on this critically important issue,” said Lt. Governor Casey Cagle. “I appreciate our Senators who came together and spoke with one voice to strengthen the State Senate’s ethics laws. We are now prepared to tackle the challenges of encouraging private sector job growth, strengthening education, and improving patient centered, free market healthcare.”

“This resolution is the result of open dialogues not just within the Senate, but also with the people of Georgia,” said Sen. Majority Leader Ronnie Chance (R-Tyrone). “This measure is an effective, common sense approach supported by both parties in the Georgia Senate.”

“I have long supported limitations on lobbyist giving, and I applaud the Senate for the common sense rules passed today,” said Sen. President Pro Tem David Shafer (R-Duluth). “I appreciate the bipartisan work of the Senate Ethics Reform Study Committee.”

Any violations of the $100 gift cap will be subject to review by the Senate Ethics Committee.

PV Note: Full text of new Senate Rules can be read here. New senate rules do NOT apply to the State House, the Governor’s Office, or any other elected official in Georgia.

Kudos to State Senator Pro Tempore David Shafer.

The Georgia State House still allows unlimited gifts to be given by lobbyists to their membership. In short, The House Fat Cats get fatter.

[Editor's Note: the article below is a reprint extracted from a larger article published on this blog on September 8, 2011. The original, full story is available here]

The Laurens Effect

In this HD 43 race, there were originally 5 candidates who qualified: In alphabetical order, they are:

Roy C. Barnes (not the former Governor)
John Carson
Don Hill
Robert Lamutt
Geraldine Wade

Before we tackle the Laurens’ Effect in full, let us describe for you in step-by-step detail of what Candidate Geraldine Wade, and one of her volunteers, experienced a couple of weeks ago as she was working the district via her car:

Wade received a phone call to her campaign cell phone. On the other end of the phone was a man’s voice. The man told her (not in these precise words, but close to it) the following: “I’m a developer in this district and your signs are on properties I control. Those properties are reserved only for Robert Lamutt’s signs. Don’t put your signs there.”

Wade responded with “Which properties specifically?” The man dodged that question and just ordered her, again, to keep her signs off of the “properties.” When Wade asked the man for his name, he refused to give it…and soon thereafter, the call concluded.

Wade drove-on for a little while and pulled onto one of the vacant lots in the district that had a Lamutt sign on it and a Don Hill sign on it. She saw a realtor’s sign on the property with a contact phone number on it. She dialed the realtor’s number and got him and asked him for permission to place her own sign on the property.

The realtor told her “Yes, you can. Thank you for calling to ask permission. The only other candidate who has asked if they could put a sign on the property is Don Hill.”

That struck a nerve with Geraldine who, after placing her sign on the property for which she was just granted permission to do so, hit the call-back key on her cellphone to the number that called her…and, the man picked-up.

Geraldine asked him who he was because she just got permission to put her sign up on a property in which Lamutt had a sign that he hadn’t, evidently, asked permission to put up. The man evaded telling Wade his name and told her “Look, we’re going to do a sweep of all my properties and anyone’s sign except for Robert Lamutt’s signs are going to be removed. I was just giving you a warning to save you some money.” And then he hung-up.

When Wade got back home that afternoon, she Googled the phone number of the man who had called her. The Google results came-up as “Signs Unlimited – Brian Laurens.”

Thus, Dear Reader, you are now properly segued into the Laurens’ Effect. In every single race (whether a Republican party office or a public office) that Brian Laurens is involved in, there is always mischief of one or all of the following activities:

- Lying and dirty, sneaky tricks

- Sign stealing/sign destruction

- General & Frequent Bullshit of Unknown Origin (e.g., the altering of Karen Handel’s Wikipedia biography in the summer of 2009. Yup! PV has received information recently that it was Brian Laurens’ who altered those records.)

Brian Laurens is very pro-Robert Lamutt in this HD 43 race. Laurens has been pals with Lamutt since Lamutt’s congressional race in 2004 (in which he lost in the run-off to Congressman Tom Price)

PV has received information as late as this afternoon that Laurens has been observed taking John Carson’s signs down, as well as Geraldine Wade’s signs.

To those of you who scoff and shrug and say “Hey, that goes on in all the races I’ve ever been involved in…” OR …”Everyone does it. Who cares?”…actually, there are people who are decent in this world who do care about this kind of bullshit and do not like it, nor do they engage in it.

ANY candidate that knows about this and allows this bullshit to happen over and over and over with Brian Laurens has even less class than Brian Laurens has. Brian Laurens is a sneaky and duplicitous sociopath…but, what’s the candidate’s excuse for not being able to recognize this and disengage himself from Laurens?