HD 80: Double-Dipping Mike (Jacobs)?
by Bill Simon
SPECIAL MEMO
TO: State Rep. Mike Jacobs
From: Bill Simon
Re: Just a few…ethics law violations to discuss
Mike,
Did you know that my first major was Psychology? Spent a year taking a bunch of psychology and other liberal art courses until I decided “Screw this, I’m going for something way more fun: Mechanical Engineering at Tech.”
But, I learned enough, and have read enough in psychology since then, to know that your behavior in this GOP primary for HD 80 has some definite, deep-rooted psychoses that your subconscious apparently wrestles with on a daily basis. We’ll get to those shortly. But, first, a little “look-back” at your political career.
Back in your younger days in the 1995 timeframe, you were so entrenched in Democratic politics, you were elected Legislative Director of the College Democrats of America while you were attending Georgetown University, a position that allowed you direct influence into the goals of the Democratic National Committee. (Hmmm…who was President of the United States back then, Mike?)
In a fascinating sort of time-contrast here, do you know what your current Republican opponent for HD 80, Catherine Bernard, was doing in 1995, while you were pushing the liberal Democratic agenda policies of Bill Clinton? She was 13 years-old, and attending her first debate camp in the summer between middle-school and high school. (No wonder you’re so terrified to show-up for a debate with her…she’s akin to being a 4th degree Black Belt in debating skills and would wipe the floor with you.)
In 2004, you lived in Georgia and ran as a Democrat for State House 80, winning a primary, and defeating a Republican (J Max Davis) in the 2004 General Election.
That year, you paid $400 to the Democratic Party of Georgia to qualify for office,and then later that year, on October 6, 2004, your campaign (solely under your control) contributed $10,000 to the DPOG.
Want to know how much money Catherine Bernard has contributed to any Democratic cause? Ever? A total of $0.00. ZERO dollars, Mike. You are beating her soundly in the contest of how much money either of you have contributed to Democratic causes. Congrats on that.
Now…I’ve done a little bit of research on your past campaigns, and something rather curious happened in 2004 with your campaign: 1) You missed disclosing the fact that your campaign contributed $10,000 to the Democratic Party of Georgia (as it appeared on their disclosure), and 2) You appear to have violated state ethics laws by converting campaign dollars to benefit you personally.
Here are PDF-printed versions from the SoS site of the 4 campaign disclosures as filed electronically by your campaign for your 2004 campaign:
March 31, 2004
June 30, 2004
September 30, 2004
December 31, 2004
If you look at your December 31, 2004 disclosure, there is no entry for that $10,000 being paid to the DPOG, and on Page 3 of that disclosure, there is an entry that shows you were paid $5000 as a “Loan repayment.”
The problem with that particular loan repayment is that in all previous disclosures for that 2004 cycle, there was no record of you loaning your campaign $5,000…whether in one lump sum, or in increments adding-up to $5000. None. Zero. Nada “loans.”
Both of these aforementioned issues point to a problem which is kinda the whole theme of your ethics law violations that I am presenting to you: Your “Net Balance on hand” in the December 31, 2004 disclosure of $965.05 is, simply, an impossibility.
You gave $10,000 to the DPOG that was not included in your December 31, 2004 disclosure….in actuality, your cash balance on hand should have been minus $9034.95 (a negative number, and had you not reimbursed your campaign for a non-existent loan, it would be a Net Balance on Hand of -$14,034.95). Really funny accounting you got going on from your very first campaign, Mike. But, the fun doesn’t stop there.
In your September 2008 disclosure, you have several entries in the Expenditures section that appear to be in direct violation of state ethics laws.
On Page 13 of this 9/2008 disclosure, about 2/3 of the way down that page there is an entry made that shows you being paid $111.50 on 7/27/2008 for “Reimbursement” of 4 different items detailed below that.
However, on the next page, about halfway down the page, another entry for $111.50 being paid to you is shown, same exact day, same exact description as the one previously…except you have it designated as a “Loan Repayment.”
Pardon me, but that looks to me to be akin to a double-dip. You can either get a “Loan Repayment” OR a “Reimbursement.” You are not entitled to both. And, it’s not the only one in this disclosure.
At the bottom of Page 13, there is an entry on 9/28/2008, shown as a “Reimbursement” of $1008.82 paid to you.
On Page 14, about halfway down, again on 9/28/2008, it shows a “Loan Repayment” of this exact $1008.82.
Nor is this double-dipping an issue with just this one disclosure. There are many occurrences of this in many of your disclosures, a few of which are the following (and, anyone is free to click these links below, go to the Expenditures section), and just look for all entries paid to Michael Jacobs (or Jacobs, Michael), and see the double-entries, one for “Reimbursement” and one for “Loan Repayment:”
December 31, 2009 (See Page 8 for two instances)
September 30, 2010 (See Pages 16-17 for three instances)
December 31, 2010 (See Page 8 for three instances)
December 31, 2012 (See Page 7 for two instances)
June 30, 2013 (See Pages 6-7 for two instances, the $998.40 and the $125.46)
December 31, 2013 (Pages 11-12 for three instances: $870.46, $32.28, $83.68)
And, these aforementioned disclosures are not all there is, Mike…there are many more than 15 of these instances of double-dipping in many other disclosures of yours. Or, appearing to double-dip.
Whatever the case may be, Mike, either your Cash On Hand is accurate in all these disclosures (and, that means you have been double-dipping), or your true Cash On Hand is being seriously under-reported, which is also a violation of state law every single time it occurs. (If you’re curious to see all potential instances, here’s a link to my MS Access workfile to see that there are, in total, upwards of about 45 or so instances of potential double-dipping, in violation of Georgia state law. Or, if Access isn’t your cup of tea, here is an Excel file to analyze)
With each violation having a maximum of $1000 per instance, coupled with the mysterious $5000 loan repayment from 2004, you could be facing a potential to pay fines of $46,000 (if someone bothers to take the time to file a complaint.)
By the way…circling back now to your apparent psychotic obsession with Catherine Bernard, I noticed in your 12/31/2013 disclosure that on 12/13/2013, you had a $6.46 coffee date with Catherine. Was that to try and buy her out of the race, or promise her a job where you have connections…or…?
Currently, it seems that not a day goes by that you don’t make a Facebook post, or make a tweet about Catherine Bernard in some way. It’s…too noticeable to overlook, Dude.
Your obsession with her very existence appears to indicate at least one (if not more) of these possibilities:
A) you’re deeply in love with her, and/or
B) she simply scares you to such degree that you cannot think about ANYTHING else but her, and the potential she has to kick you off of your precious elected throne, and/or
C) you’re acting-out to drive the demons in your mind of being a former Democrat yourself…and choosing to castigate someone else who realized the error of her ways much earlier in life than you did.
So, back to psychology, and your mind, there’s an expression used to describe certain people’s actions when they act-out in so much vitriol and aggression in accusing someone else of committing this sin or that sin and so on: it’s called “projection.”
People engage in projection when they spend their time (time, energy and money) yelling about ALL the bad things someone else has done, but, in fact, they are, themselves, just as guilty of having done similar things in their life and are covering-up for their own insecurities. (Here’s a better explanation of what I’m talking about.)
In your case, you’ve been involved in electoral politics in Georgia for about 10 years, 4 of which you were a Democrat yourself. Perhaps you voted for Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. In the 1990s, you were not eligible to vote the first time for Bill Clinton, but were in 1996, as I discussed at the beginning, with your “College Democrat” chops.
So, it is odd (to most sane people, that is) that after having a supposed 10 years as a successfully-elected state representative in Georgia, and making the transition to supposedly being a “Republican,” and being comfortable in your new political skin, that you have chosen as your first four mail pieces (as of this point) to communicate to the voters of HD 80 of just how bad a person Catherine Bernard is…and, nothing positive about yourself at all.
Now, FYI…Catherine Bernard has never been elected to any regular political office position. She’s had success in building the Laurens County Republican Party and the North DeKalb Republican Women, and she got elected to be a delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention. That’s about it, Mike. Seriously, that…is…it.
She’s a party activist who’s never run for any public office, and you’re acting like you are the challenger candidate rather than her. You appear to be quite the chickenshit who is very, very, very much afraid that she might beat the snot out of you in a toe-to-toe political match-up.
Thus, you feel this need to charge-out of the gate in fear and act all tough and all by slamming Bernard repeatedly. Well, if nothing else, your actions inspired me to take apart your campaign disclosures and find out what I presented above in terms of your multiple violations of state campaign disclosure laws.
Regardless of how things turnout on May 20th, Mike, I strongly urge you to find a psychiatrist to help you get over this…this….(pondering the right words here)…paranoid-obsession you have with Catherine Bernard.
In fact, Mike, to make sure that all those demons are exorcised from your brain, you should likely seek out a petite, blonde, young female psychiatrist to get into your head and clean out all those nasty demons, both big and small.
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:04 pm
‘…clean out all those nasty demons…”
It would take a dozen Mike Mulligans and their steam shovels.