Political Vine: The Insider's Source on Georgia Politics

Prelude I am reminded of a scene from the movie Lethal Weapon 2 where, towards the end of the movie, one of the evil guys from South Africa and the cop character that Danny Glover played are in a standoff. The evil guy is standing on a platform about 50 feet higher than Glover’s character […]

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. […]

“American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.” Read the story here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/revealed-inside-story-of-us-envoys-assassination-8135797.html

For Immediate Release Media Contact Claire Bartlett 404-384-3256 Transportation Leadership Coalition Calls for Removal of Penalty in TIA / T-SPLOST Penalty for voting “no” potentially adds hundreds of millions of dollars of expense to already cash-strapped local governments’ transportation funding. (August 3, 2012, Roswell, GA) – The voters have spoken and T-SPLOST is defeated. Unfortunately, […]

Prologue If you have not heard about the recent case of Gwinnett County Commissioner Shirley Lasseter getting caught trading votes for money, click that link and read up on it. I’m not interested in discussing that case. I’m going to discuss the bribery that goes on in every county commission, in every government office in […]

Rumors have it that State Rep Earl Ehrhart may be under the mistaken impression that it is the Georgia State Legislature that has authority over how Community Improvement Districts (“CIDs”) spend tax dollars. PV Offers Exhibit A: In today’s Marietta Daily Journal article detailing the money spent by the Cumberland CID and the Town Center […]

To: Mr. Sam Olens, Attorney General So, Mr. Olens, we’re kinda, sorta puzzled about what it is you think your role is as Attorney General of Georgia, and how you actually promulgate your duties in real life: 1) You bring forth new legislation that causes news organizations up and down this state to swoon and […]

MEMORANDUM To: Mr. Sam Olens, Attorney General Sir, you are familiar with the Georgia Constitution, correct? The one you swore an oath to uphold when you became a licensed attorney in Georgia? Specifically, we’d like to point you to this section: Article 1, Section 1, Paragraph X states the following: “No bill of attainder, ex […]

The Meat and Potatoes of SB 448 In order to best explain what this legislation is designed to accomplish, let’s take a hypothetical case study: Let’s say, hypothetically, that there was a guy named Masun Wain Williams and, back in 2005, he owned a land development company called Swampland Development LLC (“SDL”). Williams spotted a […]

Rumors have it that while Attorney General Sam Olens and State Representative Jay Powell have been touting HB 397 as “The Sunshine Bill” designed to provide more “transparency” to state, county and local governments, in fact, it is making it more challenging to access information by way of throwing-up financial barriers to make it more […]

Rumors have it that a multi-agent special investigative squad assembled by the FBI in August 2011 is here in Georgia because of a certain straw that was laid on the camel’s back in June 2011 at the Georgia State Ethics Commission, and broke it. First published by Jim Walls over at Atlanta Unfiltered tonight, Walls […]

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