Political Vine: The Insider's Source on Georgia Politics

BACKGROUND OF RELEVANT EVENTS September 2008-October 2008 timeframe: Preparation for election commences with the checking-out process of the voting machines. Laura Gallegos (pronounced guy-AY-gos) and Gina Lofton (two Lowndes County BOE employees) placed each machine in pre-test mode and performed logic and accuracy testing (“L & A” tests) on the machines used for the general […]

Rumors have it that in at least one circumstance (and, possibly, many others), former Secretary of State Karen Handel violated her oath of office by asserting authority she did not possess, and allowing Secretary of State Inspector General Shawn LaGrua free reign to initiate an investigation of a complaint of an election night irregularity without […]

Rumors have it that questions are beginning to surface regarding just how the Elections Division’s Office of the Inspector General was established under former Secretary of State Karen Handel’s administration, and whether aspects of it were legally operating under Georgia state statute. PV Background: Prior to Handel’s administration, there was no “Office of the Inspector […]

Contact: Garland Favorito (404) 664-4044 garlandf@msn.com http://www.voterga.org January 18, 2009 ATLANTA, GA – All matters asserted against former Lowndes County elections technician, Laura Gallegos, were dismissed last Thursday during an administrative hearing. The State Election Board (SEB) had accused her of improper testing which led to the inclusion of 947 test votes in the 2008 […]

At a recent Arizona town hall meeting with President Obama, there was one person carrying a rifle. It happened to have been a black gun-owner with an AR-15 on his shoulder standing with other gun owners outside the town hall building. In the story, MSNBC shows only a carefully cropped video of that black gun-owner […]

The one great thing about YouTube is that you don’t have to do a whole lot of prep work…all you need to do is point to a link. (But, pardon me while I do a little prep work.) Once you get past the first 2 minutes of preliminaries, the meat of this video begins. The […]

I really don’t have the desire to debate the issue contained within the text of Georgia HR 536, The Paramount Right To Life Amendment. Most of you know where I stand, and I know where most of you stand. To debate what you believe and what I believe about when human life begins will end-up […]

The fact is, apparently Liz Young knew enough about him to know that he WOULD have liked the e-mailed comment about Judge Carol Hunstein being a “one-legged Jewish lady from DeKalb County”. I’ve met Mike Wiggins. I’m not impressed. He is running for a judgeship when he has had ZERO experience practicing law under the […]

The conservative newspaper in D.C., The Washington Times, is now calling on Speaker Hastert to resign from his position because he now acknowledges that he knew, at minimum, about the e-mails between Foley and a teen Page in late 2005. (Hat Tip to Bull Moose over at Peach Pundit for the story link.) I think […]

Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R) is quoted in Saturday’s AJC as stating “[HB 1325 is] not a bad bill…It just hasn’t been explained.” Wrong, Senator Williams. Not only is HB 1325 a bad bill, but, with nearly the entire Republican caucus of the House voting in favor of it, it becomes a VERY bad […]

The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) recently filed a complaint on Norquist’s use of the ATR bank account to launder money for anti-lottery fights in Alabama coordinated by [tag]Ralph Reed[/tag] and [tag]Jack Abranoff[/tag].

Folks, what’s next? Perhaps lawyers will next be granted the right to write prescriptions? After all, according to Rep. Earl Ehrhart’s logic, a person who has gone through 4 years of college and 4 years of optometry schooling must be perfectly capable of writing prescriptions for the eye. And, if they screw-up, they can only be sued for a maximum of $350,000 for malpractice. Why not a lawyer who has gone through 7 years of schooling?