“No matter what they say it’s about, it’s always about money.” — Bill O’Neil, American Businessman

Two movies come to mind to set the mood here to describe all the nonsense from the House GOP folks, the state GOP chairman, and the various and sundry useful idiots acting out their roles: Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and Charade. Two great movies from yesteryear.

Within a few days, this incident may be referred to in Sam Moore’s circles as “Mr. Moore Goes to Atlanta.”

Outside of Moore’s world, it will be recognized by the smarter people for the absolute charade that was developed by Speaker David Ralston, his political consultants, and the various other entities.  (Wow!  Jerry Keen?  You folks couldn’t have dug-up a better person to act indignant on air?   Say, Jerry, have you been a good little faithful boy to your latest wife?)

The other people will continue to wring their hands and fret about bullshit like “What impact will this have on the future of the GOP in Georgia?  OMG!  Is the Senate in jeopardy?  Do we have to circle the wagons for the Governor?   Are we all doomed?”  (Yeah, the kvetching on Facebook has been utterly amazing and demonstrates a gullibility of epic proportions.  And, YOU people cannot fathom the hysteria that you witness when Democrats lose their sh*t, and here you are acting the same way.)

The Reason for The Charade

Just like in the movie Charade, there is something of value at stake here for Ralston and his boys and girls to fabricate the charade they did.  Just like that quote at the very top of this Vine: “No matter what they say it’s about, it’s always about money.”

Ladies & Gentlemen, the whole dramatic show on Friday (and the one continuing) was all about money.  Money and Power.  And, because the “power” is all about spending and directing money millions of dollars, the point of the charade is an attempt to change the outcome of an election that happened a couple of weeks prior.

Two numbers you should keep in mind: 58% and 42%.  58% was the winning margin Sam Moore had over Meagan Biello‘s 42%. 

David Ralston is PISSED that his candidate, the lap-dog candidate Biello, lost her ass in that run-off.  Ralston likes his power in the House.  He likes his position as King.  He hates to lose.

Sam Moore poses a threat to him.  Ralston knows Moore cannot be bent to his will.  So, since Moore will never “join” the Ralston Support Group (“RSG”), the RSG’s job is to beat him in any way possible.

The Charade

So, last Thursday, there was someone reviewing the bills of the day that had gone thru First Reader.  Perhaps Ralston had designated someone to do that to look specifically for any bill from Moore.  Or, maybe someone is always there, checking First Readers.

The main point is that HAD this bill been dropped by ANY other House member, it would have gone through a completely different channel process.

Instead, Ralston seized upon it as though he was Lex Luther and HB 1033 was kryptonite for Sam Moore.

So, on last Thursday, the RSG huddled together to figure out how to best use it.  One thing they immediately did was notify the Cherokee Tribune (the newspaper whose former editor, Barbara Jacoby, works as the media person for the Cherokee County School System under Superintendent Dr. Frank Petruzielo).

The relevance of this is that the Tribune loves and helps any candidate for office that Petruzielo wants, and he wants his teacher from Creekview, teacher’s union darling Meagan Biello, to be the state rep instead of Sam Moore.

I know they notified the Tribune first thing because in Rep. Scot Turner’s video speech from the well last Friday, he remarked that “yesterday” he received a call from the Tribune about HB 1033.  Ergo, the political campaign for Biello was set in process on Thursday.

The RSG “mechanic” for that Thursday call to the Tribune was, I’m pretty sure, Jeremy Brand of Parlay Political, LLC.  Parlay Political is the political consulting firm of Jeremy Brand and Joel McElhannon (who used to operate under South, LLC).

Why do I say Jeremy?  Because he was the main consultant for Meagan Biello’s run-off.

AND…Parlay is also the consultant for Ralston’s campaign…along with an array of establishment GOP candidates.  (Here is a link to all their current clients)

So, that is how that info about Moore’s bill got to the Tribune in time for them to write a story and publish it for Friday morning, well ahead of the time for the House Leadership to have planned their strategy for the Caucus on Friday morning so that everything would hit the fan at the same exact time.

The strategy by the RSG (in either the morning caucus meeting or, perhaps, an email…I’m not entirely sure of the mechanism of message delivery) was to tell the caucus the following, basic line of bullshit:  “If the Democrats get ahold of this and find out that one of our own is proposing to allow sex predators to go on school property, we will ALL go down!  We could lose the U.S. Senate! You have to all go to the well and express your disgust with this bill and get as far away from it as possible!”

And then, Georgia GOP Chairman John Padgett “decided” to weigh-in on the issue via an email to the GaGOP list.  (Here is a link to that email. )

Now, “decided” is in quotes because I’m pretty sure John Padgett did not have a freaking clue as to what was going on in the State House.  The letter, I’m fairly certain, was composed by Joel McElhannon.

How could he have done that?  Because if you look on that link above to Parlay’s clients, the State GOP pays them $5000 per month for “Victory Consulting.”  So, Joel has direct access to the State GOP’s resources.

[Side Note 1 to John Padgett:  One of my sources informs me that back during your campaign for state chair, you promised that you would bid-out business to all consultants…and you’ve simply awarded the Victory contract to Parlay.  Nothing against Parlay, but you, if you told people this to get them to work for you, and then you turned around and didn’t follow through on your promise…well, that makes you look kinda like a liar.  Not that that likely matters to you.]

[Side Note 2 to John Padgett:  7th District Executive Committee Member  Bill Evelyn penned a rather brilliant email to the state committee stating that if you’re going to start tracking legislation and becoming incensed about stupid bills, maybe you should speak-up about the budget bill sponsored by David Ralston, Jan Jones, Larry O’Neal, and Terry England that includes funding for ObamaCare.  You know…if you actually have balls to go after real problem legislation sponsored by GOP members.]

So, anyway, when there is one political consulting firm directly connected to Ralston, Biello, and the State GOP, they have a lot of “resources” at their disposal  to gin-up all the negative crap they can find to try their best to bury Sam Moore.  And that is what this whole charade is all about.  All this noise is only designed for Biello to defeat Moore on May 20th.  

Those of you who are actively participating in this charade, under the impression that a bill filed by a rookie state rep COULD “cause us to lose the U.S. Senate” demonstrate a total lack of political acumen. Seriously? We must have the weakest senate potential if the mere knowledge of this bill coming from a Republican could “kill” those chances.  Y’all can all consider yourselves to be nothing but… useful idiots to Ralston’s game of charades.

AND…just to provide you with a real-life basis for my claim, all I need to do is go back in time to when my friend Bobby Franklin was proposing ALL kinds of legislation that, not only made the establishment grit their teeth and sigh, but if any of these bills had come to be passed, the Democrats would have had kittens all over the place and surely we would have lost races up and down the ticket had these bills been more well-known (based on the very scary “logic” used for Moore’s HB 1033 bill).

As an example to show you, let’s look back at 2011 when State Representative Bobby Franklin sponsored HB 17, a bill which proposed to abolish the Georgia Department of Human Services.

Do you know what DHS does?  According to their website, it is THE agency in Georgia the public goes to to report such things like elder abuse, child abuse, helping people find family violence help, etc.

Based on the logic for Moore’s 1033, the hue and the cry if the Democrats had discovered this bill would have been deafening, right?  I mean, Bobby Franklin was proposing getting rid of an ENTIRE “human services-oriented” agency that helped children who were being abused, and help contain family violence.

And yet…not nary a peep from good ‘ole Ralston and his RSG.   Mmm.  Why not, Mr. Speaker?

Here’s another one Franklin sponsored: HB 7, a bill written to abolish driver’s licenses.  Can you imagine what the effect would be if all of a sudden, people didn’t have a driver’s license for ID?  Why, the cops couldn’t stop people on the street and demand to see their license to make sure they’re not wanted by police, or (worse) that they’re not a pedophile, could they?  Oh my GOSH!

Why, if this bill had ever gotten just a smidgeon of Democrat examination back then, the Democrats would have likely swept all offices in the legislature back in 2012 because, essentially, Franklin was proposing a way to make it so people could freely travel without a driver’s license, and cops could never run their license to see who they are and if they are a proper “law-abiding” citizen.

In Conclusion

Now, the foregoing is a description of the charade at hand that happened on Friday and continued thru the weekend.

I have talked to Sam Moore several times this weekend, and I know he has recognized some reality of the situation…and he has come to understand more fully the difference between how things work in the real world of the House, and what his perception was of how they worked.

I know he has been working pretty hard on a speech he will make today from the well.  I’m not sure of his entire message, nor am I certain of what his final decision will be with regards to either staying in the House or resigning.  I know he’s a bit tired from being up late on Friday and Saturday nights.  Guess we will all see what he has decided later this morning.

This entry was posted by Bill Simon, on Monday, February 24th, 2014 at 10:07 am and is filed under Georgia Politics, Georgia Races, Georgia State House, Law and Justice, Life & Liberty, Odds and Ends and Tagged: Bobby Franklin, David Ralston, HB 1033, Meagan Biello, Parlay Political, Sam Moore
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