Facts have it that there are 3 individuals running for Cobb County Commission District #3. Two of these individuals (Steven Moon and Earl Stine) are, truly, just regular people who have lived and worked in their own businesses in Cobb County, paying their own money to join the Cobb Chamber, and participate in Cobb County life.

The third candidate is not a “regular person.” Though she is a nice person, the fact is that JoAnn Birrell works for Waste Management, Inc. as their “community relations specialist.”

In regular-people parlance, that means JoAnn works as a LOBBYIST for Waste Management. Meaning, all those groups she is a member of (Cobb Chamber, other chambers, etc.) has been paid for out of the community relations bank account of Waste Managment, Inc.

Now, I suspect JoAnn will deny that she is a “lobbyist.” Be careful. She put her registered lobbyist status with the State Ethics Commission on the “Inactive Status” for 2010 in order to run for this District 3 position.

But, make no mistake, she still works for Waste Management in that role…and, when it comes to ANY issue where Waste Management will be on one side, and District 3 residents will be on the other side, JoAnn’s first duty will be to protect Waste Management’s interests. You, the District 3 citizen, will be S.O.L.

AND…for you curious folks, I do have proof of her lobbying and expenditures made to government officials. You can go to the Georgia State Ethics Commission Website and look-up her name under the Lobbyist section.

OR, you can simply look at these PDF snapshots I have gathered from that site for the following years that show her expenditure disclosures as a registered lobbyist for Waste Management:

2005 Birrell Lobbyist Disclosure
2006 Birrell Lobbyist Disclosure
2007 Birrell Lobbyist Disclosure
2008 Birrell Lobbyist Disclosure
2009 Birrell Lobbyist Disclosure

I will not advocate who you should vote for instead of JoAnn Birrell…because, honestly, I’ve met both of the other two gentlemen, and they are both qualified to sit on that commission because both are just “regular people” with no agenda other than to represent Cobb County’s District 3 citizens (which comprises of both residents and businesses).

And, I will reiterate this: I get along fine with JoAnn. She is a nice person. BUT..she is not qualified to be my representative on the Cobb County Commission District #3 seat. Some of the folks who have endorsed her are lobbyists themselves. Not that there is anything wrong with that profession (some of those who endorsed her are friends of mine…at least at that moment 🙂

Now, let me be clear…some of my best friends are lobbyists/government relations specialists. There is nothing wrong with being hired to advocate for a company or a cause. That is a legitimate profession.

HOWEVER…if JoAnn remains an employee of Waste Management, Inc. in any way if she gets elected, that won’t pass any smell test of “independent representation” for District #3. See, it is not just the “public votes” that go on by the commission. It is the behind-the-scenes work that the public never sees where damage to public policy in favor of one business over another can hurt the image of our county.

If you are anything like me, you are fed-up with the cronyism in your federal and state government, and you certainly don’t want it for Cobb’s District #3. We have enough problems with the cronysim between the Cobb Development Authority (which JoAnn Birrell used to sit on the board of) and the Cobb Chamber to realize that we just don’t need the lobbyist for a vendor who contracts with Cobb County government to represent US in District #3.

So, if you value your future in District 3, do not vote for a lobbyist like JoAnn Birrell. It’s that simple.

SPECIAL NOTE: I have talked to Cobb GOP Chairman Scott Johnson this morning and he confirmed with me that he has NOT endorsed Jo Ann Birrell as was wrongly printed in the MDJ.

Mr. Johnson, as Cobb GOP chair, has attended events from all three candidates…and for JoAnn to think that because he shows-up at hers means he endorses her is the wrong assumption to make.

It is against Cobb County Republican Party Rules for Mr.Johnson to endorse any candidate in a contested Republican primary, and I know Scott well enough to know he would not break that rule. So, the MDJ was fed inaccurate and incorrect information.

– Bill Simon
10-Year Resident, Cobb County Commission District #3

Rumors have it that Governor Sonny Perdue is contemplating a veto of SB 1, known as either the “Waste Reduction Act of 2009” or, by its more well-known name, the Zero-Base Budgeting Act.

Zero-based budgeting is the act of starting a budget from scratch…with nothing like the typical guvment rule of thumb of looking back at “Well, look at what we spent last year…let’s just add a fudge factor of 5% more for this year’s budget. We’re done!”

According to what PV understands, most of the GOP candidates* for the 2011-2014 reign have stated positions that are in favor of SB 1. Here are some of the quotes we could find regarding SB 1:

Jeff Chapman: “I urge the governor to sign SB1 – we must take meaningful action towards more open and efficient government” (via Twitter)

Nathan Deal: “I support zero-based budgeting and want to implement it so that when the good times return – and they will – this approach will let us resist the urge to ‘regrow’ government and then we can really cut taxes.” (via e-mail)

Eric Johnson: “As Governor, I will direct all state agency heads to implement zero based budgeting so that I, the legislature, and Georgia taxpayers will know exactly what services government is providing and what it costs to provide these services…Like the private sector, government should be in a position to make informed decisions based on the total actual costs of different programs, not just changes in expenditures.” (via his press release on his Website: http://johnsonforgeorgians.com/?p=30 )

John Oxendine: Oxendine has it as #1 on his Contract with Georgia “Make state government smaller and more accountable by implementing zero-base budgeting.”

We have heard from a source that Karen Handel is in support of the Governor signing SB 1. We have no idea how Otis Putnam feels about SB 1.

PV’s Analysis: Frankly, we cannot figure out why the Governor would be hesitant to sign this into law. It’s not as if every single department would have to immediately initiate a zero-based budgeting process. The bill (as passed) calls for the following:

“b) It is the intent of this Code section that in any given year the Governor’s budget report shall include zero-base budgeting for no more than one-third nor less than one-quarter of all the programs in the most recently passed General Appropriations Act. The Office of Planning and Budget shall determine which programs shall submit zero-base budget recommendations in each year; except that no program shall use zero-base budgeting more often than once every four years.”

So, if there are 100 state departments/agencies, etc., in the first go ’round of a zero-based budgeting statutory requirement, the number of departments affected would be between 25 and 33. And, once a department subjected itself to proving its case with a zero-based budget process, it would not have to go through that process for another 4 years.

NOW…there is a reason Sonny would have to possibly be considering vetoing SB 1. And, that reason would be that he still is, truly, a Democrat at heart. Because only a control-freak-Democrat would not care about making a government department run more effectively or efficiently.

Remember Al Gore’s infamous initiative about “reinventing government”, along with a wheelbarrow full of big government manuals? Yeah…you recall the announcement, but no follow-through to speak of, right?

Same thing with Sonny. A whole lot of talk. Not a whole lot of action. Except, of course, for his Go Fish! investment using $27 million of our taxpayer dollars. Bet he’d hate to see how that expenditure could survive a zero-based budgeting process.

And, here’s something to think about: IF all of the candidates* for the GOP nomination would be signing a new version of SB 1 if Sonny vetoes this one…then what might be going through Sonny’s mind about the next Governor of Georgia? Why veto something that would be signed into law (once it ran through the legislature again under another SB#) in 7-8 months?

Well…we think that if he vetoes it, it means he believes that a Republican will NOT win this Fall…and, his legacy of state government will stay intact for at least another 4 years with a new Democrat regime.

So, again, only a TRUE DEMOCRAT would veto SB 1. Is Sonny a true Democrat? We’ll find out by tonight (June 8, 2010) at midnight.

* Yeah, we didn’t try to dig-up anything from McBerry to see what he might think about SB 1. Why? Well, to be quite frank, we’re pretty sure his plan (if he wins) is to annex South Carolina, build-up troops at Fort Sumter, and re-fight the Civil War. Not really going to need SB 1 once the shootin’ starts.

Who Is James C. Gatewood?

According to the State Ethics Commission Website, Mr. Gatewood is the Chairman of the State Ethics Commission. His bio reads as follows (from that same link):

“Mr. Gatewood is an attorney and partner at Gatewood, Skipper & Rambo, PC. He is president of King’s Real Estate, Inc. and owner of Gatewood Farms and Thronateeska Bluffs Plantation, LLC.”

Gatewood, Skipper & Rambo, PC are located in Americus, Georgia.

In 2006…Mr. Gatewood and his firm made several contributions to several Republican candidates and interests. Some of those contributions were made in Mr. Gatewood’s name, using an address different from his firm’s address. Here are two contributions that tell me everything I need to know about where Mr. Gatewood’s bias on the current SEC might lie:

Contribution #1
Contributor Name: James Gatewood
Contributor Date: 6/20/2006
Contribution Amount: $1000
To: Ginger Starlin Campaign Committee
For: Primary
Occupation: Attorney Gatewood, Skipper & Rambo, PC
Address of Contributor:
PO Box 488
Americus, GA 31709

Contribution #2
Contributor Name: James Gatewood
Contributor Date: 8/09/2006
Contribution Amount: $500
To: Georgians for Karen Handel
For: General
Occupation: Attorney, Self-Employed
Address of Contributor:
PO Box 488
Americus, GA 31709

James Gatewood is the same person at that same PO Box address. Now, why the Handel campaign back in 2006 failed to classify Mr. Gatewood as who he really was (i.e., a partner in Gatewood, Skipper & Rambo, PC), I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.

The point is that Mr. Gatewood has a demonstrated bias in favor of a competing candidate (Karen Handel) and he will be sitting in charge of a hearing that will examine one of Handel’s direct opponents, John Oxendine.

Yes, by contributing money to her campaign in 2006, that is physical evidence of a guaranteed bias he will hold. He cannot get away from it. When people contribute to a candidate, they are making an emotional commitment to that candidate. Gatewood knows who Handel is, and therefore, has an emotional connection with her that he does not have the ability to ignore when it comes to him being placed in position in which he can help her.

I guarantee you folks that if there was a member of the SEC who had ever given money to Oxendine, everybody on the Handel Bandwagon would be screaming for that person’s recusal or even resignation.

PV’s Note to Mr. Gatewood: Do you have the balls to recuse yourself, Sir? Or, do you wish to be known as the “Unethical SEC Commissioner?”

These Questions Should Be Asked Of The SEC:

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You might recall a few weeks ago the FOX 5 TV story by Dale Russell that discussed incidences of 2 corporate entities getting their “identity” stolen and credit cards issued in the corporate name to fraudulent people.

You also might recall that the Doug MacGinnitie campaign, smelling blood in the water, took it upon themselves to launch a pretty vicious attack on SOS Brian Kemp, and blaming him for the security breeches.

In a blog post Dale Russell made on PeachPundit.com shortly after his story aired, Dale stated the following: “The federal indictment was this year…The two victims in tonight’s story reported their corporate identity theft to the Secretary of State’s office in 2007 and 2009 respectively.”

(Note to Erick, Icarus, and any other Handel supporter on PeachPundit: Take it down if you want to…I have a PDF copy of the whole thread. 🙂

So, if the breech incidents actually occurred in 2007 and in 2009, Brian Kemp could not have been responsible in ANY way for those events because Karen Handel was the SOS from 2007 through 2009.

So, the person MacGinnitie and ANYONE else should be blaming for the identity breeches is Karen Handel. She is the one who was SOS when the complaint was made in 2007…and because she had her eye only focused on how good she had to look when she ran for Governor in 2010, Handel ignored the 2007 complaint and failed to make changes to protect the entity in 2009 who got his business identity compromised.

Handel was too busy firing personnel and starving the Corporations Division of repair funds to take care of an annoying little thing like “security.” It was not, in any way, the responsibility of Brian Kemp for those two breeches. Everyone got it now?

Karen Handel is hereby charged with Gross Dereliction of Duty by failing to protect the corporate citizens who rely on the Secretary of State’s office to take at LEAST the minimum standard of care to protect them.

Wow. Shocker tonight. Peach Punditeer Charlie “Icarus” Harper admits publicly he is for Karen Handel for Governor. As if no one could see past any of his posts and false claims up until this point to have not known it.

I’d post a link to the story, but (yawn) why?

Rumors have it that at a recent fundraiser for Brian Kemp held in Athens, the Doug MacGinnitie campaign hired a photographer to stand across the street from the house where the fundraiser was being held, and just take pictures one-by-one as fundraiser attendees (some of them with their children in tow) drove-up and got out of their cars to enter the fundraiser.

At one point, the photographer decided it would be a good idea to cross the street and walk onto the actual private property of the place where the fundraiser was being held. At that point, the property owner promptly approached the photographer and told him to get off the property or he would get him arrested for trespassing. The photographer wisely departed, camera and pictures still in hand.

PV’s Analysis: Really, now, Doug? Are you and your campaign manager Brandon Phillips now taking the tact of snapping photos of fundraiser attendees…some of whom bring their whole family? For what inane purpose do you have? Are you going to post them all on the Web in some kind of collage now? Or, are you developing an “enemies list” in case you (cough!-cough!) win and you’re going to track these attendees down and extort them?

Seriously. WTF is up with taking pictures of the attendees to fundraisers your opposition holds? What are you doing with all those pictures…?

A LOT of people involved in politics use words and terminology they really do not understand. Take, for example, the term “political opportunist.”

Many ill-informed political activists think the definition of this means “someone involved in politics who takes advantage of an opportunity that comes their way.” Not even close.

A political opportunist is a political person who sacrifices his/her principles to gain a position for expedient purposes only.

Take, for example, Karen Handel. She has two previous races, at least one of which she won through employing the convenience of political opportunism.

Please set your political history clocks back to mid-2003: Republican Mike Kenn had resigned as Fulton County Commission Chair, opening-up the seat to be filled in a special, non-partisan election that November. The race was filled with many candidates several of whom were Republican. Karen Handel, who had served for a few months as Deputy Chief of Staff of newly-elected Governor Sonny Perdue, was one of those candidates.

Fulton County had been run by left-wingers forever, with them consistently holding a majority of 4-to-3 over the Republicans on the Commission. The chairman’s spot had been occupied by a Republican since early 1990s when Mitch Skandalakis first won. Mike Kenn replaced him when Mitch left to run for Lt. Governor in 1998.

Lest I bore you too much, let’s all visit an article written by Ryan Lee, a reporter with the (now defunct) Southern Voice newspaper/online publication: August 15, 2003 (click the link to the PDF). At the bottom of that first page, it starts to read as follows:
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[Begin Excerpt #1]

Georgia Log Cabin Republicans is endorsing Handel, something the gay GOP group did in last November’s race.

“We will be continuing our support for Karen Handel,” said Marc Yeager, the group’s president. “She demonstrated in her last run that she was supportive of domestic partner benefits, and she’s supported same-sex adoptions on the basis of the best interest of the child.”

Handel also received an endorsement from the bipartisan gay rights group Georgia Equality during the Republican primary in 2002, according to Allen Thornell, the group’s executive director.

In the candidate survey Georgia Equality distributed last year, Handel indicated support establishing a domestic partner benefits policy, but opposed creating a domestic partner registry, citing privacy concerns, Thornell said.

“I’ve had strong support within the gay and lesbian community,” Handel said. “I’d like to not put people in boxes and categories because at the end of the day we’re all citizens.”

“We may not always be able to agree, but there will always, always be an open door and a seat at the table,” Handel said.

[End Excerpt #1]
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When she ran for Secretary of State in 2006, she flipped on ALL of these positions and re-branded herself as a “hard-charging, the-gay-and-lesbian-community-are-lying-and-Bill-Stephens-is-lying-and-I-hate-gays-and-I-hate-lesbians-and-they-should-all-go-to-Hell” type of conservative Republican that this party just loves to follow into battle, regardless of whether the candidate has any kind of true integrity.

BUT, the proof is in the article I cited above, as well as in a follow-up article on September 26, 2003, that she did support a slew of gay issues when she was running for Fulton County Commission Chair (from Page 3 of this 9/26/2003 article):
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[Begin Excerpt #2]

“We remain having a great relationship with Karen,” Yeager said. “She’s definitely on board with Log Cabin and a lot of our issues. She’s been visible and active in the gay community with her campaigning and has made herself known.”

Handel is a member of Log Cabin Republicans and attends numerous gay events, including Atlanta Pride in June and a Human Rights Campaign barbecue in August.

“I don’t think, perhaps as a party, [Republicans] have been as open-minded about things as we should have,” Handel said Monday. “Even though I’m a Republican, I don’t agree 100 percent with the things in the platform.”

[End Excerpt #2]
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If this blog does not get updated frequently enough for you, there’s an EASY solution for you: Sign-up for our e-mailed newsletter. It is composed separately from this blog location and gets mailed-out way more frequently than the blog gets updated.

There are two steps:

1) Go here and enter your own e-mail address: Sign-up for PV Newsletters

2) Wait for the confirmed OPT-IN e-mail to confirm, and then you will be on The List (and, in with the IN Crowd)

There have been impeachment articles filed against soon-to-be-Judge Shawn LaGrua. The articles that lay-out her violations of state law can be found here.

Word in the halls of the Georgia Gold Dome is that Speaker Ralston is “good friends” with LaGrua and won’t let an investigation occur. If true, that is a pity. What better way to demonstrate your “friend” isn’t guilty of anything than having an investigation that may exonerate her?

As it stands now, it looks like the Georgia House of Representatives is run not too differently under Ralston than it was being run under Richardson: Good ‘ole boys protecting their friends. Nice.

Two pieces of legislation in the Georgia General Assembly have recently caught my eye (and my mind) and stirred me up to conceptually ponder that perhaps we need to stop analyzing proposed laws based on the party affiliation of the lead sponsor and co-sponsors, and, instead, crystallize the analysis down to whether the proposed legislation meets one (and only one) of these two criteria: Is it Pro-State, or is it Pro-You?*

Let me explain what is in my mind when I use these terms. Being pro-State (with a capital “S”) means the legislation is necessary to enable to State to have more and more power over your (and your fellow inhabitants’) daily life. By “State”, I do not merely mean the State of Georgia, but any government, whether it is federal, state, county or city.

Being pro-You (with a capital “Y”) means the legislation is concentrated on increasing your rights of freedom and protecting you from the abuses of the State.

The writers of our U.S. Constitution knew the dangers of having too strong of a State. That is why they amended the Constitution with the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights are all pro-You.

Obama’s and the national Dems’ goal for nationalizing healthcare is all about Pro-State, and quite anti-You.

And, by the way, in the construct of Pro-State vs, Pro-You legislation, the terms “conservative”, “liberal”, “Republican”, “Democrat”, etc. have absolutely no meaning. It may take some time to figure out what a piece of legislation does, and what category it fits in, but you can no longer rely on the political affiliation of someone to know if the vote was right or wrong. One would need to go deeper than who voted for what bill to determine if it was a “good” bill just because “so-and-so” sponsored it.

Now, this categorization in my mind is what developed after I read and pondered bills like SB 318 and HB 842.

*Note: Granted, there is likely some legislation that cannot easily be placed in either of these buckets. I’ll propose two other possible categories if need be in my new construct of legislation analysis: Miscellaneous and the WTF Category^TM.

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GREAT Video! About 5 minutes of your time:

Hot off the press from The Hill, the straw poll at the annual meeting of “CPAC” (Conservative Political Action Committee) voted on candidates they’d like to see on a conservative ticket in 2012:

#1: Ron Paul (31% of the vote)
#2: Mitt Romney (22%)
#3: Sarah Palin (Erick’s fav at 7%)
#4: Tim Pawlenty (6%)
#5: Mike Pence (5%)
#6: Newt Gingrich (4%)