Let’s travel back in time just a few weeks…to this published edition of the Vine newsletter that informed you about two members of the Georgia State Patrol who were directed/requested to “visit” a civilian on March 11 on behalf of State Representative Terry England (Douchebag-HD 116)

Since that time, there have been questions asked as to the jurisdiction allowed by the GEorgia STate PatrOl (aka “GESTAPO”). At the time of the incident back in March, the two GESTAPO agents reportedly told the civilian that “We investigate campaign financing and handle Capitol security—part of that job is protecting elected officials…”

Now, according to research on OCGA law, that explanation for the probable cause visit appears to be, potentially, contrary to the actual state law, and quite possibly, contrary to several Federal Statutes.

Regarding the claim by the GESTAPO agents that “[We] handle Capitol security…”, the OCGA law on what the Capitol Police are responsible for appears to be laid-out in OCGA-35-2-122. Of particular note is Paragraph a), which states as follows:

“a) The division shall have jurisdiction and the primary duty to enforce all laws in Capitol Square and the property and buildings owned by the Georgia Building Authority within a five-mile radius of Capitol Square.”

You know what “Capitol Square” means? It is the square of land upon which the Gold Dome building sits where our esteemed legislature legislates. A five-mile radius of that location in the City of Atlanta does not extend to Gwinnett County or Barrow County. That distance might get you, if you travel north from MLK Jr Drive, as far north as North Druid Hills Road & I-85, in DeKalb County. (Sorry, GESTAPO LEOs, you missed the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police by at least 5 miles when you visited the home of someone living in Gwinnett County under the auspice of working for the Capitol Police division.)

Then, there is the stipulated jurisdiction of the GESTAPO itself, as per these two sections, OCGA § 35-2-32 and OCGA § 35-2-33. In reading those two sections, it truly appears that the primary jurisdiction of the GESTAPO is patrolling highways and public roads, and crimes that are happening, or may be about to happen, with regards to traffic laws and such types of laws as they occur while traveling on public roads.

However, through a couple of email conversations with the Open Records Act personnel at the GESTAPO HQ this past week, we learned that there was another potential OCGA law that the two GESTAPO agents could have been operating under.

In OCGA 35-2-73. Employment of security guards, it lays out law regarding how certain specific government officials are to be protected, and it leaves open the possibility that the Governor could direct LEOs (“Law Enforcement Officers”) to protect other individuals. In the first paragraph of OCGA 35-2-73, the last sentence in bold states: “…and such other state property and individuals as may be directed by the Governor.”

Wow…maybe the GESTAPO agents were saved by an order by the Governor directing them to “keep watch over and protect” State Rep Terry England, huh? ‘Cause that would justify their involvement, right?

Unfortunately…for the GESTAPO agents acting on behalf of State Rep. Terry England, paid for out of public taxpayer funds, to harass, bully, and intimidate a civilian practicing his Constitutional rights to express his free speech rights…that avenue of authorization was shut-off when the question dealing specifically with whether that authorization existed from the Governor was answered on Friday, April 8 through an Open Records Request with the Department of Public Safety:

“We have conducted a search of the Georgia Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) written communications and found no responsive records. There are also no voicemail messages that match your inquiry.”

The two officers visiting the civilian back on March 11 claimed to have gotten direct orders from The Colonel of the Georgia State Patrol. Unnerving, isn’t it, that the concept of a “Colonel” fits quite nicely with the concept of the GESTAPO? It’s kinda like we’re all living in prisoner barracks, subject to random visits by LEOs engaged in political harassment at the behest of elected officials. (Mmm…if only there was a higher legal-entity that might have something to say about the use of taxpayer funds for political purposes…is it the A-B-C?….No, that doesn’t sound right…the F-U-K?…No, that’s something else entirely…OH! Maybe, it’s the F-B-I?)

With regards to the GESTAPO agents’ claim that they have jurisdiction over “campaign disclosures,” that’s a crock of crappola because it is only the Georgia Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission (f/k/a “State Ethics Commission”, now known as “GGTCFC”) that has jurisdiction over any part of OCGA 21-5-1 et seq.

Ohhh…here’s a news tip to any reporters who are on the Vine list: According to OCGA, the members of the GGTCFC shall only serve for one term, and the maximum length of time a term is defined in the law is 4 years (i.e., specifically, that appointee is only an appointee named from the Senate Committee on Appointments). The other member terms are stated in the law and on this Web page at the top to be either 2 or 3 years, respectively, and then they cannot be reappointed (again, it’s in the law that commission appointees shall serve for only one term).

So, news reporters, do the math on the appointment of Hillary Stringfellow, appointed by David Ralston in 2010…and do the math on Heath Garrett, appointed by Governor Deal in the Fall of 2011. How does this “ethics” commission continue to operate legally?

Now, back to the discussion of the GESTAPO. It was discovered this week via Open Records Request that there is no record at GESTAPO HQ that this incident of these two agents visiting the civilian on March 11…ever…happened.

Gasp! Golly, Wally, what to do? If there’s no record…if there was nothing ever filed….if we don’t even know the names of the two purported GESTAPO officers who are alleged to have made this visit, what EVER can we poor, humble seekers of truth and justice do?

Well, luckily for us (and you folks watching at home), we humble seekers of truth and justice have in our hot little hands a 2-page letter written and signed by a couple of lawyers who, while they may think they are God’s Gift to the World, in actuality, they may have just opened themselves up to a world of legal hurt via some teeny-tiny Rules of the State Bar of Georgia (and, potentially, criminal hurt for themselves and their Client, Terry England).

Ladies & Gentlemen, when all else fails…

Leave it to the Lawyers (to eff it up)

Before reading this letter, PV was under the impression that Ben Vinson was a mere lobbyist, toiling away at trying to get legislators to give his clients mo’ money and freebies in the law. But, now, we’re like “Wow, Ben, you’re a real lawyer…”

So, here’s a link to THE LETTER, and let’s proceed with the examination and discussion of its contents.

1) First and foremost, if you turn to Page 2 of this letter, in the last paragraph, Randy Evans/Ben Vinson makes a direct reference to the visit by the Georgia State Patrol, not once, but twice. So, there’s no mistake…Mr. Newton did not lie about the incident with the GESTAPO….these two lawyers are kind enough to state, in writing, that the incident occurred. (Kudos, Mr. Evans/Mr. Vinson) Then, let’s look at the lovely claims by these two Dentons’ lawyers.

2) Back to Page 1, 2nd real paragraph, beginning with “It has recently come to our attention that you…” whereupon they appear to operate under the theory that if you are a lawyer, and you claim that something is “false” three times in a legal letter, that it must mean what they are saying is true (insert Bronx cheer here).

Then, the Lawyers conclude that paragraph with a reference to the State’s legislative website (the one that has all the legislation that State Rep. Terry England has voted in favor of over the years, including every budget that finances the importation of Muslim and Syrian refugees), as if to say “There, Ladies and Gentlemen, THERE’S ALL THE PROOF IN THE WORLD needed to prove my client is not what these flyers claim he is!”

Wow….all PV can say is ‘Looking forward to seeing your Client on the witness stand answering questions to a jury of 12 taxpayers already pissed-off at what their State Legislature does in their names…and that gasoline tax…and the TSPLOST that will be ongoing by the time this case reaches a jury…and the lobbyists’ spending on him…and all those supposed committee days he got reimbursed per diems for…’

3) Then, the letter gets to the meatier stuff. First is the Lawyers’ claim that Terry England did “fully perform on a personal farm loan financed by the State of Georgia.” Meaning, according to the Lawyers, he paid off the loan. But, did he? Because…

a) According to the political research/news Website, AtlantaUnfiltered.com, in an in-depth story published on February 25, 2013 (PDF copy here if that link does not work)…“…The property was rezoned in February 2013 to allow a church to operate there under a lease-purchase arrangement that will cover payments on the debt.”

Compare the meaning of the statement from AtlantaUnfiltered.com with this statement from top of Page 2 of the Lawyers’ Letter: “Representative England saw to it that payments continued to be made on time.”

How could one reconcile those two statements? Easily. England got the church to pay the debt…and by doing so, England “saw to it that payments continued to be made on time.”

But, that does not mean that England, himself, paid back the loan. And, that was the point of this flyer…that England didn’t, himself, pay the loan back out of his own money.

Now, if the Lawyers feel their statement of “Representative England saw to it that payments continued to be made on time.” is valid as to England being personally responsible for paying back the loan, then they owe AtlantaUnfiltered.com a legal demand letter to alter that story because that story is the basis for the claim in the flyer that England did not pay his own debts off.

Now, there is one absolutely certain way this matter can all be wrapped-up neatly: You Lawyers go obtain an actual, notarized affidavit from the church’s pastor that the church did not takeover the debt from England, and England paid the loan back out of his own pocket. You know, if, in fact, Terry England was truthful to the Lawyers…or, if the Lawyers are being truthful in this letter…that would wrap-up this whole matter of how the loan was paid back. Until that time, it looks more like legal foreplay of not addressing the actual issue of how the loan was paid back.

b) On Page 2 of the Letter, first full paragraph, the Lawyers make reference to “…Such statements cross the line of what is permissible under Georgia law and constitute a wrongful incitement of individuals to commit trespass on Representative England’s property. Should that happen, you will be personally responsible for any and all damage that may result.”

It’s always fascinating to PV when lawyers don’t bother to actually look-up the OCGA citation that supports their threats. Because…if you notice in the letter, all Randy Evans refers to is “…permissible under Georgia law.”

However, in OCGA, there are only 6 occurrences of the use of the word “incite”: One has to do with inciting others to overthrow the government (sorry, not applicable here, though it does seem more so that England’s illegal use of the two GESTAPO officers to intimidate Mr. Newton more resembles the overthrow of Georgia’s Constitutional form of government than anything else), three instances of the word incite have to do with sections of OCGA dealing with Fair Labor Practices (Nope, those don’t apply here either), one instance appearing to have to do with contributing to the delinquency of a minor via pornography (is Terry England underage?), and one instance having to do with encouraging someone else to take immediate ‘breach of the peace’ action via their verbal utterance of ‘fighting words’ to that other person.

Words printed on a flyer, whether inviting/encouraging someone to go visit their state legislator at his/her home, or telling someone in writing to stick it up their attorney’s rear-end, are not words that fit Georgia’s legal definition of the term utterance (which means, exclusively, “a spoken word, statement, or vocal sound”).

So, to the Lawyers’ written threat regarding Mr. Newton being responsible in any way for some constituent of State Rep. Terry England to engage in damaging Mr. England’s property, due to his printing of England’s home address on a flyer (an address, by the way, easily obtained via the State Disclosure Website via people looking-up Terry England’s Publicly Available Financial Disclosure) not being “permissible under Georgia Law”…PV encourages you two lawyers to carefully read this citation from the State Bar’s Website: RULE 4.1 TRUTHFULNESS IN STATEMENTS TO OTHERS.

Federal Laws of Interest

There are a minimum of four federal statutes that point to the illegality of the egregious nature of a combination of State Rep Terry England’s involvement in getting two Georgia State Patrol officers dispatched, unlawfully, to pay a visit, without ANY probable cause associated with their official duties with the Georgia Department of Public Safety, along with anyone at the DPS who is now sitting on information regarding this matter, along with the potential involvement of the head of the Georgia State Patrol in authorizing the visit to Mr. Newton’s home…and, potentially, whatever knowledge these two attorneys are in possession of now regarding the visit by the two GSP officers, they may find themselves subject to answering a federal judge’s questions under 18 USC 3 & 4…because it is their client, State Rep. Terry England, who is the one appearing to be directly involved in the conspiracy to deprive Mr. Newton of his Constitutional rights.

Here is a good introduction to some federal laws that trump Georgia’s lack of laws that control illegal and unethical public employees from engaging in what they have been engaging in with this entire matter:

18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241

18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242

18 U.S. Code § 3 – Accessory after the fact: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3

18 U.S. Code § 4 – Misprision of felony: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/4

42 U.S. Code § 1983 – Civil action for deprivation of rights: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983

42 U.S. Code § 1985 – Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights – https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1985

Cheers!

Introduction

Imagine the following conversation occurring in the female inmate section of the Cobb County Jail…in present time period:

Inmate 1: “So, what are you gals in for?”
Inmate 2: “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Inmate 3: “I got caught with less than an ounce of weed.”
Inmate 4: “I got arrested for using a credit card that wasn’t mine.”
Inmate 5: “I got caught with an open beer in my car.”
Inmate 6: “I changed lanes improperly.”
Inmate 7: “I got caught shoplifting.”
Inmate 8: “I sent an email to Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee to ask if he wanted to have lunch.”

A GASP! is uttered by all the women within earshot of hearing what Inmate 8 said. “Oh, no, Girl! That’s the worse crime there is on the planet! Those men on the Cobb County Commission are nothing but girly-men…they are afraid of their own shadow!….And those men who are in the Cobb Chamber?…Lordy-lordy! All the stories I hear…yeah, they run around on their wives all the time they say they’re going to some meetin’… Girl, no wonder you got arrested. They are all nothin’ but slimy snakes…and they hate to have to deal with anyone who dares to challenge their authority!”

The Saga of Susan McCoy Continues

I doubt the Marietta Daily Journal will even cover the latest news on Susan McCoy. It could have been covered in this past Saturday’s edition….they had time to put the story together. They chose not to because…if they had, they would have exposed the fact that, at minimum, Tim Lee and Michael Paris are prissy little whining bitches masquerading as adult males. (Since Tim is running for reelection, well, the MDJ can’t upset that apple cart, can they?)

Back in late October of 2015, I issued a Political Vine regarding some things going on with Cobb County resident Susan McCoy. That story can be found here.

At the time of the writing and publication of that issue, I had no idea Susan McCoy was on the verge of being arrested and accused of sending harassing communications to several people in Cobb County. That is what happened though. She was arrested for what appears to be described in the booking reports to be “Harassing communications; venue; separate offenses; impact on free speech.”

Because she had sometimes CCed my email address in her communications to some folks in Cobb, I was aware that she was sending some people some emails. Whether those emails Susan McCoy sent constituted “harassment” in the absolute legal definition of that word, I have no idea, and that will be up to a jury to decide.

What is not fully understood is why Susan McCoy sent those emails. I believe she sent them because she was rather traumatized, mentally, by the fire SOMEONE set on her property, shortly after she made a presentation in front of the Cobb County Commission back in September of 2014 about her opposition to the Braves’ stadium.

That fire, to date, has brought no one forward as a suspect. Someone else besides Susan McCoy set that fire; that has been proven by the video cameras the McCoys installed on their home that captured the fire being started, along with at least one vehicle’s wheels and headlights.

I wonder, if the front yard of Vic Reynolds was set on fire, or Heath Garrett’s front yard set on fire…or Tim Lee’s front yard set on fire…or Chuck Clay’s yard set on fire…or, Sam Olens’ yard set on fire, would there have been a more thorough and active investigation if it were one of their homes that had an act of terror applied against them? One wonders, indeed.

So, Susan McCoy sent some emails to some folks. Any of those folks ever hear of this thing on computer keyboards called a DELETE key? Fascinating invention. Really. You don’t even have to open the email…you just hit that DEL-Key, and whoosh! Email is deleted, and you can get on with the rest of your day, not sweating what was in that email. I have found myself having to use that DEL-key at least 200 times per day to delete email I don’t care to read. (Maybe Timmy Lee and others just…really aren’t up on the new technology stuff too much, could that be?)

After she made bail last Fall and got out in November 2015, Michael Paris, one of the people she is accused of sending harassing emails to, swore-out either a restraining order or a temporary protective order (I don’t know the details of which document it is as of the moment of writing this story) against Susan McCoy to forbid her from being within a certain distance of his home.

Keep in mind that McCoy had never physically accosted or accused Michael Paris in person. All she did was send emails to him…emails that could have been handled with that DEL-key.

So, a TPO forbidding her from being a certain distance away from him is a pretty challenging trick, actually…since Susan McCoy lives with her husband and two young boys in a house on the same street as Michael Paris…7 doors down (or so I’ve been told) from where Paris lives.

The gist of what Michael Paris claimed in the TPO/RO is that…again, I have not seen the exact wording, but apparently it is close to this: “I just don’t feel comfortable driving past that house every day as I go to work and know she could be in there looking at me as I drive by.”

So, after Susan made bail, and spent 3 weeks in a local facility trying to get counseling of some quality, she was forbidden from dealing with her emotional crisis by being around people who loved her via Michael Paris being afwaid of Susan McCoy looking at him as he drove by? Yeah. Real girly-man, at minimum.

When she wanted to visit her children, they had to leave the house and walk outside, up the street to where Susan could legally drive her car and not break the something-foot boundary authorized by Michael Paris’s TPO/RO, and pick her boys up to go somewhere else. And, when she brought them back home, she, again, had to stop at whatever number of feet she had to stay away from poor Michael Paris’s house, let her kids out, and the kids had to walk by themselves home. One of her children turns 13 this week.

SO…after 2-3 months of living that kind of life with not being able to tuck your kids in at night, hugging your husband before you go to sleep, petting your dog…living your life that way…imagine what that might do to you if you’re a mother in a normal state of existence…and then compound it with having to deal with the PTSD that Susan McCoy (I have been told) has been diagnosed with…how intact would your mental faculties be in?

Susan McCoy is experiencing serious mental distress as a result of that fire set to her yard in 2014. Now, does that mental distress justify her sending a bunch of emails to people? No, but it may go a long way to explain them. A really long way. She may not consciously be aware of the repeating obsessive behavior she is engaging in, and therefore, not intentionally engaging in it. (In order to be intentionally doing something, you have to be consciously aware of what you are doing. Tiny little legal fact, but true.)

So…a few weeks ago…in her state of mind of not understanding right and wrong…not really being conscious of what she did wrong originally…and Susan being still obsessed with who was responsible for setting the fire to her yard (and who was walking around free and clear today, having friends cover-up for his/her crime)…well, she sent an email to Tim Lee, asking him to meet her for lunch.

Tim did not write her back, apparently. Don’t know if that email was sent to Tim’s county email address, or his personal email address (and, yeah, it actually might matter, in a legal sense.). Nothing happened after that email until…this past Thursday, March 17th, when Susan was called into Cobb County Magistrate Court.

She went-in, accompanied by her lawyer, and she was looking forward to talking to the judge and showing her that she had a plane ticket to Arizona that had her leaving the next day to visit an intensive mental facility that could have, perhaps, helped heal herself, and get her mind back to functioning without distress.

Chief Magistrate Judge Yvette Holmes didn’t really care about that plane ticket. Instead, she brought-up the email that Susan McCoy sent to Tim Lee a few weeks ago (and, since I was not there, I do not know the entire series of events, nor do I know who else may have been there besides Tim Lee), and sending that email constituted “aggravated stalking”, and Susan McCoy was arrested again on March 17th, with no bail allowed, and now she sits in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, still not consciously, mentally able to digest her state in life.

All because…Ladies & Gentlemen…we have, in this county, a race between Tim Lee, Michael Paris, and Sam Olens, on who can be the biggest SOB in this county. My money is on Michael Paris, but Timmy Lee is only a mule hair’s breadth behind Paris in that race.

So, Susan McCoy sits in jail, on Cobb County taxpayer dimes, when she could be out in Arizona, getting treatment for her mental condition so she could understand what she has done wrong…and instead, the Cobb County Mafia would rather light-up cigars, rub elbows with the Braves’ folks, and think that they are the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Georgia: Ground Zero for The Rise of The Police State

Rumors have it that if you engage in an activity of pointing out the truth about someone who is an elected member of the State Legislature, the elected politician will, if he/she is crooked enough, contact his favorite state law enforcement agency of choice…and get that agency to send actual police goons (“LEOs” = Law Enforcement Officers) to your door to threaten you with arrest if you continue to engage in such activities.

What Activity? Handing out this printed flyer in HD 116

Who is the Corrupt State Legislator? State Rep. Terry England (R-116)

What Georgia law enforcement agency was involved in political intimidation? The Georgia State Patrol (aka GeStaPo)

What the hell is going on? Good question, and this is the story: About 11:00 AM on Friday March 11, two armed officers of the Georgia State Patrol knocked on the door of the head of Refugee Resettlement Relief, based in Georgia. One identified himself to be a highway patrolman who worked for the “Colonel of the State Patrol”, and the other man identified himself to be an investigator with the GSP.

The LEOs proceeded to tell the man that (this is close to the exact quote by the LEOs): “We investigate campaign financing and handle Capitol security—part of that job is protecting elected officials. Someone is going around the district of State Rep. Terry England and handing out this flyer. Is this yours?”

To which the man with Refugee Resettlement Relief responded “Yes, that is mine and that is what I am handing out.”

The two LEOs proceeded to tell the man that his language on the flyer was…let’s get as close to the exact quote as possible here…“offensive and dangerous.”

Dangerous, according to the LEOs, because of the fact that the flyer had Terry England’s district address on it, AND the flyer invited people that if they were upset with the information on the flyer, they should go knock on his door and tell him what they thought of him as their State Rep. This is the language the two LEOs of the Georgia State Police stated were “offensive and dangerous:”

“Call Terry England and tell him to stop throwing your money away. State Capitol office 404-463-2247 Auburn office 770-867-1601. Home at 770-867-8096, or better still, go see him at 1060 Old Hog Mountain Rd. Auburn, Ga. 30011 and tell him what you think of him.”

The two LEOs told the man to either stop handing out the flyer, or to remove that last line, or they would arrest him if he continued to hand it out with that address on it.

As an aside, the address in question of England’s has a business sign outside of it advertising his company called Pete’s Enterprises, a business engaged in “Antique Farm Equipment Restoration/Consulting Services/Farming.”

…so, he actually has a business of some sort where he engages with the public via the address at 1060 Old Hog Mountain Road.

NOW…let’s take a bit of a pause as we all revisit now the original language of HB 370 that passed the State House that the Vine and other grassroots activists were concerned with earlier this session. Some of you might recall this edition of the PV when we first informed you of it.

In the original version of the bill that 166 members of the House voted to pass, there was wording in there that required anyone who was communicating in an election by distributing “Printed materials that exceed 1,000 copies” had to register themselves as a campaign committee and disclose their financing.

David Ralston is on record as claiming he believes all the “dark money” should be revealed and people should not be able to engage in anonymous, free speech.

Well…this incident last Friday morning reveals the true purpose of Ralston’s intent with the original HB 370: Speaker Ralston and the 6 co-sponsors of HB 370 (Terry England, Barry Fleming, David Wilkerson, Virgil Fludd, Alan Powell, and Jay Powell)…and every House Member who voted in favor of HB 370 intend, at some point, to use that information, not to “expose dark money sources” BUT to be able to tap their pals in ANY law enforcement agency they want to to send LEOs to harass, intimidate, and potentially falsely arrest and worse.

NOW we bring-in to the discussion the contents and true intent of HB 941. The intent is clearer now than ever before. It is not, as Rich Golick flippantly claimed in the House Committee meeting back on February 18, 2016 that “We can’t worry about the unintended consequences of this bill.”

Right, Rich. You’re not going to “worry” about the “unintended consequences” of LEOs knocking on the doors of political enemies and engaging in harassment, intimidation, and potential use of deadly force while the LEO is carrying out a “campaign disclosure check” and kills some member of the Legislature’s political opponent because that is exactly what you and Pak and Atwood and Abrams intended to have happen to start with!

Terry England acted too far ahead to spill the beans on the planned combination of HB 370 and HB 941…England thought HB 370 had passed and been signed into law so he told his pal(s) at the Georgia State Patrol that they could claim they were on a “campaign disclosure check” when they knocked on the grassroots activist’s door to tell him his flyer contained “dangerous and offensive language.”

How much do you want to bet that Terry England was hoping that the LEOs would find some reason to engage in deadly force against his political enemy and just kill him, and the LEOs would then be protected by DA Danny Porter?

The intent of HB 941 is to make Georgia a total “killing field” for LEOs to kill anyone they f*cking want to OR at the behest of any Elected Official to use against their political enemies…and the LEOs will all be protected by their allies at P.A.C., as well as by the legislation in HB 941 to restrict the natural constitutional powers of the Grand Jury.

By the way, this is a basic definition of a Police State:

“Police state is a term denoting a government that exercises power arbitrarily through the power of the police force…The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.”

Golly….how many times have we said that HB 941 is against the Georgia Constitution…and granting LEOs the privileges contained in HB 941 would, essentially, create a “secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state”?

This is no longer a hypothetical situation regarding elected officials abusing their position by employing their “secret police pals” to violate someone’s Constitutional Rights. Terry England has engaged and proven his true, authoritarian belief that HE is God and anyone who dare oppose him shall have the secret police sent after them to shut them up.

Clearly, there are laws being broken by the Georgia State Patrol to dispatch two armed officers to the home of a political activist. This cannot be adequately investigated by ANY Georgia-based agency (way too much corruption at the top). The FBI should initiate an investigation at the collusion and collaboration of Rep Terry England and whoever is involved in the chain of command at the Georgia State Patrol to approve of the sending of armed LEOs to harass and intimidate a political adversary.

OH…the status of HB 370 is unknown at the moment. The offending section dealing with disclosing a person’s expenditures if they are engaging in electioneering has been struck from the bill, and the bill was passed by the State Senate. However, because it has changed, it may have to go thru a Conference Committee on or near Sine Die.

PV’s advice to the Senators on that committee is to ensure the rat-finks in the House are not allowed to put that stupid language back in at all…or else, more of the state’s citizens will likely have more incidents of LEOs knocking on their door at the behest of stupid, crooked elected members of the Legislature like Terry England.

This article has an update to it from an article published on April 9, 2016.

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

Rumors have it that someone (or several “someones”) in the inner circle of the Governor’s Office has received some kind of payola to get the Governor to do whatever he could to prevent the key element of HB 722 from being signed into law this year in order to give a certain company time to put financial resources together so they will be ready in the 2017-2018 timeframe to become the sole provider of medical marijuana oil via in-state cultivation in Georgia.

That “key element” is the permission for in-state cultivation of the hemp plant to allow the production of the cannabis oil that patients need now.

The emphasis on “this year” has to do with the fact that when the finances for building the infrastructure here in Georgia get in place for a certain company, this cultivation legislation will pass in 2017 or 2018 at the latest…before Governor Deal leaves office.

PV Provides Background Info: Frankly, Folks, some things are just hidden in plain sight. Let us introduce you to a company started in Atlanta in 2014: Surterra Holdings. As per this story in November of 2014 in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, “Surterra Holdings Inc. is focused on the legalization of cannabis-based medicines and plans to help create a business infrastructure which will allow the production, distribution and sale of medical marijuana products in Georgia.”

This is the company Website: http://www.surterra.com/

This company already has a bevy of lobbyists to help make the introductions all around to the Governor and schmooze-up anyone and everyone. Their lead lobbyist is Brad Alexander of McGuire Woods Consulting, and he has established a very good relationship with the Governor via campaign contributions.

Surterra has already made a tiny offering to the Georgia House Republican Trust in the amount of $5,000 on 12/17/2015, undoubtedly to make sure House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee Chair Rich Golick got the word that a token was going to be paid for this session, but much, much more will come to the House Trust account, and likely, Golick’s own campaign coffers after the session…so its okay if he works it hard in committee to act as much of an SOB as he can do to fight against Allen Peake and his legislation in this session.

Surterra has a business plan that includes Georgia, but it is not this year. As explained in this St. Pete, Florida newspaper article, Surterra was chosen late last year to be “…one of the five organizations that can cultivate, process and dispense low-THC cannabis. In January [2016], Surterra requested authorization from the Department of Health to begin cultivating medical marijuana.”

As mentioned in that St Pete article, Surterra “…now has 210 days to make the products available to patients.” Producing product and manufacturing is a labor and capital-intensive process, so capital to build another plant in Georgia in 2016 is not viable for Surterra. So, Surterra has to make sure Georgia does not pass cultivation legislation this session because they would miss-out on the monopoly, or near-monopoly, of being able to provide cannabis-oil based therapeutic medicine to Georgians in-state.

So, you might ask “Where is the connection to the Governor’s Office or his people?” Surterra has made only two contributions in Georgia since its formation, the $5000 to the House Republican Trust, and $500 to Senator Butch Miller.

The connection to the Governor’s people can be derived from the information relayed in this video by Dale Jackson, a political activist who has been working with many other parents to help educate people in the Gold Dome about Peake’s bill, and the importance of allowing in-state cultivation.

Jackson has a child with autism that he wants to get the cannabis medicine for. He has done several videos to let people know what’s going on in the process, but this latest one is the most powerful in what it reveals about the kind of person Governor Deal really is, and what/who must be influencing him to do what he is doing to HB 722, and what he is doing to the families who cannot get the medicine their children desperately need this year, as soon as possible.

It is a short 2 minutes, 47 seconds…but the information it delivers is mind-blowing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXnLOpikNKE&feature=youtu.be

Mind-blown fact #1: The Governor said that “next on the chopping block will be autism”…this after he already cut-out PTSD (like what our veterans experience) and intractable pain as one of the maladies that could be treated with the cannabis oil?

Apparently the Governor thinks that since children with autism are just weird and not deserving of any semblance of a normal life, he decided to send a signal to people like Dale Jackson that, as far as HE, Nathan Deal, was concerned, those autistic children don’t have a right to a better, healthier life, so…he will figuratively chop their heads off by removing autism from the list of acceptable illnesses that the cannabis oil can treat.

Soooo…the Governor has visions of laying Dale Jackson’s son out on a block of wood and chopping his son’s head off. That is the mind of one sick psychopath, and yeah, that is the kind of person this state has as Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal.

Mind-blown fact #2: The Governor has either added language (or offered to add) that will give “immunity” to any manufacturer who is outside the state (In Colorado or California, etc.) and who ships the oil into Georgia. HUH??!

Here is a link to the map of the contiguous United States of America, Governor: http://www.yellowmaps.com/maps/img/US/blank-base/usstates1c.jpg

Note that between Colorado and Georgia, there are a minimum of 4 states between them. Does Nathan Deal have the power to order any of those states to let shipping companies go thru those states unmolested while they are carrying the medicine? Does Nathan Deal have the power to tell the federal government to ignore the transportation of the cannabis medicine while it is being transported either via the roads, rails, or air traffic? No, no, no, and no.

Though the Governor is clearly a psychopath, is he also this stupid? The answer is no. He’s not stupid, but he’s coming up with stupid ways to kill the in-state cultivation AND, at the same time, he and his crew are trying to figure out how they can oppose the in-state cultivation this year, but allow it to pass in either 2017 or 2018 for the payola his inner-circle friends will receive…and make their “logic” (sic) line-up with their current stall of this legislation for this year to help Surterra Holdings in the next two years gain a prime spot for in-state cultivation.

Folks, if he gets away with it this year, but allows the in-state cultivation it within two years, he will offer the reasoning “Well, I thought about it a long time, and I decided I was wrong, and blah-blah-blah…”

Meanwhile, children like Dale Jackson’s and plenty of other sick children, who could have been helped by a quicker delivery of in-state cultivated cannabis oil, will continue to suffer longer whilst the Governor’s friends and family wait patiently for their payoff via payola in some form for the Governor delaying this.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the objections raised from the Georgia Baptist Convention…behind closed doors, a psychopath like Governor Deal laughs at the GBC and their charade because he uses the same charade of being a person of deep faith while working on making state government bigger and bigger, taxing Georgians more than any Democratic governor before him ever accomplished, and destroying individual liberties.

It also has absolutely nothing to do with the objections raised by the Georgia Sheriff’s Association or any other police organization. In fact, as a side discussion, anyone ever wonder why Georgia has become one of the top states for child-sex-trafficking?

It is because our state’s various law enforcement organizations would rather spend their limited time and resources chasing people using marijuana and eagerly seeking-out opportunities to steal private property via asset forfeiture than spend the time uncovering human and child-trafficking rings.

Busting a child-sex-trafficking ring offers no assets or cash for police departments to confiscate, so, they’d rather ignore that law breakage and focus on the “fun” police work of stealing money via asset “forfeiture.” You could draw a chart that shows the rate of increase in child-sex-trafficking incidents occurring in Georgia parallels the increase in the rates of cops spending time on other, more departmental “lucrative” operations that generate revenue for themselves and their county/city jurisdictions (i.e., ticket writing, busting people for recreational use of marijuana, meth, etc.).

Conclusion

If you have a child who has one of the diseases listed in HB 722 that can possibly be helped by the cannabis oil this state has already approved of, OR you know of a child who could be helped (because nothing else exists to help heal them), OR you are just fed-up with a selfish, dirty-dealing Governor who does not make ANY deals in this state unless he and/or his pals get a payoff in some way from it, it’s time to hit the phones, and not only contact the Governor’s Office and express your support of HB 722 with in-state cultivation this year (2016), but you should also call your own legislators (both senate and house) to express your disgust with them failing to stand-up for their constituents.

Crossover Day is this Monday. This is the cut-off date for legislation to be passed in either house and cross-over to the other house for consideration. It is important to make your calls today, Friday, to the Governor and your legislators to express your opinion on this bill.

This is the Governor’s Office phone contact info (be nice to the person who answers the phone) to express your demand that he put in-state cultivation back into HB 722 this year:

Phone: 404-656-1776
Fax: 404-657-7332

Here is an online link to the Georgia State House members (and their office phone numbers, along with their assistant’s name….be nice to the assistants…it’s not their fault who they work for…)

Here is an online link to the Georgia State Senate members (and their office phone numbers, along with their assistant’s name….be nice to the assistants…it’s not their fault who they work for…)

P.S. Just discovered something rather laughable about this current Governor. This is a link to the Governor’s government web page…and this is what is described at the top as to his duties: “The governor is the chief executive of the state and oversees the executive branch. He or she is the chief law enforcement officer and the commander-in-chief of the state’s military forces….The governor shall “take care that the laws are faithfully executed and shall be the conservator of the peace” in the state. This power to enforce laws is almost identical to that of the president of the United States. He or she has the power to veto legislation, although the Georgia General Assembly can override a gubernatorial veto with a two-thirds majority in each chamber.”

The Governor’s role is spelled-out in the Georgia Constitution that he is to “execute laws”, NOT make them. He has no business meddling in HB 722. What he is doing is neutering your representation via your State Rep or your State Senator…and, essentially, he is ruling as a dictator would. Don’t let him take your rights away, not this time, not ever.

Pound the Governor’s phone with your calls. Fax him your opinion. Melt his office lines. Pound your legislator’s office phones too. No primary on Tuesday is more important than what happens in this state. Spread the word.

P.S.S. If the Governor DOES fight in-state cultivation this year, but allows it in 2017 or 2018 before he leaves office…then that will help give the FBI probable cause that what PV is claiming is happening with payola and the Governor’s Office today is enough probable cause to investigate all parties in this story (in 2017-2018 timeframe), from the Governor, to Surterra, the Rich Golick to the lobbyists, to the Governor’s Chief of Staff and other inner-circle people.

Is Three Times Going To Magically Be The Charm for Georgia Opponents of Free Speech?

Now we know why kids today tend to be rather disobedient of laws and established rules of an orderly society: Because Georgia’s state legislators continue to demonstrate how utterly clueless they are on the simple concepts of Free Speech (as protected by the US Constitution and subsequent SCOTUS decisions), and clueless on what our Georgia Constitution means when it says in Article I, Section I, Paragraph X that “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or laws impairing the obligation of contract or making irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities shall be passed.”

History Lesson 101: On May 17, 2011, Governor Deal vetoes SB 163, dealing with Campaign Communications, in which the Legislature attempted to make it a requirement that anyone engaging in any kind of political free speech had to disclose who paid for the communications if they spent over $500, along with some other requirements.

History Lesson 201: In the 2015 Legislative Session, clueless legislators again write a bill numbered SB-127 attempting to regulate political free speech, as well as violate the Ga Constitution on passing a retroactive law that cancels-out previous fines and violations of state ethics laws…and that bill goes thru a few more gyrations until it died last year in a Senate conference committee on Sine Die.

Present Day Lesson: State Reps Barry Fleming, David Wilkerson, Virgil Fludd, Terry England, Alan Powell, and Jay Powell are sponsoring HB-370, a re-formulated SB-127 that has two simple sections: Section 1 that attempts to regulate political free speech (that was vetoed back in 2011 by Governor Deal), as well as violate SCOTUS decisions like the 1994 Decision on McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission, and Section 2 that seeks to retroactively allow for political officials who, between the dates of January 1, 2010 and January 10, 2014, were accused of violating state ethics laws on campaign disclosures, as well as paid the fines in cases they agreed to pay fines, to write a letter to the state ethics commission and have their records purged, AS WELL AS have their money that they paid for fines refunded back to them at their request.

In short, HB-370 can alternatively be called the “Governor Deal Ethics’ Record Nullification and Ethics’ Fine Refund Act”. This law, if passed, would also apply to any other elected official who was remiss in following state ethics laws, and paying fines between the dates of 1/1/2010 and 1/10/2014. But, this section was clearly written to benefit only Nathan Deal to nullify his ethics issues and ethics fines he’s paid.

AND…would you like to know how I know this Section 2 is related directly to Governor Deal, and only Governor Deal? Because on Line 96 of this year’s HB-370, the following is written: “(g) This Code section shall be repealed by operation of law on January 31, 2019.”

Now, why would Section 2 expire then? Because Deal will have completed his term thru some date in January 2018 (the day his predecessor gets sworn-in), and January 31, 2019 is an end-date for when campaign disclosures thru December 31st of the previous year are due.

HB-370 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Ethics Committee in Room CLOB 307 on Tuesday, February 9 at 1:00PM. Will there be a majority of state senators who are stupid and crooked enough to pass this bill out of committee…a bill that specifically violates free speech decisions, as well as the Georgia Constitution that prohibits retroactive/ex-post facto laws?

We’ll know within approximately 21 hours…

P.S. That McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission SCOTUS decision has a fascinating feature on this website (if you go to the page and click the links in the lower-left portion of the page); it has the audio of the 7-2 majority’s decision, as well as audios of the concurring decisions by Clarence Thomas and Justice Ginsberg.

BUT…maybe UGA-educated Georgia legislators like Barry Fleming, Alan Powell, et al. are so much smarter about the case law than SCOTUS is. If so, it sure is a mystery why, in the 200 some-odd history of the UGA law school, that no UGA law school graduate has ever been nominated to sit on SCOTUS…very, very, very puzzling, indeed. Note: No, I am not saying Alan Powell is a lawyer…Barry Fleming is, though, as is David Ralston. Both are UGA-“educated” (sic) lawyers.

P.S.S. Hey, here’s a helluva idea, Barry Fleming! Will you write a law that allows people who have been given a speeding ticket and paid a fine, and/or been given a DUI ticket and paid a fine and had points assessed against their insurance record, between these same dates of 1/1/2010 and 1/10/2014, be given the chance to write a letter to the particular jurisdiction to request their record be wiped-out, and refund their fine money?

I’m sure Alan Powell will go for this as your co-sponsor, Barry…you know, he cannot write any bill on his own…I’m not even sure he can read…but I know he can talk a good bullsh*t game as he gets his talking points straight from the Governor’s Office….will someone in the State House please read this issue of Political Vine to Alan Powell?

[This article is not originally written by the PoliticalVine.com…but, if you find errors, let us know!]

Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people.

In response, a Jewish pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

“Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

“A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.

Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil.

If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege.

Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.

Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.

Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the Schick” reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

“Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram.

They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

“Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

“In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Have you SEEN the email today from Ga GOP Foundation Chair Jack Kingston? Here is a copy.

Note that Jack lists as his first bulleted accomplishment that “We’ve grown from 8 members to 78 members [emphasis added], which includes more than 30 who have given far more than the requested amount.”

Kudos to Jack Kingston for being able to con money out of poor saps to give money to the Ga GOP in order to keep paying for political consultants to piss money away.*

The Foundation likely had 500+ members when Sue Everhart left in May 2013. And, as of 4 months ago (before Kingston took over), it had been reduced to 8 members. Eight individual members.

Well, kudos, also, to the absolutely WORTHLESS job Chairman John Padgett (and his crew) have done in proactively managing the state party. What an incompetent POS of a chairman to not raise any money, and to drive down membership to 8…Foundation…members before recruiting Jack Kingston to help save his complete and utter failure of “leadership” of the State GOP.

* And what stellar political consulting there is for the State GOP. Here’s an example: This is a snapshot of the Ga GOP Website. (you could also go to GAGOP.org, but I’m concerned Stoneridge would switch it out pretty fast to cover-up their “clever design”). Notice how warm and fuzzy it is with “Choose Freedom” (that allows Padgett the freedom to screw you contributors out of your donation money to pay Stoneridge close to $100,000 for a Website design) and other dull stuff to promote Georgia elected leaders.

THEN..in comparison, go look at the Florida GOP Website (http://www.florida.gop/). Notice what they are focused on? Defeating Hillary. I’ll bet you they are generating lots of good cash donations by focusing on THAT issue, rather than the fluffy crappola that the experts at Stoneridge think is important for the Georgia GOP.

Also…notice the Florida.GOP website domain. They are promoting the GOP….they are marketers. How long has the top-level domain “.GOP” been available? About a year-and-a-half, according to this WSJ article.

How much would it have cost the Georgia GOP to get that subdomain? $39 bucks a year? How much cooler and sleeker would the Ga GOP Website be if they built a site on Georgia.GOP and forwarded the GaGOP.org site to it (so no one would have to spend a lot of money reprinting stuff with the new website name on it)?

I refer to those 70 folks who agreed to donate money at Jack Kingston’s asking “poor saps,”…NOT because they are “poor” but because they are saps. They have been conned into contributing money that will just be a pass-through to pay for half-assed leadership, half-assed party management, half-assed party-building efforts…vendor kickbacks to the GA GOP personnel…half-assed Website consulting (expensive as hell, but not even worth 5.0% of the cost John Padgett agrees to hand over to a firm that, frankly, appears to be focused on mediocre Web 2.0 work product, but charging Cadillac prices.)

BUT…yeahhhh…Alex Johnson was so unqualified...while John Padgett had 8 members at the Foundation after 26 months of his “leadership.”

If I could only remember the names of those 4-5 people who signed a letter stating that Alex Johnson was, essentially, unqualified, while John Padgett was SO MUCH MORE qualified….I just…can’t recall who those people were….mental block here…it’ll come to me soon, I’m sure…

Statement from Donald Trump’s Georgia Co-Chair, State Senator Michael Williams on Trump’s Temporary Moratorium of Muslim Immigration

December 8, 2015 – “Donald Trump’s call for a temporary moratorium of Muslim immigration into the U.S. has caused an international stir within the media. Many of the reports paint a false narrative and ignore the problem this proposal attempts to remedy.

“Trump’s call for a temporary ban is due to serious security concerns. The recent acts of radical Islamic terrorism in Paris and now San Bernardino California make it obvious something must be done to protect our homeland from growing threats.

“Until a solution is found, a temporary ban would diminish the chance that radicalized Muslims who wish us harm enter our country. In the past week, it was revealed that Homeland Security failed to conduct a proper background check on the murderous female terrorist behind the San Bernardino attack. False entries on her application went unnoticed by government screeners. Our government is clearly unable to properly screen immigrants from these nations. This is not a call to end all future Muslim immigration. This is a call for strict immigration enforcement during a time of war to protect the people of America.

“Pew Research revealed that 7% of U.S. Muslims believe that suicide bombings are “sometimes” justified. That is nearly one out of ten adult Muslims in the United States. The study also reports that only 28% of Pakistani Muslims disapproved of ISIS. How can we possibly screen immigrants from a nation where the vast majority support terrorist groups? In Nigeria, 20% of Muslims stated that they were in-favor of ISIS. These numbers should be frightening to anyone. We cannot put our nation at further risk to appease the politically correct.

“Those who claim this unconstitutional overlook an important factor. Who does the U.S. Constitution protect? Last I checked, these rights were reserved for citizens of the United States, not foreign nations.”

###

MEDIA CONTACT
M. Seth Weathers
(678) 687-8189
sethw@weatherscorp.com

PRELUDE

At noon yesterday (Monday, November 16), State Senate District 40 Candidate Paul Maner emailed a letter (as well as mailed via the USPS a letter) to Governor Deal, expressing his concern on the resettlement of, not only Syrian refugees, but any other in the refugee resettlement process taking place in Georgia.

Coincidentally, sometime on Monday afternoon, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal issued an Executive Order instructing all Georgia agencies to halt the processing of resettling any Syrian refugees until such time that Congress approved of the process that the Obama Administration was planning on employing to process 100,000 of them over the next two years.

It was either a coincidence of conservative minds thinking alike, or perhaps Mr. Maner’s letter did give the Governor the impetus to get on the stick to issue that EO about preventing potential Syrian terrorists from landing on Georgia soil under the auspice of being “refugees.”

Whatever the case, you can be sure of this: The people of Senate District 40 would NEVER see anything of the sort come out of the mouth of sitting State Senator Fran Millar. According to Millar, there is nothing neither he, the Legislature, nor the Georgia Governor can do except vote to keep accepting federal dollars that contribute, perhaps, only about 50% of the true dollar amount it costs to resettle refugees for the 8 months the federal law stipulates, and then they all become a burden on state, city, and county dollars.

Frankly, the mindset of idiots like Fran Millar (and others, like Senator Renee Unterman, et al., whose very livelihood is based on income derived from her employer as a result of those refugee resettlement programs) is what is costing Georgia a lot of forward progress. Long-time incumbents who would rather sit on their ass and just vote along with the rest of the liberals in our legislature, rather than consider what is best for Georgians, are a real big hindrance to excelling in anything but remaining near the bottom in education, as well as still sucking in ethics (don’t go celebrating the big ‘promotion’ to 24th in the nation because the facts make a difference in the actual results).

A CASE FOR SUING THE FEDS OVER REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

Just like the concept of a government taking private property without due compensation to the owner under the auspice of “eminent domain,” when it comes to the federal agencies forcing local governments to absorb demands on their infrastructure via the importation of a bunch of refugees from other countries, more money should be paid by the federal government to the states and local communities who have to take the load on the existing infrastructure.

According to this article on ThinkProgress.com, the various states MUST accept the refugees, no arguments allowed. Within this article, they point out the 1997 Scotus decision on the Brady Bill as “evidence” that the feds can direct and force state personnel to carryout laws Congress passed.

A state’s LEO (“law enforcement organization/officers”) personnel carrying-out another legal process to verify a background on a potential gun-owner is hardly the same activity as…sayyy…a population of X-number of people getting 2-10 times the net population gain they would normally get over a year, get it all in within a few months or so.

However…in any population of “X” size, there are certain fixed resources that cannot all of a sudden deploy and expand to handle the influx of a bunch of people all at once (without creating backlogs). The National Fire Protection Association has guidelines on how many fire trucks and locations of fire stations there should be for every X-number of population. You dump 1000 more people in an area within 3 months where you expected a growth of maybe 500 over a year…and all of a sudden, everyone’s property and life is in jeopardy because there isn’t enough pubic safety resources in place to handle the sudden influx of new people, and subsequent demand on resources (yes, I know…I know…stupid liberals like Fran Millar and Renee Unterman think local taxpayer resources are infinite and the laws of supply and demand don’t need to be considered in government decisions).

I would imagine that there are similar guidelines for regular LEOs as well. If the City of Brookhaven has 52,000 people, and a police department of whatever size it is currently, if more people move into the area faster than the natural growth of the city (“natural growth” being net of new people moving in who are not refugees from another country, minus people moving out, minus people dying, plus people being born), then that unnatural growth puts a sudden strain on the law enforcement demands, judicial courts, and on the public safety of all concerned.

Not just public safety, but also other resources (water, roads, sewer, cellphone towers, etc.) cannot all of a sudden be ramped-up to accommodate more folks in the blink of an eye. Safety factors only work for a little while…you keep adding to the load and whatever safety factor was designed into the system to last 20 years becomes obliterated when you place more load on the system, earlier than anticipated. Things have a tendency to collapse when too high of a load gets put on them, whether it be people or government infrastructure.

The county of DeKalb is in the same boat because as refugees come to either Clarkston (as Maner’s letter describes) or wherever in DeKalb, that county has to also increase its government investment in LE, fire safety, government workers, etc….that money to accomplish all that DOES NOT come from the federal government to be reimbursed to handle the load of new people on existing resources.

Also, the burden of these new people will have a costly impact on the state’s resources as well…and, again, that money comes out of our pocket, not the federal government’s pockets. All the feds pay for is the living expenses for 8 months of the refugees, and some other services like English-language training and other “caretaking” services the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Atlanta contracts with the Georgia Department of Human Services to offer the refugees. The money from the feds does not pay for the increased demand on the governments’ infrastructure systems.

Higher demand can lead to more breakdowns and higher cost of repairs than originally budgeted. Why should we be required to pay for the increase in supply that the new demand from Congress/the White House is forcing upon us?

It would seem to me that if something is costing us money that we (as a state or local community) are not being reimbursed for as a result of the acts of the feds directing us to take-on a financial burden, then that cost could be the basis for suing the federal government in district court. Kinda like…a federal-to-state eminent domain issue. The feds are demanding that we forfeit the capital resource lifespan of, say, a water and sewer system that was not designed and built to handle the load of people it is suddenly required to handle. A parallel case could be made for every other government-funded infrastructure resource that is required to take on an additional load it was not designed to handle at the time the demand comes on-line.

Of course, y’all could just act like a bump on a log like Fran Millar does…and just…sit and rotate in place while going through the motions of “representing” the people of your districts. The first time a terrorist attack happens in Georgia, you folks in Georgia government will rightly get the blame for choosing to do nothing…to not even try to adequately argue against the importation of people who won’t even be accepted by the countries far richer that are in their immediate area?

There were two news stories I saw yesterday that struck me with such a flash of WTF, that my brain would not let me go to sleep tonight until I got this (very short) Vine out of my system.

Story One: This story in the Fulton County Daily Report about people like Zell Miller and a slew of others writing a federal judge to ask for leniency on the sentencing of former Georgia State Representative Tyrone Brooks. To refresh your collective memories, Brooks “…pleaded no contest to fraud charges stemming from allegations that he misappropriated thousands of dollars in corporate charitable funds over two decades.”

Story Two: From the AJC, (PDF link here), this fascinating exposure about our esteemed (sic) Georgia Legislature passing laws that enact certain fees for this, that or the other cause, and all those fees are NOT going into any kind of “designated funds purpose” for which the original law was written.

In the primary example in the AJC article, the father of the kid whose death was the reason for Joshua’s Law being written and passed, remarks that the Georgia General Assembly is “…breaking every law in the book” for NOT using those funds that Joshua’s Law was enacted to collect ON the driver education training courses that were supposed to be offered in Georgia high schools.

So, let me sum this up as cogently as possible: Every single time the Georgia Legislature votes to pass their budget, where the legislators KNOW they are collecting fees for any number of causes enacted by their very own laws, but they knowingly divert those funds for other projects/uses/brass mules….they, like Tyrone Brooks, misappropriated funds collected for one purpose, but used for a completely different purpose.

The only difference is, of course, that the Georgia Legislature is free to continue committing fraud on the Georgia voters, while Tyrone Brooks, unfortunately, has to face a federal judge for sentencing this week.

While I cannot pen a letter quick enough to get to the chambers of U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, I would fully support and encourage the judge to sentence Tyrone Brooks to serve absolutely no prison time at all for his supposed misdeeds…because we have grand larceny, theft, and fraud being committed by far more people, involving far more money in our own Georgia State Legislature than former State Rep. Tyrone Brooks engaged in doing.

Any of you who are either State Reps or State Senators, and you continue to vote for these budgets that divert these funds, know this: You would be committing fraud if you did this in your private life, and you would be lying to people in your private life (“private life” being non-legislative related life) if you engaged in this as well.

As it is, you’re only lying to the voters and your constituents every single time you cast a vote on a budget that diverts these monies (whether it is Joshua’s Law, or the tire scrap fees, or whatever) to some other use besides what the money was stipulated to be collected for.

So…if you’re proud to continue being a known liar, not a problem. Any of you vote on the budget this next session, and 100% of these fees are not being diverted to the O.C.G.A. stipulated purposes, you will be known as a liar and you are someone who willingly participates in a fraud…that anyone else would face jail time for.

Prelude

By the time you get finished reading this, and absorbing the degree and depth of just how corrupt every level of government in Georgia is, here are some questions you might ponder in addition to the ones I posit:

1) For the corporate members who pay who-knows-what in annual membership to the Council for Quality Growth (“CQG”), do those dues make it all worth it that either members of your organization, or employees of your organization, may potentially be involved in either an actual criminal act and/or be part of the cover-up of a criminal matter in connection with promoting the Cobb County Braves stadium?

2) For the Braves’ organization set to come to Cobb County, does it please you that some of the very people you now hob-nob with know, exactly, who is behind, the people who committed the criminal act, and you’re okay with this?

3) In helping to bring “economic development” to Cobb County, are oaths of office to uphold the law superseded by this desire to bring “economic development deals” to a county?

4) If James Touchton did not engage in what Cobb County Resident/Fire Victim Susan McCoy has explicitly stated in her emails to Cobb County government personnel and commissioners (and, CCed to a variety of people), then one should expect a rather public, and clearly delineated, rebuttal by Touchton (please make sure the Political Vine email address is CCed if such a statement is issued).

Because, as you can see in the previously linked PDF of her email(s) to, first to Cobb County Manager David Hankerson yesterday (10-19-2015), and then Hankerson again this morning, Susan McCoy CCed every single Cobb county commissioner (thus making these emails and their contents instantly in the public domain when it is sent to a public official’s government email address), DA Vic Reynolds, and AG Sam Olens. (Thus the reason why I am publishing all this to you folks.)

As such, since Susan McCoy has explicitly stated in the 10-19-2015 email to Hankerson that: “James Touchton poured the gas in my yard after the groundbreaking for the reversible lanes and my video surveillance cameras showed a truck driving by my front yard 8 minutes after the fire was lit and they did not hit the breaks or call 911. It took me 2 minutes and 54 seconds to drive from Precinct 4 to my home so any vehicle that was here 8 minutes after my yard was lit on fire and came in two hours prior, was connected to the entire SEC complaint.”, one has to wonder that if such a statement was categorically false, wouldn’t Mr. Touchton immediately seek to neutralize the effects of such a statement? After all, it’s one’s professional reputation on the line.

5) When a state such as Georgia has as much intricately-connected corruption that covers-up criminal acts, this does not just appear at the local county level, but is directly connected to the AG’s office as also participating in the corruption and cover-up. At what point does it take the Ga Legislature to get off its effing asses and seek to remedy these issues? And don’t freaking whine to me about “But, Bill, what I am s’posed to do? I just take whatever pile of sh*t the Chamber or the Speaker or the Lt. Governor or the Governor gives me and I am allowed to only play with that pile, and not ask questions. Also, I’m really too much of a coward, but don’t tell anyone that because I like my freebies and the fact that all these lobbyists love me completely!!!”

Dot-Connecting Guideline

So that I can be very streamlined in the story, I’m going to give you all the dots and all the connections I know about that are necessary to begin to understand the deeply embedded levels of corruption in this state and Cobb County:

Susan McCoy: Cobb County attorney who challenged the Braves deal by attending a Cobb County Commissioners meeting and presenting to the Commission her viewpoint that the Securities and Exchange Commission may have a problem with the bond issuance by the county to finance their part of the new Braves Stadium.

One week or so after this presentation to the county commission, Susan’s picket fence had gasoline poured on it in the wee hours of the morning and it was lit-up. Little did the perpetrators of this act know that McCoy’s house had had cameras installed on it prior to the fire where some evidence was recorded, along with time stamps of the different events.

James Touchton: Director of Policy and Government Affairs for Council for Quality Growth (“CQG”)

Michael Paris: President & CEO of CQG and someone who just happens to reside in a home 7 houses down the street from Susan McCoy.

Tim(my) Lee: Cobb County Commission Chairman, who cares very little about telling the truth in any circumstance.

Vic Reynolds: District Attorney of Cobb County who, apparently, is unaware of what OCG 16-7-23(a)(2) declares to be against Georgia law, and whose office “investigators” are just too befuddled to bother performing the legal research required to identify the explicit criminal statute that was violated by someone in connection to this fire.

Sam Olens: Attorney General of Georgia and former Cobb County Commission Chairman and former Cobb County Commissioner, whose protege is Tim Lee. Olens may be best known for his unabashed ability to engage in lying publicly, engaging in deliberate violations of the Georgia RICO Act, not just this time, but this time as well as it relates to the corrupt Georgia Board of Regents in the Anthony Tricoli matter.

And then there is the infamous $20,000 fine levied by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville (that the taxpayers paid for his withholding of evidence in a civil lawsuit against the State of Georgia) against Sam Olens and his office for their deliberate cover-up of the existence of a memo that, had it been seen in court by the jury, would have a) resulted in a much higher award to Stacey Kalberman, as well as b) likely exposed the Governor and his henchmen to a criminal investigation had the memo been made public. (Which, of course, explains why Sam Olens repeatedly violate his oath of office…because he believes it is his duty under the Constitution of Georgia to keep evidence hidden in criminal and civil matters that would expose his clients to criminal investigations. His “clients” being every state level constitutionally-elected executive, as well as every state-level board, commission, or agency. Getting the picture now as to >why Georgia is the most corrupt state in the USA?)

Also, he is an AG who seeks to demonstrate how utterly incompetent he and his office is when it comes to carrying out a favor for a politician who worships the very ground that Sam Olens walks on (i.e., Senator Josh McKoon) in spending AG resources and taxpayer dollars bringing an 18-count criminal indictment forward against a state senator who got acquitted of all 18 counts in one fell swoop.

Yes, that is the Sam Olens everyone should be familiar with. Instead, too many effing people think Olens hung the moon and deserved the award he recently received from the Ga First Amendment Foundation for his (choke!) “Open Government” activities.

As an aside, giving a guy like Sam Olens this type of award is like giving Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize. That is, it becomes meaningless when something like that is done. (Kudos to GFAF ED Hollie Manheimer for demonstrating how low to go to devalue the work once performed in earnest by Charles Weltner.)

Though I digress when it comes to Sam Olens, the very fact that he is allowed to engage in the frequency of corrupt acts (not just incompetent, but deliberate corruption and violations of state law) is the very reason why corruption at the lower levels of Georgia government is encouraged to happen: Who will have the power or authority if the AG doesn’t give a damn? AG Sam Olens is the most corrupt elected official in this state, and he is responsible for the culture of corruption wherever it occurs in this state, at whatever level it happens.

Mike Plant: Atlanta Braves EVP and “man on the ground in Cobb” for the Braves.

Heath Garrett, Mitch Hunter, et al., associated with the 2013 campaign to get the county commission to approve of the Braves deal. I haven’t had a chance to ask Susan McCoy why Heath Garrett was included in her email as a CC, BUT I will propose one or all of these possible reasons:

a) It was one of Heath Garrett’s companies that Mitch Hunter worked for at the time of the push for the Braves (his companies have changed names multiple times over the years, so I’m not sure what the entity name was back in 2013), so Heath might have inside knowledge of who may have either set the fire, conspired to set the fire, or found out about it afterward the fire, and has not told anyone about it (just a possibility), and

b) Heath Garrett is the husband of Lee Garrett, editor of the Marietta Daily Journal, a publication that pretty much exists to ensure that cover-ups of such activity like torching someone’s property can occur at-will in Cobb County, and

c) Heath just happens to be the mastermind consultant behind getting DA Vic Reynolds elected in 2012…which points to a potential why as to Reynolds’ office may not having the stomach to actually engage in an investigation. Because the people who hired Garrett’s company to promote the Braves’ deal are some of the same people who financially-backed Reynolds in his election to be DA…and who are people who don’t likely give a damn about someone being traumatized by having their property damaged for publicly objecting to the Braves financing deal, and

d) Heath also just happens to be the consultant who helped Sam Olens get elected in 2010…which loops back to why Sam Olens doesn’t care about acts of a criminal nature in his very own county. Because the people that support Cobb County’s taxpayers’ footing the bill for the Braves’ stadium are the same people who hired Heath Garrett’s company to run the campaign in support of the Braves, who also financially support Sam Olens. (Thus looping me back to my point about the award the GFAF gave Olens for “courage” or some other such bullsh*t in enforcing Georgia’s Open Records laws…this man is the biggest and most corrupt coward in this state. But, that’s none of our business, is it? As long as the Braves move to Cobb and the county taxpayers are robbed of their money, who cares about a little illicit criminal activity like setting someone’s yard on fire?)

e) Not that this fact is related to Susan McCoy’s issue, but Heath also happens to sit as an appointed member of the State Ethics Commission, getting to decide who has broken state ethics laws and who has not. Why do we have an ethics commission that allows a political consultant to sit on it? Because we have FUBAR for a state legislature. (And, if you cannot figure out why that is a bad idea on your own, then you likely graduated from UGA.)

f) Also, Heath Garrett is also a lobbyist for Cobb County Government as per this MDJ article:

“Published May 28, 2014 04:00 AM

“MARIETTA — In a push by Chairman Tim Lee to ensure the county is ahead of the state’s legislative agenda, county commissioners have agreed to hire a local lobbying firm for a $168,000 annual contract.

“In a 4-1 vote Tuesday night, with Commissioner Bob Ott against, the Board of Commissioners hired Marietta-based Garrett McNatt Hennessey & Carpenter 360 as part of a budget item from the general fund for consulting services.”
…..

“Garrett McNatt Hennessey & Carpenter 360 is led by Marietta attorney Heath Garrett, former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. (Full disclosure: Garrett’s wife, Lee Garrett, is general manager of the Marietta Daily Journal.)”

Source: http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/25188255/article-Marietta-lobbying-firm-hired-by-Cobb

John Loud of Loud Security & Superior Plumbing owner Jay Cunningham: Two prominent Cobb County business owners who “spearheaded” the effort by the business community to get the Commission to approve of the Braves deal.

State Rep. Earl Ehrhart: The man identified to be THE man to bring the Braves deal to Cobb County and happily push the county commission to pursue the taking of Cobb County taxpayers’ money without them being able to have a say in that process. (Hey, Earl? Don’t ever try to claim yourself to be a “conservative” again. Because I’ll call you a liar to your face if you do.)

Critical Events

September 9, 2014: Susan McCoy addresses the Cobb County Commission to inform them that she has filed a complaint with the SEC over the Braves’ stadium funding.

September 18, 2014: In the wee hours of a Thursday morning, someone poured gasoline all along McCoy’s picket fence in her front yard and lit it on fire.

The cameras on Susan McCoy’s house could not pick-up the identity of exactly who set the fire at the time of the fire, but there were several clues demonstrated in the video segments as to who could have been involved.

Prior to this event, I am pretty sure Susan McCoy had absolutely no idea of who James Touchton was. She knew who Michael Paris was because they live in the same neighborhood, but I doubt that Susan personally knew who James Touchton was.

So, when you read in her two emails to Hankerson where she states (she does not “allege” it, but she states it as though it is a fact) that James Touchton is responsible for ‘pouring the gasoline” on her fence and lighting it on fire, the reason why she is using his name is because some of the Cobb-way insiders told her that Touchton was responsible.

No arrests have been made in connection with the act. Not much investigation effort has been made by Cobb County criminal investigators to find out who set the fire. And, the County’s lack of effort and investigation quality has led Susan to issuing these types of emails that inform a) the potential culprit(s), b) the potential conspirators behind the culprit(s), and c) people like me to communicate to people like you that something is vastly amiss in Cobb County government.

Now, whether Susan McCoy’s sources are correct or not, the BIG question is, IF James Touchton….and Michael Paris (Touchton works directly for Paris)….and any entities associated with the Council for Quality Growth did not have anything to do with the fire, then we should expect to see/hear about Susan McCoy receiving a lawsuit accusing her of libel, RIGHT?

Whether a lawsuit is filed against McCoy or not, I have to ask these questions:

Is it worth it to the members of the Council for Quality Growth to potentially have someone involved in your organization who believes in vandalizing property owned by political opponents? Of course, for all we know, the CQG may be entirely its own little “Cosa Nostra” where they DO engage in bribery, extortion, arson, etc. to achieve their political goals. Maybe there’s a special CQG Henchman School where everyone learns how to pour gasoline and light it on fire without catching yourself on fire. Dunno, I’m not a member.(Michael, is there a secret handshake for CQG? Or, maybe you folks just brand each other in a ritual ceremony of some sort at some nuclear electrical plant in the boonies, eh?)

I would ask Tim Lee a question, but he’s too frickin’ crooked and stupid to give a straight, honest answer.

To Mike Plant: Is it worth the Braves deal to know that someone torched someone else’s property in retaliation for daring to oppose the funding method? Are you so excited about the Braves coming to Cobb County that you not only don’t care that someone you might actually know who planned/engaged in the torching of someone’s property? But, for all I know, perhaps you yourself might, given the opportunity, engage in a similar activity as well for the thrill of it. Just wondering, you know, hypothetically speaking…

To Business Owners John Loud and Jay Cunningham: Does it trouble either of you to know that someone’s property got destroyed because they exercised their right to free speech to oppose the funding of the Braves’ stadium? Just, you know, wondering…

To Mitch Hunter: How about you, Mitch? What do you think of Susan McCoy’s accusation that James Touchton is responsible for torching her picket fence? You and James run in the same insider-circles, and you were paid to push the Braves to the Commission, so what is your unabashed opinion on this matter? Is it okay to destroy your political opponent’s property when you engage with them on a government matter?

To Heath Garrett: Heath, same question to you that I asked Mitch. Is it okay for someone to engage in acts of property destruction of people who oppose an issue before a government entity like the Cobb County Commission?

ALSO, Heath…is it okay for a “news publication” (sic) like the Marietta Daily Journal to also…kinda be involved in the cover-up of a criminal act? Even though the MDJ was all for the Braves coming to Cobb County and forcing taxpayers to foot the bill…is that “okay” to also provide cover for the perps and/or the people who may have been involved in a conspiracy to plan and execute such an event?

Just a few of the many questions I ponder the answer(s) to…

Paul Maner Press Release

For Immediate Release

Revelations in Recent DeKalb Corruption Report Prompt call for State Senator Fran Millar’s Resignation

“The corruption report by former Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers clearly demonstrates DeKalb County’s government is “Rotten to the Core.” The report, prepared by Bowers and his investigating partner, Richard Hyde, reveal a government best characterized as a kleptocracy, where spending and stealing, both legal and illegal, is out of control.” stated Paul Maner candidate for the State Senate seat held by Fran Millar.

“The report states the thievery has been going on for years, unchecked by any oversight, State or Federal. The abuse of Purchasing Cards (P-Cards) is rampant with purchases for Karaoke, Spa Treatments and Cigars being charged to the taxpayers.” added Maner. “It is a felony for a state employee to misuse a P-Card and in his 16 years in the State Senate, Millar has failed to pass legislation that would make it illegal for county or municipal employees to do the same.”

“Millar, despite his position as a committee chairman, has failed to provide leadership in attacking the corruption that has bedeviled DeKalb’s government. His failure to act is the type of indifferent negligence that has allowed a culture of corruption to thrive in DeKalb’s government.” added Maner.

“I applaud the report. Mike Bowers has the kind of uncompromising integrity that makes everyone sit up and take notice when he points a finger. And what a finger; from Lee May to the featherbedding sanitation department to sweetheart contracts and good ‘ole boy backroom deals, the stealing banquet is served every day in DeKalb.” continued Maner.

“Millar has sat back and watched this happen; never condemning, never critiquing, never complaining and never stepping forward to pass the legislation necessary to address the problem. Closing his eyes to the mess in the county commission is not mere negligence, it is complicity. I call for his immediate resignation.” concluded Maner.