Fresh Loaf

Forgive the Yogi Berra-ness of the following statement, but Libertarian Jason Pye is the person I disagree with most often with whom I agree most often.

Ex. Last night, Pye asked his readers to stop judging Republican Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel through our usual “elephant vs. donkey” filter. Instead, he wants us to consider Georgia’s restrictive ballot rules; rules that protect the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans against challengers. He’s got a great point.

Pye:

You cannot truly have a fair and open election process until all parties are given the same access to the ballot that Democrats and Republicans enjoy. For those of you who don’t know, Georgia has some of the most restrictive ballot access laws in the United States, behind Oklahoma and West Virginia, with the latter taking steps to improve ballot access this year [. . .] a relaxation of ballot access laws must be passed by the legislature, an endorsement of the idea from the supervisor of elections in the State of Georgia could go a long way and possibly could even open up some dialogue with legislative leaders.

If ballot access and election verification are subjects you find interesting, I recommend you journey into the Pye-hole for a couple minutes.

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Georgia Libertarian megablogger Jason Pye has chopped, diced and filleted the idiotic GOP talking point asserting it’s somehow dangerous to close Gitmo and hold suspected terrorists in federal prisons.

Pye accomplishes said task by resorting to an exceptionally cunning rhetorical trick known as “stating actual facts”:

Pye:

“[T}here are already terrorists imprisoned in the United States who have committed or were planning to commit acts of terrorism, including several al-Qaeda members, both before and after 9/11.”

He goes on to name 20 of them.

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Not exactly a blog, but it deserves a shout out. Staffers at UGA’s student-run newspaper the Red and Black worked overtime to provide coverage of Saturday’s shootings. Read their follow-ups here, here and here.

Ben at Terminal Station rips into state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s idea to consider privatizing MARTA.

Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered uses the words “Tyler Perry,” “Tupac Shakur,” and “comp time” all in the same blog post as he delves deeper into the firing of former DeKalb Police Chief Terrell Bolton.

Christa at Pecanne Log spots the hottest trend in spring fashions during historic economic collapses! Recycled ethernet cables! Yay!

Garrett Vonk fires back at Twitta-hatas.

Jason Pye, who says he’s never taken a puff, says decriminalizing marijuana should be on the table. Also: Legalizing marijuana is now more popular than the Republican Party.

Veteran TV journalist and Live Apartment Fire blogger Doug Richards today will pull the tarp off the magical news van to pull a one-day shift in the 11 Alive newsroom. Here’s exclusive video of him training for the adventure.

Travis Fain at Lucid Idiocy wonders if lawmakers have already been forgiven for failing to make progress on transportation funding this year.

Decatur Metro. Leon’s Full Service. And late-night drunken bocce. Discuss.

FlackAttack bids adieu at Tondee’s Tavern.

Other exciting links feel free to post them in the comments.

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JASON PYE: No tea and no sympathy for Republicans who neglected to complain about big government when Republicans were the ones growing it.

The Washington Independent’s David Weigel interviewed local Libertarian Jason Pye about mainstream Republicans piggy-backing on the Tea Party protests.

In Pye’s estimation, the participation of people like Newt Gingrich taints the tea party’s small government message:

“Bringing in someone like Gingrich takes away from the message,” said Pye, a Libertarian Party activist and writer who lives in the suburbs outside Georgia’s capital city. “It makes the people putting together the rallies look like pawns, for lack of a better term.”

Last November, we profiled Pye on our list of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People. He has since made us look bad for bestowing that honor upon him by showing up on lists of influential Liberatarian bloggers and writing a column for the Examiner. How un-un-influential of him.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Jason at Peach Pundit hammers House Bill 614, legislation that he says would violate your privacy.

Maria Saporta says the state needs to stop plotting takeovers of MARTA and Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport.

Ben at Terminal Station has a rundown of Saporta’s report on an Urban Land Institute mayoral candidate forum.

Doug at Live Apartment Fire spotlights veteran reporter Don McClellan. The still-at-it newsman reported on — and ran in — this weekend’s ING Marathon.

Speaking of the ING Marathon, Dave at inDecatur has video and photos from the race.

Good news for Georgia’s reputation and any hope of having a biotech industry here. Jim Galloway reports that a House committee chairman says the controversial stem-cell bill won’t move out of the lower chamber.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Urvaksh Karkaria reports on a top-secret meeting of tomorrow’s media overlords at Kennesaw State University professor Leonard Witt’s home. There are photos!

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post this. Christa, the mysterious scribe behind Pecanne Log, found a 1967 issue of GQ that’s all about Atlanta. She has photos and pullquotes.

And just because, a helping of Griftdrift’s My Morning Wooten from Friday.

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Jesus, this never ends.

Yesterday, state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chicamauga, was blasted by ACORN, the controversial grassroots organization that was accused of voter registration fraud during last year’s presidential campaign, for the lawmaker’s resolution that urges the Internal Revenue Service yank its tax-exempt status. ACORN said it didn’t have such status.

There was much guffawing. But blogger Anita Moncrief says Mullis was right.

Sentator Mullis was correct in calling for ACORN’s tax exempt status to be revoked because it does have one, it just happens to be registered in the name of Project Vote. Civil RICO charges filed on January 7, 2008 allege what the liberal voter registration world has known for years. The complaint details a report done by ACORN’s own lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley. The complaint also quotes part of the document that was leaked to the New York Times.

There’s lot more to Moncrief’s argument, which can be viewed through the link. (Click that little word “says” up there. Success!)

Updated to reflect a comment below.

(A big tip of the hat is due to Jason Pye, who along with Chris Farris, is providing great Gold Dome coverage this session at Georgia Legislative Watch.)

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Jason Pye of Peach Pundit reports the residency of Public Service Commissioner Doug Everett has been questioned by Libertarian Party nominee John Monds, the lone challenger in his re-election bid.

Pye writes:

The complaint alleges that Everett lives in Clarkesville and Atlanta, but not at any of the addresses provided in official filings to the State Ethics Commission.

The Atlanta residence is rented, though paid for with campaign funds since 2006. The home in Albany that Everett has used in filings is actually owned by his son, Michael C. Everett. A homestead exemption has been filed to this effect as well.

Monds writes, “It is very reasonable to ask Mr. Everett to come forward and provide evidence of his residency. I ask that you use all means within your power to expeditiously resolve any questions that exist concerning this matter.”

As Pye notes, it may be too late to file a residency challenge.

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Dekalb CEO and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Vernon “there’s nothing illegal about a ménage à trois” Jones has campaign placards displayed in at least one comically appropriate location.

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Reverend Joe Beasley twice calls Senator David Shafer a “race man” and accuses him of trying to get the City of Atlanta abolished when Maynard Jackson was elected Mayor (in the early 1970s when Shafer would have been in elemetary [sic] school). You can hear it here.

— Erick at Peach Pundit, on WABE-FM (90.1) series “Saving Grady” about Grady Hospital.

Note, Beasley doesn’t explicitly accuse Shafer of trying to abolish Atlanta. Instead, he seems to conflate Shafer with state legislators of the early 1970s.

Whether he’s actually accusing Shafer of being the Doogie Howser of legislative racism is beside the point. Beasley is clearly trying to short-circuit a serious discussion about Shafer’s legislation by calling him a racist.

Incidentally, Beasley also calls Maynard Jackson “the first mayor of the city of Atlanta.”

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Hey, it’s raining outside

— Mel at Blog For Democracy helpfully notes that it’s raining outside — as opposed to inside. Thanks, Sonny.

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I suppose some Democrats are going to say, “Clinton managed to balance the budget and create a surplus.” Clinton deserves some credit, but the Republican controlled Congress deserves just as much recognition for their part, like I said above…Congress holds the purse.

— Jason Pye accuses AJC columnist Jay Bookman of intellectual dishonesty for saying Democrats are more fiscally conservative than Republicans.

In the same post, Pye praises President Reagan for cutting federal spending, never mentioning that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives during Reagan’s two terms.

Either they “hold the purse” or they don’t.

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With so many bloggers noting the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s death, I figure I might as well throw in my 2 cents.

Or, more accurately, artist Matthew Diffee’s 2 cents.

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Ronald Williamson
Ronald Jones
Clarence Dexter, Jr.

— GriftDrift rebuts AJC columnist Jim Wooten’s ridiculous pro-death-penalty rant with a list of 123 people whose erroneous death sentences were eventually overturned. Three of the 123 are named above.

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Feeding government in general, and a regional (read less accountable) quasi-governmental agency with more tax dollars is similar to enabling a drunk with more alcohol.

— Jason Pye is not pleased with tax-and-spend trends in Henry County.

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An Elaborate Prank on Atlanta Drivers

— Maigh at Metroblogging Atlanta offers an apt description of the 14th Street Bridge reconstruction clusterfuck.

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Jason Pye has responded on his blog to a crack I made in my “Atlanta blogs today” post this morning.

Writes Jason:

I complete agree that our current system is broken. However, Health insurance and healthcare are mutually beneficial exchanges of commerce. It is hardly dystopian because there is no force involved, unlike the police power of government that Andy seems to so desperately want.

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People who had been yearning deep down inside for a chance to play political organizer and rabble-rouser like back in the heady 60s and 70s that they’ve always heard about finally got their chance, and boy did they take it.

– Sara at Going Through The Motions on a University of Florida campus protest that followed the videotaped arrest and Tasering of a student asking questions at a speech by Sen. John Kerry. And I thought I was cynical.

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I’m just not down with envisioning any type of socialist utopia circle jerk that Hillary Clinton wants, a place where individual sovereignty and liberty seem to be non-existent.

– Jason Pye on Hillary Clinton. He evidently prefers the country’s current dystopian health-care circle jerk.

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In the end, I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. The people decided and the people will have to live with their decision along with the consequences of their decision far into the future.

– Andre Walker at Peach Pundit goes all Edith Piaf in response to yesterday’s overwhelming defeat of a referendum that would have turned unincorporated south Fulton County into a city called South Fulton. Walker supported the referendum.

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My weekend is set…

Friday:
- Work (8am to 4pm)
- Ronald Reagan marathon
- Cut grass
- Ronald Reagan marathon
- Sleep

— Jason Pye on TCM’s Ronald Reagan movie marathon. Knute Rockne All American is on at 11:45 tonight. Set your TiVo.

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I would hope that people like Sean Kingston, being a teenager himself, would realize that gay and lesbian youth are extremely disproportionately affected by suicide. Additionally, in my opinion, by making light of something as serious as depression and suicide, by relating it to being simply turned down or broken up with, is ignorant and shameful.

— Duane Moody is offended because the hit song “Beautiful Girls” by Sean Kingston includes the refrain “Damn all these beautiful girls/They only wanna do your dirt/They’ll have you suicidal, suicidal/When they say it’s over.” In Duane’s estimation, it’s insensitive because it makes light of teen suicide, which affects gays disproportionately.

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Hard to believe it’s been almost 10 years since Princess Di left us. What an amazing, amazing woman! I remember where I was when I heard the news. I was in my dorm room, crying in bed after some jerk made what I interpreted to be a homophobic remark to someone I didn’t know.

I felt so bad for Di’s yummy sons. I wonder if they’re circumcised? I’d loves me some Prince Harry!

— ATLMalcontent parodies Duane Moody’s blog very well.

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Say a prayer for her.

— Jason Pye on state Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), who was injured when a MARTA bus hit her car on Saturday. Drenner was hospitalized and released.

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Asked if he were planning to run for governor in ‘10, the first-term senator said this: “I did that once. I am very happy in the United States Senate.”

— Jim Galloway at AJC.com Political Insider blog, on Sen. Johnny Isakson’s rumored interest in replacing Gov. Sonny Perdue

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I spent Friday and Saturday in Atlanta attending the Women of Faith conference. It was a small, intimate group of only 16,000 people.

— Lori Grice attended the Women of Faith conference downtown last weekend.

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This is fantastic news, though obviously not a final determination as to whether the execution will proceed but merely a little more time and hopefully a fresh look at the new evidence.

-Sara at Going Through The Motions, after hearing that the state Parole Board granted a 90-day stay of execution to Troy Anthony Davis. Several witnesses in the case have recanted testimony that helped convict Davis.

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He Needs to Die.

-Erick at Peach Pundit is seemingly undisturbed about the possible killing of an innocent man by the state of Georgia. Aren’t conservatives supposed to be for limited government?

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I’m picking Whitehead to win with at least 65%.

-Jason Pye, on today’s 10th Congressional District special election. The candidates are Paul “I endorse myself” Broun and Jim “Seal the Canadian border” Whitehead.

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