Fresh Loaf

Christopher Barber, who wants ballot access eased, said we could use this awesome photo of him and one of God's most poetic creatures

For decades, most third-party candidates in Georgia who wanted to gain ballot access have had to circulate petitions and gather signatures. The process has been derided as unfair, unnecessary and an obstacle to public service.

And now, a Libertarian Party of Georgia member has asked Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel — who’s also a gubernatorial candidate — to ease third-party ballot access in the Peach State.

In a letter sent last Friday to the Secretary of State’s office, DeKalb County resident Christopher Barber — who’s allowed me to reveal his identity as the mysterious “man in the Hawaiian shirt” from previous posts — asks Handel to embrace the Internet and TEAR DOWN THIS WALL.

Barber says allowing potential candidates to petition via e-mail for ballot access would save her department — and in turn, Georgia taxpayers — money.

Judging that Handel has been gung-ho on cutting her department’s waste and keeping elections fair — and considering the allure of winning the kind graces of the burgeoning number of residents who identify with the Libertarian platform — this should make for some interesting theater.

More from the letter — and a copy of the letter itself — after the jump.

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How’s that for a headline, eh?

Tomorrow night at the Capitol, thousands of people will gather as part of the Atlanta Tea Party, one of more than 500 scheduled on Tax Day. There, outside one of the most beautiful and useless buildings in the state, the crowd will complain about something that’s been going on for years — gross misuse of taxpayer dollars and business-as-usual politics. Emceeing this affair will be Sean Hannity, Fox News’ angriest white man.

Turns out Hannity and some of the various dignitaries who’ve signed on for the event might not get the warmest of welcomes. A tipster tells us that some members of the state Libertarian Party — have they gone rogue?!? — have printed more than 600 signs that scold the talk show host and politicians for turning their heads during Bush-era bank bailouts and excessive spending. (Even if you disagree with their policies, Libertarians have an incredible sense of humor. The Allen Buckley radio ads during the U.S. Senate race gave that grueling contest a much-needed jolt of excitement.)

(UPDATE: Just spoke with Daniel Adams, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Georgia. He wanted to stress that these signs were made by individual party members and not endorsed or approved by the party. Adams says the state party is co-sponsoring Atlanta’s April 15 protest to show support for the grassroots movement that’s organized these events. He says the website listed on the signs is a mirrored site belonging to the national party, not that of the state’s.)

The aforementioned tipster was kind enough to pass along PDFs of the signs, which I’ve posted after the jump. You can download them all here. Print ‘em out and join the crowd! It’ll be fun!
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The Cairo, Ga., resident — who ran for Public Service Commission last year — is set to announce his bid at 4 p.m. tomorrow at the Capitol.

From an e-mail release:

Monds and the Libertarian Party believe Georgians are ready for something new and different. “It’s difficult to tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats; both want to raise your taxes, waste your money and increase the size and scope of state government,” said Monds.

“We must be competitive in the 21st Century. We must have meaningful tax reform that allows businesses and individuals to thrive, a transportation system that eases congestion without raising taxes, an education system that gives more choices and returns control to the local level, and we need to stop wasting the taxpayers’ money with mandated long term incarceration of individuals for non-violent victimless infractions of the law”

John Monds, 43, is a graduate of Morehouse College with a degree in Banking and Finance, President of the Grady County NAACP and currently serves on the Grady County Planning Commission.

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Tomorrow, it will be seven full years since my cover story about the then-impending trial of Dragon*Con founder Ed Kramer on charges of child molestation. At the time, it had been more than a year since Kramer’s August 2000 arrest. He’d already gone to jail, been granted house arrest, had his house arrest revoked, suffered a spine injury during a jailhouse riot and been placed once again under house arrest so he could receive treatment for a laundry list of medical conditions.

Ed Kramer last September

For most of the seven intervening years, Kramer has remained confined to his Gwinnett County home with an ankle bracelet. This past May, according to the AJC, a judge ruled that he could be allowed off electronic monitoring, so long as he check in with the DA’s office every day. That would explain why I saw him this past September at a Libertarian fundraiser in Sandy Springs, dressed head-to-toe in black and wheeling about on an electric scooter.

Why has it taken so long to get Kramer inside a court room? Well, many of the delays have been the result of actions taken by his own musical-chairs legal team. The first postponement came in 2002 when his first attorney, high-priced litigator Walt Britt of Buford, succeeded in getting Gwinnett’s entire jury pool thrown out on procedural grounds.

In 2003, the DA’s office put the case on hold in order to file more charges. Kramer had initially been accused of molesting two brothers, age 13 and 15, during sleep-overs at his house; at the time, he was dating their mother. But a third boy came forward and alleged that he’d been molested by Kramer over a period of several years.

Prosecutors say Kramer has used a variety of stalling tactics – claiming he needed medical treatments, requesting extra time so new attorneys could get up to speed – in order to evade the 60-year prison sentence he faces if convicted. And a little more than a year ago, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed that most of the delays could be blamed on Kramer.

Kramer’s new trial date appears to be May 11. I don’t plan to hold my breath, but it does seem that the courts and prosecutors are ready to finally see this one through. It’s about time.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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