Cars, Votes And Guns

Hot on the heals of their ambitions to use the First Amendment as a platform for self-serving legislation they put on a full court press against the Second Amendment, specifically in a well-curated assault against the Constitutional Carry law wending its way through the Gold Dome. 

We get a hand-selected letter to the editor, reportedly from a former member of law enforcement that poses questions that are either rhetorical or founded in ignorance. Does the letter writer really not know how reciprocity works? Then we have the inevitable "cars require a license, why not a gun?" which definitely originates in the depths of ignorance. Continuing that line of thought you should need a First Amendment license from the government to operate a newspaper, right? More importantly, the Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights, the first and inarguably most important of all the amendments. Why? Because they fulfill two goals: they define inalienable rights; and they explicitly prohibit government infringement of those rights. This is why anyone, even non-citizens and illegal aliens enjoy those rights and protections but not the vote. Which comes to the last front in their assault against the Constitution: a false analogy suggesting that voting and Second Amendment rights are somehow equivalent. That author either knows that is not true and is intentionally misleading or might need to spend a little time on history or perhaps reading the Federalist Papers. 

Is this really a media outlet or a propaganda engine? Does it really deserve a legal carve-out?

Making Sausage

The political machinery that grinds power and money, squizzing it out in an unnatural casing has often been likened to making sausage. And whenever three or more are gathered in the name of politics there will be some playing hide the sausage. Upon that  politically incorrect practice becoming practically illegal a complaint was lodged against a state Senator, Republican of course, by a lobbyist accusing him of demanding she hide his sausage. She refused, then accused. But it turns out she had her own sausage operation and was afraid that same senator would no longer cook her wares and serve it to Georgia citizenry.

The AJC, having procured a copy of the state's investigative report tell us that the document states

"there was no evidence Schafer retaliated towards the lobbyist by killing her legislation"

Her legislation? HER LEGISLATION!?!! That is the real problem. HER name did not show up on any ballot. In fact, due to the AJC victimhood support policy, the paper will not name the woman even though it has now been determined the accusations she made are without merit. But we, the good folk of Georgia who suffer from her activities, are supposed to be concerned about the fate of HER legislation. "Lobbyist" has always been code-word for "something, often unsavory, for hire" but it is baffling why payment terms no longer include sexual favors yet still include screwing the public. Do voters need a lobbyist to get a law passed to fix that?

Frightened By Unicorns

Democrats are strange creatures, particularly of late. Could be they feel a bit endangered. It's not like they are unicorns but they are certainly afraid of one. Tis the season down at the gold dome and the silly just cannot be stopped. The Quasimodos are down there screaming past each other about sanctuary with our very own Fran Millar supporting legislation he posits would be "clarifying and adding to the particular current law[AJC]." This elicited a nanny-nanny-boo-boo response from the other side of the aisle: "or muddying the water and unclarifying." Take that Fran! But wait! There's more! And it is the juicy bit because it is in the politicians' wheelhouse--self contradictory. Having never heard "no harm, no foul" this Democrat followed up with "You're proposing legislation to address something that doesn't exist." When you are one of the wee folk, taxpayers and the like, the second best legislation is legislation for unicorns[*].



[*] The very best legislation is no legislation at all.

Concealed Carry

In order to legally carry a concealed weapon in the State of Georgia you need a Carry License and the associated FBI background check--ignore the fact that licensing is a responsibility of the states. But if you want to carry a bill, a campus carry bill, out of committee you need no license. You just need last minute agenda updates.

Which comes as quite a surprise to the opponents of licensed carry on University System properties. Bear in mind the facts of the current situation. Today's prohibition is not just against students, faculty, administration and employees of the University System, it prohibits all licensed carry by all legally licensed and background checked gun toters. And that applies to all University System property including off-campus properties which are often hard to identify as legally allowed gun free zones.

Most disappointing is not that Alan Powell pulled a fast one by tacking the legislation to the agenda but that he did not tack on a provision for licensed carry under the Gold Dome. 

Forced March To Citihood

A couple of thugs down at the Gold Dome have started flexing their muscle by giving an ultimatum to the Lakeside, Briarcliff and Tucker citihood teams:

Set your city borders by date certain or we will

We will skip over the arrogance of the ultimatum as arrogance is one of the main ingredients of any ultimatum and cut to the chase. Why is it considered a fait accompli that there must be any new city at all, or that any, even if desired by someone other than politicos, would be viable? Of course none of that matters as the powerful and politically connected will have their way no matter who must pay.

Brand Dilution

In the local city stampede one of the most powerful brands is that of the Carl Vinson Institute. While there are alternatives a CVI study is all but required to get the citihood boulder rolling down the hill. One political use of the study is as a measure of support--there must be enough sincere interest from the City Crusaders to pony up around $30,000. Once the study is successfully completed it becomes a stick to beat back any naysayers with a few simple words : "the CVI study says that the City of St. Somewhere will be financially viable." 

And generally that works. 

However the recent crusades ran into a spot of bother with overlapping land grabs. Since the CVI study is basically a back of the envelope balance between a proposed city's revenue and service costs with the former largely supported by business taxes and fees and the latter associated with residential areas the actual map of a proposed city is critical. It was the competing city maps showing Northlake (and its associated revenue) on the books of more than one proposal that not only made it clear that residents cannot afford their own city but that there are not enough businesses to pilfer to pay for all the cities on the docket. While the issue of multiple claimants on the Northlake revenue was never resolved one thing did happen rather late in the game--maps were redrawn! To be very, very clear redrawing a proposed city map after the CVI study is complete makes that study worthless. 

To propose that a CVI study based on a map that is no longer valid is still somehow valid is not only logical nonsense it calls into question the validity of these feasibility studies. For CVI to allow these studies to be bandied about after map changes dilutes their brand and undermines their credibility. CVI should make it clear that map changes invalidate previous studies based on different maps. 

These changes also undermine the process. 

Changes make it clear that City Crusaders are either ignorant or lying when they claim significant, majority support for their plans--were that the case changes to the map would not occur. Furthermore these changes make a joke of the process put in place to protect citizens and the legislature should make a simple change to restore integrity: whenever a map change is made any previous study must be re-done or updated before the march to citihood continues.