If I knew it was this kind of party ...
So, this is the choice everyone has to make here ...
You've got one candidate who says outrageous things like he wants to blow up the University of Georgia and that Democrats are trying to register members of al-Qaida to vote, the latter of which was so absurd that even one of his Republican opponents calls him out on it.
And that guy wants to vaguely 'restore Constitutional government', as if we've simply not been doing that for the past 200-plus years. Coincidentally enough, doing so also includes abolishing the IRS, scrapping the income tax and replacing with an incredibly regressive sales tax which would actually raise taxes on the middle class.
But us Democrats are a bit confusing anyway. I don't know a thing about Evita Paschall, and I can't begin to find out since she refuses to fill out any sort of voter information surveys and is the only candidate that doesn't have a web site. For those with web sites, Denise Freeman needs to learn to use SpellCheck because if she can't get 'Congress' right then I'm going to have a hard time trusting her on some things.
I like James Marlow, and he's put together a good message on a variety of issues, but I had two conversations with a pair of friends last night that resulted in us questioning where in the heck he had gone in recent weeks.
But still, all of that now pales in comparison to ... Bill Greene.
Now, to be fair, I've always felt that Greene was easily the candidate with the most loose screws in this whole thing, it's just that he was able to keep everything under control a little better than, say, Whitehead. Well, the wheels may have started to come off.
It seems that Greene, along with a few of his buddies, were doing a fundraiser at a local VFW in Watkinsville. A supporter of Whitehead, being politically savvy, knocked on the door of some folks who lived directly across the street and got them to put a 'Jim Whitehead for Congress' sign in his yard.
This angered The Hulk, er, Greene.
Phillips told police that Greene, Spohn and a third man yelled at him while he walked into a private driveway across VFW Drive, where two homeowners gave him permission to post campaign signs in their yard.
Phillips told police someone told him to quit or they'd send the Minutemen out to stop him. Greene is a member of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, a group dedicated to keeping illegal immigrants out of the United States. As Phillips left, Spohn followed him, taking pictures, Phillips told police.
As he backed up his truck, Phillips heard a thump and found a dent on his truck.
Witnesses told police they saw Spohn jump to the side and hit the truck with his fist as it approached him.
There are way too many things that are comical about this. First off ... can you imagine Greene hollering 'we'll send the Minutemen out for you!' Second ... not so much for that whole private property rights thing are we, sir?
But lastly ... this Spohn fella punched a truck.
Now, in his defense, maybe this was Spohn's statement that we need to move to a more energy efficient lifestyle and that the truck Phillips was driving was needlessly wasting gas. OK, that's probably not it, but who knows?
So, what are we left with? Something which will be terribly entertaining as we gallop into the homestretch of this special election, though political theater sometimes doesn't translate into proper leadership.
You've got one candidate who says outrageous things like he wants to blow up the University of Georgia and that Democrats are trying to register members of al-Qaida to vote, the latter of which was so absurd that even one of his Republican opponents calls him out on it.
And that guy wants to vaguely 'restore Constitutional government', as if we've simply not been doing that for the past 200-plus years. Coincidentally enough, doing so also includes abolishing the IRS, scrapping the income tax and replacing with an incredibly regressive sales tax which would actually raise taxes on the middle class.
But us Democrats are a bit confusing anyway. I don't know a thing about Evita Paschall, and I can't begin to find out since she refuses to fill out any sort of voter information surveys and is the only candidate that doesn't have a web site. For those with web sites, Denise Freeman needs to learn to use SpellCheck because if she can't get 'Congress' right then I'm going to have a hard time trusting her on some things.
I like James Marlow, and he's put together a good message on a variety of issues, but I had two conversations with a pair of friends last night that resulted in us questioning where in the heck he had gone in recent weeks.
But still, all of that now pales in comparison to ... Bill Greene.
Now, to be fair, I've always felt that Greene was easily the candidate with the most loose screws in this whole thing, it's just that he was able to keep everything under control a little better than, say, Whitehead. Well, the wheels may have started to come off.
It seems that Greene, along with a few of his buddies, were doing a fundraiser at a local VFW in Watkinsville. A supporter of Whitehead, being politically savvy, knocked on the door of some folks who lived directly across the street and got them to put a 'Jim Whitehead for Congress' sign in his yard.
This angered The Hulk, er, Greene.
Phillips told police that Greene, Spohn and a third man yelled at him while he walked into a private driveway across VFW Drive, where two homeowners gave him permission to post campaign signs in their yard.
Phillips told police someone told him to quit or they'd send the Minutemen out to stop him. Greene is a member of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, a group dedicated to keeping illegal immigrants out of the United States. As Phillips left, Spohn followed him, taking pictures, Phillips told police.
As he backed up his truck, Phillips heard a thump and found a dent on his truck.
Witnesses told police they saw Spohn jump to the side and hit the truck with his fist as it approached him.
There are way too many things that are comical about this. First off ... can you imagine Greene hollering 'we'll send the Minutemen out for you!' Second ... not so much for that whole private property rights thing are we, sir?
But lastly ... this Spohn fella punched a truck.
Now, in his defense, maybe this was Spohn's statement that we need to move to a more energy efficient lifestyle and that the truck Phillips was driving was needlessly wasting gas. OK, that's probably not it, but who knows?
So, what are we left with? Something which will be terribly entertaining as we gallop into the homestretch of this special election, though political theater sometimes doesn't translate into proper leadership.
posted by Jmac at 6:39 AM
7 Comments:
James Marlow has been around the district very actively over the last couple weeks. I am a volunteer with his campaign and I know that he has been to forums and debates in Grovetown, Lake Oconee, and Augusta on the 10th, 14th, and 16th respectively. He has been to two county party meetings in Rabun and Richmond Counties. He held a fundraiser in Lincolnton on th 19th, attended the State JJ Dinner two days earlier, and particpated in the Daily Kos Meet and Greet on the 19th. Additionally, a meeting took place between James and the North Georgia Building Trades on the 15th.
This Saturday, he's going to be at the Towns County BBQ on the Square.
I just wanted to clear up any misunderstanding. His public schedule is available online. Hope this helps!
I cant find out much of anything about Marlow.
I do know this- Greene is a certified nut.
So much speculation, so little knowledge of the facts. So here are the facts.
On the evening of May 22nd, the Greene for Congress campaign was holding a private fundraiser at the Community Center in Watkinsville, Georgia. A Whitehead campaign staffer, Brandon Phillips, arrived as it began and placed Whitehead campaign signs all around the building (NOT just in a private yard, we have the pictures) where the Greene fundraiser was being held. I approached the Whitehead staffer, who was standing by his truck in a private driveway getting more signs out, and asked him to take down the signs around our building, which he refused to do. Then the owner of that property asked me to step off of his property, which I did. As I left, I mentioned to him that (A) I'm sure Jim Whitehead would never approve of placing his signs all around the building where his opponent's private function was being held, and (B) I'd hate to see them lose all that money, since the people inside the building would be coming out shortly to pull up the signs there were not on private property. (And yes, there were Minutemen inside as well, which Phillips knew in advance.)
I went inside to greet all of our supporters, and our campaign manager, Eric Spohn, went out to take pictures of the signs and the truck's license plate (to show Jim Whitehead what his people were doing), at which time the Whitehead staffer jumped into his truck, threw it into reverse, and attempted to run down Eric. Eric jumped out of the way at the last second, pushing off of the truck as it sped by, putting a small dent in the side.
All of this happened right in front of the police station (which is attached to the Watkinsville Community Center, where our event was being held), the two of them were questioned, and they were asked if they were pressing charges against each other (against Phillips for assault with a deadly weapon and/or attempted vehicular manslaughter, against Eric for property damage). Eric said he didn't want to have to do so if it could be solved between the two of them, as he didn't want to have to bring all of his witnesses (some of whom were minors, there with their families as volunteers at the event) into court. Phillips, it turns out, couldn't file charges, because it wasn't his truck.
So no one got into a fight. No one was arrested. No one filed charges. The signs were all removed (both the dozens surrounding our building, and from the yard of the private home -- apparently, someone was simply paid off to put a sign up for the evening). Our event went great. We all went home.
Unfortunately, this is just another example of politics as usual. What we had was a foolish young man, making several foolish mistakes. He was foolish to put dozens of signs around his boss's opponent's private event. He was foolish to try to stop the Greene for Congress campaign manager from taking pictures of his truck & license, by attempting to run him down. And he was foolish to think that this is how politics is done -- which is what the voters of Georgia are sick and tired of. Jim Whitehead should do the right thing: this staffer should be fired (or if he was a volunteer, banned from the campaign), and I hope he learns his lesson and avoids foolishness in the future.
That's what happened. I was there. You weren't. End of story.
Except for one more thing: I called Jim Whitehead's campaign several times, and left messages asking him to return my call, so we could discuss this incident. He hasn't done so.
Bill Greene
Wow!
Relying on Jay Bookman for intelligent analysis of the Fair Tax is like relying on a doctor to diagnose the problem with your cars transmission.
Read the book and you will see it has NO negative impact on ANY class.
You do realize your own biases - negative toward Bookman and positive toward the book - are also influencing your opinion as well, right?
Also, Bookman merely used the calculator provided by the Fair Tax web site. If he was doing something, that should be pointed out. If he wasn't, then something's wrong with the calculator and not Bookman's analysis.
I have read the book and found it to be rather unconvincing, particularly with one of my primary concerns of hitching the federal government's revenues to the whims of a consumer-driven economy.
I'm trying to verify that the Brandon Phillips to which you refer in this article is the same guy who pulled a gun on me and beat me up in a parking lot about a month ago. The Brandon that attached me is Brandon Clay Phillips and his DOB is 01/27/86. He's currently 22 years of age and is white and has dark hair. Brandon currently has an arrest warrant for assalt with a deadly weapon and battery in Fulton County Georgia. I can't imagine that the Georgia voters would be happy to know that State Sentor John Bullock has this guy working for him currently. Please e-mail me any information you may have, so we can see if this is the same guy.
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