Not Georgia, not that it couldn’t have happened here as well.
Read it all.
BTW, Indiana has 11 electoral votes.
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Rep. Hank Johnson issued a statement with comments for the Judiciary Hearing on Oversight of the Justice Department this afternoon. He’s calling for revisions to the Espionage Act and the law covering pen registers — the statute allowing government agents to get phone records without a warrant.
The public outcry in response to the AP investigation raises several important questions involving privacy, the First Amendment, and investigating leaks of national security information when the safety of American lives is at stake.
I strongly believe that Congress must protect the free flow of information and ideas under the First Amendment. This is why I voted for the Free Flow of information Act, a federal shield law that would have required judicial oversight over media subpoenas. This vital legislation, which was blocked by Republicans in the Senate and opposed by some of the same Members of the Committee who are shocked by the AP investigation, would likely have avoided much of the alarm caused by this investigation.
Protecting the freedom of the press also requires that we strike a careful balance in preventing national security leaks where there is a very real threat to American lives. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I am acutely aware of the threats that face our Nation and the need for confidentiality when confronting these threats.
The public outcry in response to the AP investigation also illustrates the public’s alarm with the lack of privacy protections for our everyday communications. Every day, the phone records of countless Americans are subject to criminal investigations without a warrant based on probable cause. Investigators need only a subpoena to obtain the numbers you call and receive, as well as emails and text messages that are more than 180 days old. Warrantless surveillance brings us ever-closer to the surveillance state described by George Orwell where “every sound you made was overheard,—and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.”
This issue demonstrates the urgent necessity to modernize laws that have been outpaced by technology and the ease of collecting massive amounts information about Americans. We need to modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 by requiring a warrant for surveillance involving communications, phone records, and movements. We need to update the Espionage Act of 1917 to limit prosecutions to cases involving real harms to our national security.
Laws must actually reflect the times we live in, and not continue to be outpaced by the new technologies that challenge our rights.
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So in the midst of several scandals (IRS targeting, AP phone records, and Benghazi) there’s another one may not get a whole lot of coverage. Over the last week some interesting things have happened in Russia.
A low level American diplomat was arrested by the FSB (think a blend of the KGB and FBI but more KGB) and accused of being a spy and attempting to recruit a new asset. He was apparently carrying a couple of wigs, a boat load of cash, a few pairs of glasses, map of Moscow, a very strange letter, an old brick of a Nokia, and a couple other things carried by your average Boy Scout. All of this would lead one to believe that the Russian accusations are somewhat believable and that Ryan Fogle was a CIA operative with a cover as a career diplomat.
Fogle was apparently trying to recruit a Russian Security official, with knowledge and experience of the Caucuses, as an asset to work with the US. Why the Caucuses? Well the two bombers from Boston hailed from the region, and we can always use more information about an unstable region.
So after the arrest and return of Fogle to the American Mission in Moscow, Fogle was declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Russia. But now let’s get to the weird parts. If he really was a CIA operative, how did his mission go so poorly? Aren’t our guys better trained than this? And why is an agency that is able to launch drone strikes with extreme precision, sending an agent on a mission with a map and compass in Moscow like he’s a Boy Scout in the woods?
If Fogle wasn’t a CIA operative and merely a State department employee working his way up the ladder, why isn’t the State Department protesting a bit more about the framing of one of their own as a spy? So far they haven’t said a whole lot.
Then there’s the possibility that Fogle was CIA and better trained but still is getting a bad frame up job by the Russians. The Washington Post has a great write up on the three possibilities as well as all the strange coincidental events and intricacies of the case known so far.
With any of these as possibilities, which I’m not trying to suggest one as the exact scenario, more questions need to be asked. Mostly about if Fogle was a CIA operative then how could his training not be better than what we’ve seen in the news? If he’s not CIA then why isn’t the State Department having a very public conniption fit? As the Washington Post has pointed out too many things don’t add up in this case and someone has some explaining to do. Though most likely if that happens with will be in closed door hearings.
As an aside, it turns out that one of my favorite scholars has commented on this too. Some of you may recognize one of Dan Drezner’s recent books International Politics and Zombies.
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Governor Deal issued an Executive Order today aimed at calming fears about the Common Core standards. The order says that no educational standards shall be forced on the State by the Federal government and that no personally identifiable student information shall be shared with the Federal government.
The Governor held a press conference to announce the EO and the AJC was there.
“We are concerned about the future of education in the state of Georgia,” Deal said at a Capitol news conference. “Curriculum has been and will remain a local decision.”
Deal sought to clarify that standards are not the same as curriculums, which are decided by individual school boards throughout Georgia.
He was joined by state Superintendent John Barge, who backs the Common Core standards, and Republican legislators on both sides of the issue.
Senator William Ligon issued a statement in response:
“Now it’s up to the Georgia Legislature to pick-up where the Governor left off. The Georgia State Legislature represents the will of the people and they are asking us to pass legislation to withdraw Georgia from the Common Core, the national assessments, and the intrusive tracking of student data.
“Georgia must reassert its constitutional autonomy over education, and I intend to work tirelessly with my colleagues in the General Assembly to move our state towards a more transparent, democratic process of developing statewide curriculum standards.”
Other posts on this topic:
Harper: Common Core Is Now A Common Enemy of Conservatives
Sen. Fran Millar: Common Core Makes Sense
Sen. William Ligon: Op Ed: Educational Accountability Should Be Local, Not Federal
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So, in light of the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting conservative groups, and the DOJ covertly probing the Associated Press, we have the Environmental Protection Agency showing favoritism to liberal and green groups. From Leslie Shedd, communications director for Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA-03):
According to recent news reports, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been giving preferential treatment to liberal and green organizations.
In documents obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the EPA waived fees for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from liberal organizations while denying similar waiver requests from pro-industry groups like the Institute for Energy Research. The documents reportedly show the EPA granted fee waivers for 75 of 83 FOIA requests sent by liberal environmental groups – meaning these green groups saw their fees waived 92 percent of the time. At the same time, records show the EPA rejected or ignored FOIA requests from conservative groups 21 out of 26 times – an 81 percent rejection rate.
That’s some pretty stark differences.
Indeed. That must be the “Hope and Change” our Democratic friends have been peddling since 2007.
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A mid-week Constitutional debate for everyone has begun with Paul Yates’ reporting at FOX5 Atlanta, that due to a “citizen’s concern,” Bibles were ordered removed from Georgia-owned lodges and guest houses at State parks.
The Augusta Chronicle has additional details here. And Jim Galloway reports that Governor Nathan Deal will seek to get those bibles put back into state-owned facilities: “It is our intention, based on the guidance that we will be given by the attorney general, to replace those Bibles in those facilities. I think it will happen rather quickly.”
We have to assume that these Bibles were not purchased with tax dollars, so please, ACLU members and Libertarians, is there really a First Amendment separation issue here? And if so, please reconcile that issue with the First Amendment rights of Gideons International.
UPDATE, just for griftdrift and mpierce: Kathleen Baydala Joyner at ATL LAW Blog got this quotation: “Georgia State Constitutional Law professor L. Lynn Hogue said having donated religious books in state park cabins and lodges does not present a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, unless the state parks were soliciting them.
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Here are a couple of stories from the daily that should pique your interest. In case you haven’t signed up yet, go here. It’s totally worth it. You should definitely do it. You know you want to.
Alabama, Florida, Try To Slip Rule Into Bill To Screw Georgia. The AP’s Ray Henry: “Originally, the plan would have forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to seek congressional approval if a request for municipal or industrial water cumulatively changed by 5 percent or more the approved water storage plans for a federal reservoir. Georgia is now seeking water from Lake Lanier that, when combined with earlier requests, easily exceeds the 5 percent threshold. Georgia officials said water withdrawals from Lake Allatoona, part of a separate conflict between Alabama and Georgia, could have also been threatened.” The offending plan was removed from the bill and the Senate began debating amendments to it yesterday. Six more amendments will be debated today.
Mobile Offices For Parole Officers? Georgia is working toward putting Parole Officers in mobile offices rather than brick and mortar offices. Over the last year or so, the state has closed most of its parole offices and equipped officers with laptops, smartphones and mobile printers, turning their state vehicles into mobile offices. The plan stresses visiting parolees in their communities rather than having them come into an office, said Michael Nail, executive director of parole for the state. “It puts us out in the community,” he said. “It puts us where the offender lives and works and attends treatment.”
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Yeah, so there’s apparently a meeting of some influential people this weekend. That would be WRAS-Fest this Saturday, 6pm-12pm at the GSU Student Center. Tix are a sawbuck and support one of the best college radio stations in the country, and one of the many things that makes Atlanta great.
Congrats to all the grads of Georgia State, Emory, and whichever of the institutes of higher learning in GA that conducted commencement exercises the past few days.
- Somehow I’m willing to bet Coke’s still got their formula on lockdown. Also, FWIW, many of the ingredients used to make the cokes of yore aren’t made any more so you would likely have difficulty re-creating Coke even with a recipe.
- I read an article in Tuesday’s AJC (the dead-tree version) about Jack Kingston and his earmark record. Can’t find it online but he was the top earmarker from FY2008-10. Also, he desperately needs a new logo but that is a fact stated by me, not the paper.
- Tax payers pay $39k for Arthur Ferdinand’s whip. “Ferdinand has been the focus of criticism in the past, some of it related to an annual income that exceeds that of Gov. Nathan Deal and approaches the pay for President Barack Obama.”
- Blogging While Blue attempts to encourage Georgia Democrats–all 15 of whom are resigned to a loss in the Senate race now that Barrow is out.
- Atlanta is getting Aereo. I don’t really know what that means.
- It is now time to start looking at baseball stats and standings… The luckiest hitters of 2013 and just how much of a factor will luck play in a season? Here is one answer.
- Holder needs to go.
- Make some ramps if you can find them and freeze your rhubarb while you have it.
I’d link to more but the above are basically perfect.
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Yes, We’re a website dedicated to Georgia politics. That means our focus is on state and local issues and those that work and play among them. But every so often national political stories invade the news space to the point that our commenting community has to have somewhere to go to get some things out of their system. So, if you want to discuss Benghazi, the IRS, or the Administration’s decision to get phone records from those who work for the Associated Press, we’ll give you the comments from Congressman Tom Price (R-GA-Not Running for Senate) and Congressman John Barrow (D-GA-Not Running for Senate) to get you started.
From Congressman Price: [click to continue…]
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More Candidates!
David Perdue is still flirting with the idea of running to be Georgia’s next junior US Senator. He has announced his exploratory committee to guide him to a decision. From Perdue’s presser:
“I am truly concerned about the direction of our country. We have unacceptably high unemployment and a crushing national debt. I don’t think we can solve our problems by simply electing another career politician looking for a promotion,” said Perdue.
David Perdue helped grow some of America’s most recognizable companies including Sara Lee, Haggar, and Reebok. As a Fortune 500 CEO, David oversaw the impressive expansion of Dollar General to 8,500 stores nationwide and created thousands of quality jobs. Now he is strongly considering a run for U.S. Senate.
“I am honored to have an outstanding group of business and community leaders helping guide me through this decision. It is also important to hear directly from voters during this process. I believe they would welcome a candidate with meaningful private sector experience from outside the political establishment to enter the race and present a real alternative to the Washington insiders,” added Perdue.
And More Rumors of Candidates!!
The rumor mill (via the Tip Line) has it that Mac Collins has an announcement concerning the soon-to-be open 10th Congressional District on Thursday. However, it’s not about his candidacy to be the successor to Paul Broun, but rather the candidacy of his son: Mike Collins. Stay tuned for updates.
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Here are couple of items from this morning’s Daily (subscribe here) that may be of interest and worthy of discussion.
Atlanta America’s Most Redneck City? Some outfit called “Movoto” says Atlanta is America’s Most Redneck City, beating out Kansas City for the honor. According to the report, “Atlanta has 81 shops that repair riding lawn mowers; 55 gun and ammo stores; 34 boot stores; 14 taxidermy shops; five Walmart locations; one country radio station in the city proper, and one NASCAR track.” If Atlanta Motor Speedway is really in Atlanta then we have more than one country radio station. Yankees. What do they know? There are 533 cities in Georgia who will be happy to dispute those findings.
We’ve Got Broadband, Right Here In River City: And that starts with “B” and that rhymes with “T” and that stands for TOTALLY AWESOME for the city of Stockbridge, which approved a deal that will provide “more Internet capacity than any other network in the Southeast.” For $15 million, we sure hope so.
Grassroots Wars. The Georgia Tea Party Patriots sent an email to their followers saying they will be announcing a statewide grassroots organization in cooperation with national conservative groups that will “rival Obama’s Organizing for America.” A press conference is scheduled for Friday at 2:00 PM in front of the Classic Center in Athens. On the other side, Better Georgia is hiring “community activists” via craigslist.com. You can make between $1200 and $2500 per month “having real conversations with citizens about the many issues they deal with every day and what they expect from their politics. The ultimate aim of this work is to find ways that we can include these individuals as part of a more visible and long-term grassroots movement for progressive change.”
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Below is a guest post from Senator William Ligon (4/3/13). Ligon of the Third Senate District serves as Chairman of the State and Local Governmental Operations Committee of the Georgia Senate. He has introduced SB167, a bill to repeal use of the Common Core State Standards in Georgia schools. For more, read Charlie’s article and Sen. Fran Millar’s article in support of Common Core.
Perhaps never before in American history has K-12 education experienced such a huge shift from local to federal educational control with less involvement of elected legislators. The Race to the Top (RTTT) grant process bypassed a fundamental principle of constitutional government, “the consent of the governed.”
This grant was developed entirely within the federal executive branch, without federal or state legislative review. Executive branch state officials unilaterally committed their states to implement the mandates of the RTTT grant, including the adoption of the Common Core standards, even though the standards were not yet written, the tests undeveloped, and the costs unknown.
In a nation of supposedly self-governing people, bypassing the legislative body violates the very foundation of this constitutional Republic. The legislative branch is the branch of government that reflects the will of the people. The consent of the governed is non-negotiable in a nation of free people.
Across the nation, people are realizing that they have been excluded from exercising one of their most treasured rights: the right to control the education of their children. Their voices, as well as those of local educators and school boards, have been muted by federal strings attached to grants for too long. However, this latest grant has taken the situation to a new level.
Nationwide, the vigorous objections to RTTT mandates include the questionable quality of unpiloted Common Core standards, the expensive testing component, the collection and sharing of personal information on students – approximately 400 data points, the unproven teacher-evaluation system, the increased taxation that will necessarily occur to pay for unfunded mandates, and the fact that the Common Core violates the spirit, if not the letter, of three federal laws that prohibit federal direction of curriculum.
Currently, the Common Core represents uniform, multi-state standards in mathematics and English language arts (ELA), and other top-down uniform standards are in the pipeline. Though the official talking points claim the effort was “state-led,” that point stretches credulity when the actual input from the states was minimal at best (and in the case of the legislatures, non-existent).
The funding for Common Core came largely from the Gates Foundation to two private trade associations (the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers) along with their affiliated group, Achieve, Inc., none having public accountability. In turn, these groups designated three main writers for math standards and three for the ELA standards (no one from Georgia). Of the development teams, a total of 135 people, it appears that only three were from Georgia. How anyone was actually chosen is still a mystery. So much for transparency, public accountability, and claims of a state-led effort. Otherwise, we would have full public records of the entire process.
The Georgia Senate Education and Youth Committee recently heard from education experts who warned of the dangers of the Common Core. Dr. Sandra Stotsky, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on ELA standards and a member of the Common Core Validation Committee, refused to sign off on the ELA standards because of their deficiencies, which she called “empty-skill sets.” In addition, there is no evidence that replacing classic literature with nonfiction such as EPA regulations will produce better readers; in fact, all of the evidence is to the contrary.
The Common Core math standards are similarly deficient. Dr. James Milgram from Stanford University, the only mathematician on the Validation Committee, refused to sign off on them, concluding that students “educated” under Common Core math would be about two years behind their counterparts in other countries by 8th grade.
The claim that the Common Core is more “rigorous” than Georgia’s previous standards does not hold up well. Even the Fordham Institute, which was paid $1 million by the Gates Foundation to compare standards across the nation, gave Georgia’s former ELA standards and math standards the same overall rating as the Common Core’s. Yet, Georgia’s executive branch was willing to trade the state’s sovereignty over education to unaccountable Washington, D.C. bureaucrats and trade associations for a mere $400 million doled out over four years.
Grant terms require that Georgia cannot change or delete any standard, but can only add 15 percent to them. When state taxpayers pay over $13 billion in local and state taxes every year for K-12 education, how can their elected officials possibly concede their right to control educational standards?
Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington – that only DC elites are competent to manage our lives (and our children) – I believe what our Founders believed: that liberty is best preserved when control is exercised close to home. In no area is this truth more fundamental than the education of our children. As control over education has become increasingly centralized over the last 40 years, education has deteriorated. Are we to believe that the solution to this problem is even more centralization in Washington?
My bill to withdraw Georgia from Common Core, the aligned assessments, and the intrusive data tracking on students is part of the movement to reassert our constitutional autonomy over education. The prevailing sovereignty of the states in matters of K-12 education both reflects and promotes the commonsense competence of the people. To weaken that sovereignty will, over time, undermine selfrule and individual initiative as well as the education of our children.
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At a recent event in Savannah, Governor Deal fielded a question about the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s handling of the ongoing controversy regarding fish kills in the Ogeechee River and polluted discharges by King America Finishing.
From the Statesboro Herald:
A reporter asked Deal if he had an opinion on whether King America Finishing should get a new permit to discharge waste into the Ogeechee River. After a record fish kill downstream from the plant in May 2011, the Environmental Protection Division issued a consent order requiring the company to fund $1 million worth of river cleanup projects. The agency issued a draft permit in March, which replaces an earlier draft permit EPD withdrew after protests and litigation threats from property owners along the river and the Ogeechee Riverkeeper. [click to continue…]
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The controversy of the IRS purposefully targeting conservative organizations has been lighting up the wires for the past few days. Congressman Tom Graves (R-GA-14) quizzed IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in a Ways and Means subcommittee hearing about the practice that was picked up by Yahoo! News:
Mr. GRAVES: Madam Chair, Commissioner. There has been a great deal of press in terms of the likelihood of your agency structure and form and funding of 501(c)(4) in terms of welfare organizations. This media attention specifically focused on our assets, examination of what are (c)(4) groups, who also engage in political activity, should be denied a release of their taxes. Two reasons I think that your activities are of so much interest to the press, and to everyone out there, certainly to us in Congress, first because of the timing of the inquiries, which make it appear a little bit linked to other actions, and second, is the focus, since the examinations seem to be centered on groups that are considered Tea Party groups, or those that openly oppose the Administration’s policies.
Can you help put any of those concerns to rest today that these groups are specifically being targeted because of their political activities or their opposition to the Administration’s policies?
Mr. SHULMAN: It is a good question. I am glad you asked it because I think there has been lots of information flying around in the press, and I think it is important that people put it in perspective. First, is for taxpayers to operate as a 501(c)(4) organization, they need to be primarily engaged in promoting the common good or general welfare. They are allowed to be involved in political campaign activity, but it cannot be the primary activity. Second, in order to be a (c)(4) organization, you do not need to apply to the IRS. You can hold yourself out as a 501(c)(4). You then file your 990 at the end of the year, and if we see something that either has to do with political activity or something else, we have the option to do an examination, and there is not a high chance of an examination; we run samples. Third, when we decide to do an examination, we pride ourselves on being a non-political, non-partisan agency. We are given these complex rules that have things like political activity written into the tax code that does not allow you to do certain things or else you jeopardize your tax exemption. We have set up very clear safeguards, for determinate exams. Our Chief Counsel and I are the only Presidential Appointees, and I have a five-year term, so that it goes past Presidential election cycles.
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