Author: codec

Dial up the pressure on Gov Deal

from the good folks at Better Georgia:

Better Georgia

Gov. Nathan Deal is no stranger to ethics investigations.

In fact, he’s earned the nickname “Teflon Deal” for his ability to duck responsibility for his unethical conduct as a Congressman and as Governor.

But Gov. Nathan Deal’s ethics problems just got much, much more serious. 

New reports reveal the FBI and a federal grand jury want to examine documents and witnesses related to Gov. Deal’s ethics violations and an alleged cover-up at the state ethics commission.

WSB-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are reporting that at least five current and former state ethics officials have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.

Make no mistake; this is no longer an ethics investigation.

This is a criminal investigation.

Governor Nathan Deal: (404) 656-1776

The governor and his team want you to believe this is nothing more than an intra-office skirmish. They want you to believe that because Gov. Deal paid a small fine this is now a “closed” investigation. They want you to believe there’s nothing more to discover.

But we’re not fooled.

We know the governor has financial documents he’s worked hard to keep hidden for the past three years.

We know current and former ethics commission employees have accused Gov. Deal’s hand-picked ethics chief of ordering documents removed from the governor’s ethics file while an ethics probe was ongoing.

Background:

The FBI and federal grand juries have far more important things to do than worry about disagreements among office employees.

No, the FBI and federal grand juries investigate criminal activity. Period.

It’s insulting for the governor to claim that an investigation sparked by his own campaign mistakes has nothing to do with him.

Georgians simply don’t believe Gov. Deal’s lies any more.

If there is nothing to hide, Gov. Deal could have shared these documents months ago.

Or, he could share the documents today.

Instead of fighting every single attempt at an independent investigation, Gov. Deal could simply come clean.

Take Action.

Call Gov. Deal’s office.

Tell him to come clean today.

Sincerely,
Bryan Long
Executive Director
Better Georgia

P.S. Calling will make a difference. No matter how Gov. Deal responds, we will be able to say he knows exactly what voters want. We’ve provided a script and a feedback form. Call now.

Black Friday belongs on Friday

I’ve posted this before, but revisited it too late the night before Thanksgiving. In hunting up a current link, I learned that the director, Gary Weis, spent most of his time filming at Kennedy in an international concourse, betting that people arriving from such long distances would be emotional. He said the woman holding flowers hadn’t seen her sister in 25 years.

Can’t we take a break at least on Thanksgiving to be thankful for what we already have, and who matters in our lives? http://garyweis.com/snl/snl.html

When upside down is straight up

The Friday Photo
November 22, 2013
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Decades ago my mother-in-law taught me her trick for storing multiples: the upside container means another one is already open.

Jo’s memory is upside down and sideways now, but her keen idea is straight up.

As we gather around the table

Who’s coming to Thanksgiving and what will you serve? Two keen pieces on families and Thanksgiving (FYI Sullivan uses strong language in his post. He’s spot on).

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The perfect argument for higher minimum wages captured in one photo.

And Andrew Sullivan on the Cheney sisters, “Christian compassion,” and equality.

When handmade isn’t handmade (and a sale on gen-u-ine handmade)

I wrote this a few weeks ago and left it to marinate. Yesterday as cold weather arrived in Georgia I decided to have a sale on my handmade items. This post is a little about self-promotion. It is also about a company that bends words to boost its bottom line.

Last year on Etsy, the largest online site for buying and selling handmade and vintage items, I had two shops, one selling moderately priced felted wool accessories and another featuring cashmere and fine wools. It was a crowded place with plenty of competition, but being in the crowd is often the best way to be noticed by customers.

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cashmere scarf made with a repurposed thrift store sweater

I sold scarves, fingerless gloves, iPad sleeves, and cozies for cold drinks (o.k., most of them were made to fit a beer bottle, because beer is good). If a buyer searched cell phone covers, they could end up with results that placed a handmade phone cover like the felted ones I make one at a time, next to a plastic case made in China. Often the plastic stuff kept showing up in greater numbers on a site “devoted” to handmade goods.

Last summer I worked on combining my two stores, got a local artist to create a fabulous logo, and began to build a new Etsy shop for The Sassy Gal.

The day I opened The Sassy Gal, Etsy announced a radical change in their policies for shop owners, one that includes a definition of “handmade” that exists in a special dictionary only available to the Etsy owners and CEO.

Now, for Etsy, “handmade” includes outsourcing the manufacturing of items. In short, if the shop owner/artisan designs it, the item can be made anywhere, in any manner, and still be “handmade.” There’s some gobbledygoop about transparency on how things are made with the onus being on the seller to disclose and the buyer to find that disclosure. Etsy says they will require ethical manufacturing (manufacturing just doesn’t fit with handmade). Does Etsy think it or its shop owners can police working conditions for overseas sweatshops and factories?

Etsy charges shop owners for listings. The more we list, the louder the cash register rings for Etsy. If shops can outsource the manufacturing of their inventory they can list more. More listings = more revenue for Etsy. Handmade? Buyers should check their dictionary.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been late to the party, but I arrived just as the discussion section provided to sellers and buyers exploded. And amazingly, I made a sale just days after opening my shop with very little inventory listed.

But the changes are dramatic.

When I search Etsy for cashmere infinity scarves (a scarf that is a circle of fabric one loops around the neck) hundreds come up. Last year at this time there were thousands. Now my listings show up readily among similar items. That may help me, but fewer choices may also mean fewer shoppers.

After asking some folks and doing some research, I opened a second Sassy Gal shop on another site. Zibbet is a distant second to Etsy, but I think the gap may be closing.

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Visit The Sassy Gal at Zibbet

And the exodus of artisans to Zibbet, just on October 1, when Etsy redefined handmade, caused the Zibbet servers to crash. Zibbet is rebuilding its search capacity to handle the influx of new listings as shop owners leave Etsy altogether or duplicate their listings with Zibbet.

Zibbet’s owners say they will only allow artists and craftspeople making items one at a time by hand to sell with them. They went so far as to post a “pledge” for sellers and customers to sign (It’s a little overboard, pledging not to buy “mass produced,” because the computer I’m using now was mass produced. And remember, the uproar at Etsy started with how “handmade” is now defined by Etsy’s CEO Chad Dickerson and the private shareholders of the company).

I don’t know where most of my online sales will happen. There’s a lot of time left between now and the beginning of the year, my busiest time of year. I’m curious to see which site has more traffic and which one has more actual sales.

There are lots of ways to define sales success. In a few months I’ll know if it is spelled
E T S Y or Z I B B E T.

Foul ball on the Braves new stadium

Yesterday, the team formerly known as the Atlanta Braves, became the Cobb County White Flight. The team web site included this as critical to their reasoning for leaving downtown Atlanta:  “There is a lack of consistent mass transportation, a lack of sufficient parking and a lack of direct access to interstates.”

I’ve been to some games and as I recall, I exited directly from I-20, turned left at the top of the ramp, and drove about 1/4 mile to the parking lot directly outside the stadium. Does Braves management  not know that I-20 stretches over 1,500 miles from Texas into South Carolina (making it an easy interstate for fans to use when coming from the east or the west).

The Downtown Connector isn’t much further past the stadium exit on I-20, which means fans traveling on I-75 or I-85 have easy access to The Ted.

For those who take MARTA to the game, an easy access station is about half a mile from the stadium. When I ‘ve been to a game the sidewalks are crowded with people walking from nearby Underground (with lots of parking) or the train station.

Jay Bookman has a short column today on how Cobb County’s GOP Chair Joe Dendy couches his support of the team’s new location. Bookman quotes Dendy saying, “It is absolutely necessary the (transportation) solution is all about moving cars in and around Cobb and surrounding counties from our north and east where most Braves fans travel from, and not moving people into Cobb by rail from Atlanta.”

Nevermind the “moving cars” issue because clearly the current stadium’s location near three major interstates isn’t the problem.

The real dilemma for Cobb County Conservatives is exactly who might choose to go to an MLB game in the suburbs by rail. And that’s a foul ball.

A win for Georgia

20131107-115102.jpgGuest Post by Rob Teilhet,  former state legislator
and Executive Director of Georgia Conservation Voters.
He works as a private practice attorney at The Teilhet Firm.

 

Any community is made better when it is served by quality public officials. And in order to have quality public officials, we need quality political candidates.

Whether Senator Jason Carter wins next year or not, the State of Georgia isalready better because he is a candidate. Governor Deal will be a better candidate for having to face him. And we as Georgians will be well-served by an election that is competitive, as opposed to a foregone conclusion.

When the outcome of a political campaign is known before it even takes place, the quality of public service plummets. If you doubt that, look at the Unites States Congress. With few exceptions, incumbents in Congress easily dispatch only token opposition, and return to Washington with their minds not on their constituents or their districts or the impact of public policy, but rather on the nonsense that passes for debate in DC these days. If they had to compete for our support, and were held accountable for their results, we would be better served.

I couldn’t care less who his grandfather is. What matters to me is that in the decade I spent in Georgia politics, Jason Carter proved to be one of the smartest and most genuine people I came to know, with real concern for how decisions made in Atlanta impact people and their families. As they get to know him, the people of Georgia are going to like him. And they will listen to him. And the quality of the campaign and its impact on all of us will be better as a result.

Proverbs 27:17 says that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. No matter the outcome, Georgia’s political iron will be a lot sharper next year as a result of today’s announcement.

For that, we will all be better off. And for that, I am thankful.

We own the screen rights to the movie

The story behind the long lingering proposed coal project Plant Washington reads much like a Southern Gothic novel. We’ve often been told that the work a handful of local citizens took up almost six years ago would make a great movie in the style of Erin Brockovich.

In an article published today by The New Republic, the plot line is laid out with layers of intrigue including family ties, political appointments, criminal charges, thousands of acres of land, money lost, and money to be made. I don’t think it spoils the end of this movie to say Plant Washington has been all about power, just not the kind that turns the lights on.

The best part of a film adaptation of our coal fighting adventures is that it allows for a generous cast of “seasoned” actors. I’m thinking Meryl Streep, Hal Holbrook, Sally Fields, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, and Samuel L. Jackson would do us justice in a Robert Altman ensemble style film directed by Steven Spielberg. Pass the popcorn.

It’s about fresh tomatoes and spitting watermelon seeds

coal-plants-wasteThe EPA held two public listening sessions in Atlanta yesterday concerning carbon pollution (greenhouse gas) and regulations which will be announced for existing coal power plants next year. At the last minute I wasn’t able to go to Atlanta to share mine in person. My three minutes of comments are below, which I will submit to the EPA by email.

I want to thank you for holding a public listening session in Atlanta, just miles from the country’s largest carbon emitting power plant, Plant Scherer. I live in rural Washington County, in Middle Georgia, about 2.5 hours southeast of Atlanta. My family and community are downwind about 60 miles from Scherer, and 30 miles from another coal plant, Plant Branch. After almost six years since it was announced, my community remains opposed to Plant Washington, an 850 MW coal plant that would be about eight miles from my front door in the eastern part of my county.

As a rural resident who relies on a well as our only source of water, we already know and live with the impact of uncontrolled carbon pollution in our country. Years of drought affect our ability to do basic things like run two loads of laundry in one day, even with a high-efficiency washing machine. Last summer, in 2012, my husband, who loves planting and taking care of his small garden, had to let his garden go. We had no captured rainwater to use and had to decide between having household water and fresh vegetables picked just minutes before dinner.

This past summer we had the other extreme. Our gardens drowned and our creeks and rivers overflowed.

At the end of the summer a year ago, I sadly realized I had not had nearly enough fresh locally grown tomatoes. There just weren’t any to be had. This past summer drug on with the rain gauge overflowing and the tomatoes suffering from root rot or bursting on the vines from too much water.

There is a very real connection between Plant Scherer, Plant Branch, the proposed Plant Washington, and carbon pollution. Kids missed out on spitting watermelon seeds in the backyard. And it is a crime for parents to not be able to say, “Eat those tomatoes and quit picking at your green beans. I grew them and you have to eat them.”

The damage done by unregulated carbon pollution in our country is here and we can see it at our dinner tables every night.

I urge the EPA to adopt strict carbon emission limits for existing power plants, and to require even stricter limits for Plant Washington, Plant Holcomb, and Plant Wolverine.

 

 

Pass the horseradish please

The Friday Photo
October 18, 2013
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There’s real skill in opening an oyster
and not hurting yourself. I don’t think
my nephew Dillon ate any, but he was
glad to help open them for those of us
who do.

 

 

 

 

 

We have seen a fool’s true character and the return of a hero

Ted Cruz finally managed to come clean on why he drove us to the brink of economic collapse, locked federal employees out of their offices (except the ones who had to work without pay), threatened our veterans’ benefits, and closed our national parks.

Campaign money.

Yep, a rookie United States Senator just put our country through Hell so he could raise some PAC money and collect names for campaigning.

In the midst of all this stupid selfish mess, a hero returned. John McCain not only urged his fellow Republicans to give up a fool’s errand to unwind Obamacare, he thanked the women of the Senate for doing the work that the men couldn’t do.

The Tea Baggers must really have their underwear in a twist today. In the end, it took a combination of their greatest nightmares to clean up the colossal mess they made: the Democrats in Congress, a bi-partisan group of women Senators, and a second term black President.

 

The whispers are getting louder

During the dark years of the Bush/Cheney Presidency, I began to think that one outcome would be a fundamental social and economic revolution in our country. I think, and hope, the whispers are getting louder.

Rural and Progressive

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