Rusty's Blog

The crowded special election to replace District 58 state Rep. Robbin Shipp features several decent candidates, and there’s not a whole lot of information out there to go on unfortunately. Here are the impressions I’ve gathered based on the limited information available to me.

Simone Bell
Website: http://www.simonebell.com/

Simone Bell is the only candidate I’ve met in person. My neighbor a few houses down is helping run her campaign, and I attended a meet-and-greet there. She’s nice, smart and appears genuine, though my impression of her was she was light on specific ideas for how to improve our district. She is a community educator for Lambda Legal, and earned Georgia Equality’s endorsement. If elected, she would be the first openly gay African American woman in any state legislature in the U.S.

I would almost vote for her solely because she rubs that racist fuckwit Pete Randall over at Peach Pundit the wrong way.

Asha Jackson
Website: http://ashajackson.com/

I know she’s an attorney and that she has about as many yard signs in my neighborhood as Kevin Johnson and Simone Bell, but that’s about all I know unfortunately. I really wish I’d been able to hear her speak at the candidate forum at Vinocity a few weeks ago, but I was sick at the time.

Kevin Johnson
Website: http://www.votekevinjohnson.com/

Kevin Johnson has been the most visible candidate in the district to me. He always seems to be out somewhere meeting people, and uses his Twitter account for more than blasting links to press releases. He has a strong record as a consumer advocate, having helped expose a dirty practice of banks and credit card companies called behavioral analysis, where they discriminate against consumers based on where they shop even if they pay bills on time.

J. Lewis IV

I know even less about Lewis than I know about Asha Jackson. According to Southern Voice, he was the only candidate who didn’t declare as a Democrat, and he hasn’t been filing campaign disclosures.

Mike McPherson
Website: http://mcpherson09.com/

Mike McPherson is Doug Stoner’s former chief of staff, president of the Cabbagetown Initiative board, and is a VP at an Atlanta PR and government affairs company. He helped clean up Cabbagetown in the wake of the tornado a couple of years ago, and has said he’d try to get legislation passed to make similar recovery efforts possible. I haven’t seen too many signs for him in EAV.

Comparing the candidates, how I’ll vote

I’ve been impressed with Kevin Johnson’s outreach efforts and record of consumer advocacy, and will be voting for him.

However, you could do worse than to vote for Simone Bell. I expect she would be the strongest LGBT rights advocate out of these candidates, which is important in this backwards state. This is the first time she’s run for office, and if she ends up losing this race, I expect her to learn from the experience and come back as a better campaigner on her second attempt.

Update: Sara, who is an attorney herself, vouched for Asha Jackson as a “a very smart capable attorney & very involved in the community.” So if you somehow haven’t voted yet and are reading this you should consider that as well.

Update 2: For whatever reason, Asha Jackson’s site wasn’t coming up in Google earlier. I found it and have updated the link.

This isn’t any big secret or anything since Kyle mentioned it on Facebook a while ago, but in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you I was paid $300 to shoot and edit this campaign video for Kyle Williams’ Decatur City Commission District 2 campaign:

Kyle and his partner Larry are friends of mine, and we put this together quickly to coincide with the launch of his campaign website. Municipal election disclosures aren’t processed electronically or I would link to the form. All the talk of ethics.georgia.gov being down today and Jason Pye running a disclosure of work he did reminded me I should disclose this work.

I don’t have an ongoing commitment to work for the campaign, though we have discussed shooting other videos in the future. I’ll be happy to help out if asked, and will disclose any other income that comes from any other campaign work.

Kyle is good people, you should vote for him. I don’t live in Decatur anymore or I would. And I’d tell you that even if I hadn’t been paid to shoot a video.

Both of these videos with my Great Aunt Jane were shot a little over a month ago and I just now got time to go through the footage and edit it. For now, I’m only posting videos from her which contain information that I think is interesting to a broader audience outside my family, but I might post more later.

Great Aunt Jane reacts to photos from Grady taken the night of the Winecoff Hotel fire

Allen Goodwin, who runs winecoff.org and co-authored The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America’s Deadliest Hotel Fire, contacted me after watching my first video interview with Jane. He asked me a few follow-up questions about the interview, and also asked me to show Jane a couple of photos he had to see if she recognized any of the subjects. She didn’t unfortunately, but she still offered a few interesting tidbits, which are included in this video:

Great Aunt Jane remembers The Skullbusters

I’d always heard about a group called The Skullbusters from my mom growing up, as her dad (Jane’s older brother) was a member. I never had a grasp on exactly what it was or what they did, but I did know a lot of people who were in it went on to become influential figures in politics, sports and business in Atlanta. Jane answers some of my questions in this video:

I’ve always eschewed being an official supporter of any political party, and still do to this point. I don’t like the idea of sending someone a message that they don’t have to work for my vote. But my resolve is waning.

While I’ve mostly voted for Democrats the past four elections or so, I’ve never been totally comfortable with it. I have voted for the stray Libertarian, and there have been a few stray Republicans I at least considered voting for.

I’ve always attributed my votes to the circumstances of Georgia’s bizarre politics, and not to a philosophical bent. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Republican Party and the movement behind it has not for some time, does not, and for the foreseeable future will not have any serious ideas for solving our problems. It is a bitter, feckless piddlefart.

When a movement is out of power, it is presented with an opportunity to articulate its vision for how things should be without the consequences of having to implement that vision. Let’s review how the conservative movement has spent that time in exile so far:

• The Republican governor of Texas and the Republican-dominated Georgia Legislature toyed with seceding from the Union over policy decisions
• A conservative movement protests wasteful spending by buying hundreds of thousands of tea bags it has no intention of brewing. This after years of silence about unprecedented government expansion by the prior Republican administration. Bonus points to the Atlanta edition for asking its members to take mass transit to an event protesting government spending
• One of the movement’s leading commentators, who runs a site with an audience of millions, calls a Supreme Court justice a goat-fucking child molester
• Another of the movement’s leading commentators declares that he hopes the President of the United States will fail
• Yet another of the movement’s leading commentators uses his platform of millions of listeners to discuss the pressing issue of the mustard President Obama spreads on his sandwiches
• One of the leading candidates for governor in Georgia openly endorses secession, takes illegal contributions from PACs, waxes poetic about how he is inspired by the Confederacy, and feels no need to apologize for any of this
• In a breach of decorum, the Vice President from the last Republican Administration refuses to disappear from television.

The list goes on, but I think you get the point. If this is the conservative movement’s thought leadership, explain to me why I shouldn’t just dispense with formalities and become a Democrat. What will the Republicans and their movement ever be able to offer me?

I’m a little scared at the rate the current administration and Congress is going through money. They have at times disappointed me and done other things I’ve disagreed with. But that’s always been par for the course with any government in session.

I am much more scared of the prospect of the current crop of Republican astropopulists ever gaining power again. They are not fit to run anything of any importance at all.

And I find myself agreeing with more ideas every day that are more likely to happen with Democrats running things than they are with Republicans running things. Mass transit. High density development. Decriminalization of drugs and prostitution. Equal rights for gay people. Rejection of ignorance as a point of pride. It’s not just my nausea with Republicans.

So am I just keeping up a pointless charade? What’s holding me back?

Update May 15, 2009: Ooh, now I remember why I’m not a Democrat.

Date: Sunday, March 8, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Manuel’s Tavern, 602 N. Highland Ave, Atlanta, GA

For the third year in a row, Seth Harp’s legislation to allow Georgians to vote to allow alcohol sales on Sunday has been thwarted.

Legislators — beholden to extremist religious groups, the liquor store lobby, or both — haven’t been getting the message using traditional methods.

I’m proposing that a large group of us congregate, drink ourselves into a stupor, and leave our respective state Senators drunken voicemails demanding Sunday sales.

I don’t know if we’ll accomplish anything, but we can damn well be a boisterous nuisance and tell them where they can stick their arcane laws.

A list of phone numbers will be provided, so bring your cell phone.

Everyone is invited, please spread the word!

(note: please either take a taxi or drive in groups with a DD)

I’m not going to write a full time political blog again anytime soon. Others have got it covered, and covered better than I would be able to barring me striking the lotto and suddenly having a lot of spare time. But every once in a while someone in the Legislature suggests something so goddamn stupid that I just can’t help myself, and I have to put on my angry/bitchy political blogger hat again, if only for a moment. This new segment will be called “You’re shitting me, right?”

Today’s “You’re shitting me, right?” features a proposal to build tunnels under Atlanta:

House Resolution 206, sponsored by state Rep. Vance Smith, R-Pine Mountain, proposes a statewide one-cent sales tax to fund $25 billion of projects ranging from transit to roads. Included in the legislation is a controversial project: Tunnels underneath the city.

The kinda-maybe good news, as Ben at Terminal Station notes:

The list of projects on the bill seems more of a guideline for the areas the sales tax can be applied. I don’t see any reason why DOT would agree to abrogate their power to decide what gets funding, which is what my initial reading of the linked CL implied. A project of that magnitude would still have to go through public commentary, agency approval, etc. So freaking out now is a bit premature – although that post I deleted was a wonderful rant I half wish I’d saved.

This is true. Just because the legislation passes doesn’t mean tunnels will actually be built. But I don’t think this means you shouldn’t be angry that the Legislature is wasting our fucking time with shitty pipe dreams when the region is staring down economic irrelevance due to inadequate transportation options.

If the bike- and train-riding hippies and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce agree something is a problem, it is indisputably a problem. And tone deaf crackers like Vance Smith appear to have no interest in spending their time working on anything that will actually solve any real problems. I don’t know about you, but pondering this state of affairs pisses me right the hell off regardless of whether this proposal ever amounts to anything or not.

The genesis for this nonsense came last year when the Reason Foundation pulled this idea out of its quasi-libertarian ass and attached a $25 billion price tag to it without any, like, evidence to back it up.

The closest thing to a real world example we have of such a scheme in action is the Big Dig in Boston. As originally proposed, according to an AP article that I can’t quote and won’t link to because they’re assholes, the Big Dig was supposed to take a couple of years to build and cost a couple of billion dollars. Construction ended up taking five years longer than expected and ran about $20 billion over budget.

There are several obvious questions for Vance Smith other than “why are you such a yokel jagoff?”

• How is this going to magically be $17 billion cheaper than Boston’s project and likely cover a larger area?
• Can we run all the exhaust pipes to your yard? Because I don’t want them in my yard.
• When the roads under the city fill up with cars like the current roads above ground have, will we dig another catacomb under the city? What happens when we dig to the center of the earth? Will the roads eventually come out in China like they do in Bugs Bunny cartoons?
• Can some of the money be used to build a monorail around Pine Mountain? Because that makes about as much sense as tunneling under Atlanta.

There’s also the small matter of the rampant corruption, water leaks, negligence, shoddy work, fraud, and death associated with the Big Dig. But I’m sure Vance Smith can prevent all of that happening with GDOT running the project. They are Georgia’s shining beacon of efficiency, transparency and frugal budgeting wizardry.

In short, this idea benefits no one except road builders. Please stop wasting our goddamn time. Thanks.

Update 4:31 p.m.: Sara has a photo from the aforementioned Big Dig death here.

Add to the list of questions for Rep. Vance: will you please drive back and forth through this thing over and over again in the winter time?

Speaking of gambling, I realized today I never posted results from election day over/under. Here they are:

Congratulations to Ben, who was the only person to successfully peg the Jim Martin and Jim Marshall races, and is therefore our winner.

You can view the full results spreadsheet here.

Returns from Cobb County

While that was fun, even more fun is the Cobb County write-in results (warning, large PDF) are available!

In my quixotic quest to be elected Cobb County tax commissioner as a DeKalb resident, I appear to have garnered three write-in (type-in?) votes.

For this job, I gained more votes than:

• Al Sharpton (2)
• All Idiots (1)
• Anyyone More Capable (1)
• B (2)
• Baracck Obama (1)
• Batman (2)
• Bart Simpson (1)
• Bob Barker (1)
• Boy George (1)
• Bozo Clown (1)
• B-Real (1)
• Bullwinkle (1)
• Cher (1)
• Chipper Jones (1)
• Clark Howard (1)
• D Duck (2)
• David Letterman (1)
• Dog (2)
• Drew Brees (1)
• Dude McRude (1)
• Elmer Fudd (1)
• Elvis (1)
• Fairtax Fairtax (1)
• Frank Zappa (1)
• Gen Robert E Lee (1)
• George Jetson (1)
• Herman Cain (1)
• Homer Simpson (1)
• Hunter S Thompson (1)
• I Do Not Know (1)
• I Vote Against This Person (1)
• I Want a Choice (1)
• Illegal Alien (1)
• Ima Notgonna (1)
• Jackie (1)
• Jay-Z (1)
• Jesus Christ (2)
• Joe the Plumber (2)
• John Lewis (2)
• Johnny Depp (1)
• Judge Dredd (1)
• Julius Caeser (1)
• Keith Richards (1)
• Ken (1)
• L Ron Hubbard (1)
• Libertarian (2)
• Lou Dobbs (1)
• Ludacris (1)
• Max Cleland (1)
• Michael Jordan (1)
• Mick Jagger (1)
• Minnie Mouse (2)
• Ms Piggy (1)
• Muffin (1)
• My Dog (1)
• Neal Boortz (2)
• Neither (1)
• No More Evil Nazis (1)
• No Republican (1)
• No Taxes (1)
• None I Pay Too Much Already (1)
• Not Inerested (1)
• Not Sure (2)
• Obi Wan Kenobi (1)
• Oprah (2)
• Opt Out (1)
• Paris Hilton (2)
• Paul Johnson (1)
• Pedro (1)
• Pink Panther (1)
• Pluto (1)
• Present (1)
• Prince (2)
• Rad (1)
• Republican (1)
• Right One (1)
• Rocky (1)
• Roy Barnes (1)
• RRHHFDD (1)
• Samuel L Jackson (1)
• Santa Claus (1)
• Sarah Palin (2)
• Snuffalufagus (1)
• Solomon (1)
• Spiderman (1)
• Sponge Bob (1)
• T Boone Pickens (1)
• Tax Man (1)
• The Hell With IRS ;] (1)
• Tinker Bell (1)
• Ty Cobb (1)
• Utah (1)
• Vincent Fort (1)
• Warren Buffett (1)
• Woodrow Wilson (1)
• Your Mom (1)
• Zombie Reagan (1)

Take that L. Ron Hubbard! I tied “Democrate” and Jimmy Carter, who also earned three votes each. God beat me by one vote.

I think this sets us up nicely for 2012, or whenever the next election is.

Update 12/9/2008 4:01 p.m.: Thanks for the link love from Fresh Loaf, Drifting Through The Grift, and Decatur Metro!

Barack Obama. Photo from boston.com

I share concerns about President Barack Obama that some of my Republican and Libertarian/libertarian friends have. High among those concerns, I don’t expect the trend of irresponsible government spending to be curbed under his administration, especially with a possible Democratic super majority coming in the U.S. Senate. I have a philosophical aversion to any party having that much power, and that goes for Democrats too. This prospect does worry me some.

But ultimately, I was unable to look at the past eight years and say, “hell yeah, give me some more of that.”

Not to dwell for too long about just what “that” was, but I believe that as a highly narcissistic country we elect presidents that are symbols of what we think we are or aspire to be. The past eight years demonstrated that symbolism is important, even though it may seem superficial.

And for the past eight years, America the symbol has been a belligerent drunken uncle. He’s blood and you love him. As such, you’d do almost anything for him, even if it means bailing him out of jail after his fourth DUI. You want him to dry up and get on the straight and narrow, you really do. But you resent him and are mortified by his behavior.

I don’t know which relative President Barack Obama will turn America into, but I know at least we won’t be that guy anymore. And even if he makes some decisions I disagree with, I will at least know he didn’t make them because a buddy bet him five dollars he wouldn’t.

He’s a symbol that says we’re optimistic about our future; that we value deliberation and intellect; that we can disagree without hating each other; and that we can do some good in the world without a drunken brawl breaking out. That was enough reason for me to support him, and trumped all of my other concerns.

It’s why I feel relief today and not panic, even though the world offers us many reasons to panic.

Prize to be determined later, but will probably involve alcohol. If you think a number is too low, take the over. If you think a number is too high, take the under. If you think it’s exactly right, say push.

• 298 electoral college votes for Barack Obama
• 53 percent of the popular vote for Barack Obama
• 57 U.S. Senate seats for Democrats
• 51 percent of the vote for Jim Marshall in Georgia’s 8th District
• 45 percent of the vote for Jim Martin in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race

So, for example, if you think Obama will win more than 298 electoral votes, take the over.

You can enter your predictions in the comments like this:
over, under, over, under, push

And if you live in Cobb County, remember to vote Rusty Tanton for tax commissioner! This is how I will run staff meetings.

Update 11:14 a.m. I’ve added a tiebreaker: name the exact minute Twitter first goes down tonight. You can’t pick the same minute as anyone else.

Also, FYI for people who pick “push” on percentages, we’ll round up decimal places five or higher (i.e. 52.3 percent counts as 52 percent, 52.6 percent counts as 53 percent).

There’s now a write-in campaign to make me Cobb County tax commissioner. I’m up to three votes! That’s three hundred percent more than I had this time yesterday!

That I live in DeKalb County is an unimportant detail. I figured I should have a platform, so here’s my first campaign promise, following Jen’s endorsement of me on Facebook: