Bling Bling in the ATL

Moderately excited about Superbowl XL for the first time since the Pats won a few years back.

Couldn't care less for the Steelers or the Seahawks except that they both have talented young Samoan players: Troy Polamalu and Lofa Tatupu.

Cool!

So I was reading my blogs the other morning, and came across this:

Remember the girl I met at the volunteer training for Dekalb Rape Crisis Center...

....whom, to our mutual embarrassment, I ran into at stripclub karaoke at the Claremont lounge?

Man, she turns up in the weirdest places.

Apparently she attended a vegan protest at the Honeybaked Ham (mmmm... honeybaked ham....) on Buford Highway with 10 other enemies of the state. Homeland Security showed up in an unmarked car, photographed her, trailed her, blocked her in a parking lot, and then arrested her. I don't think it would be going too far to claim that said incident has had a slightly chilling effect on the progressive community here in GA.

Caitlins a good girl though - she got in touch with the ACLU and is pressing suit. The GA ACLU reports that in addition to vegetarians, Homeland Security is also keeping track of WAND and The Georgia Peace and Justice Organization, the last (ironically) tagged as a "credible threat." Credible threat to what, I don't know. Certainly not the war - this is Georgia, after all.

Read it and weep.

From Paul Kiel, TPM Reed writes:

"Jack, would you be willing to contribute personally to my state chair campaign? This race is costing me $50-100K, and i'm asking my friends to help."

Abramoff responds:

"Sure. Give me the name of the entity."

Reed deadpans:

"The actual committee is "The Reed Family Retirement and Educational Foundation." It is a 501(c)(3). The address is 200 Bay Drive, Grand Cayman, BCI, R59876."

Abramoff:

"Ha ha ha. Make sure you get me the proper committee name."

After Reed responded with the real name ("Reed for Chairman"), Abramoff wrote:

"Seriously, I'll get you the $10K this week or next from a source which owes me money."

The "source," you'll be unsurprised to hear, was the Mississippi Choctaw. In early April, the Choctaw cut a $150K check to the American International Center, one of the fake foundation slush funds Abramoff had set up with Michael Scanlon. On 4/12/01, Abramoff wrote to his assistant instructing $10K of the $150K check to be sent on to Reed's campaign (see page 54).

Reed says his campaign only got $5,500 from Abramoff and unsurprisingly claims complete ignorance about the true source of the funds.

Unfortunately for Reed, his fortunes seem to be declining lately. A recent poll showed him trailing his Republican challenger, and Sen. Cornyn (R-Tex.) on Meet the Press yesterday accused Reed and Abramoff of "bilking their Indian clients for millions of dollars."

Luckily, Reed has his sense of humor to see him through these difficult times...and maybe also a stash in the Caymans? In a less conspicuously named account, of course.

The GA Progressive Summit 06 happened this past weekend - Schmer and I, were in attendance. It was a blast. I paid the fee half thinking it was a donation, and not knowing what to expect in return. I had no idea what I was getting into - they totally delivered. I met a million fun folks, learned about 18 new skills, and saw about 50 fun projects to get involved with. Neat!

More later - but one fun thing was meeting this guy, Jeffrey Sellman, one of the ACLU's plaintiffs in the Cobb County Evolution case where they put stickers on Ken Millers Bio textbook re: evolution. Jeffrey was in the first workshop I went to. We were in the same group and started talking - he's a funny guy. I like his opinions, but basically he comes across as a neighbor - someone who moved to georgia, did a double take when he realized what the politics were, and got sucked into national issues.

Anyhow. Its late, will post more later. Ciao,

Ms. Bling

From Roll Call...

Wednesday, Jan. 4

President Bush took advantage of the Congressional recess to appoint a trio of commissioners to the Federal Election Commission today, a move that was expected but has several prominent campaign finance reformers crying foul.

The newly appointed Republican commissioner is Hans von Spakovsky, a political appointee in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, who was previously a Republican election appointee in Georgia. He fills the vacant GOP seat on the six-member commission that was held until last summer by Brad Smith, who has retired.

A little bit about Spakovsky -
- a key player in the 2000 Florida Election Boondoggle,
- card carrying holder of the Federalist Society
- former Republican Party Chairman in Georgia,

Spakovsky was also behind the legal opinions given supporting the Georgia Photo ID requirement laws and the Texas redistricting pet project of indicted former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay. 4 out of 5 attorneys said the Georgia law would disenfranchise minority voters. While 8 out of 8 unaminously found the new Texas congressional map to be in violation of the law for similar reasons. Both of those decisions were overriden with the help of von Spakovsky and resulted in an effective gutting of the very heart of the 40 year-old Voting Rights Act of 1965

My fire-hula-hooping, tantric-sex-workshop-going buddy L announced that she's... quitting smoking, drinking, partying and the arty-farty warehouse-living lifestyle- all to settle down with the BF in Decatur to have a baby! Scandalous!!!