If one believes that the problem is out-of-control government trampling our Bill of Rights, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is the lack of Christian morals among our civil magistrates, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is the slaughtering of over 50 million innocent unborn babies, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes that the problem is honesty and integrity in the White House, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes that the problem is out-of-control federal spending, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is the United States catering to the evil machinations of the Security Council of the United Nations, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is more and more outsourcing of America’s manufacturing jobs and products, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes that the problem is ever-burgeoning deficit spending, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is the banksters at the Federal Reserve, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the problem is illegal immigration, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution. If one believes the United States gives away far too much foreign aid, Newt Gingrich is definitely not the solution.

Newt Gingrich? Really?

Baldwin goes on to further detail his case against Gingrich, as well as Santorum and Romney, and to elaborate on why he supports Ron Paul.

Paul, who was the 1988 Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, is seeking the Republican presidential nomination this year, as he did in 2008. Baldwin actively supported Paul in 2008 and is doing so again this year, and in return Ron Paul endorsed Baldwin in the 2008 general election.

Meanwhile, 2008 Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr, who famously backed out of Ron Paul’s joint appearance with Baldwin, independent Ralph Nader and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney because he would not appear on stage with “people like Cynthia McKinney,” has endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Recent Barr columns include The bizarro world of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum (published yesterday), and several previous columns expressing his support for Gingrich.

Barr, Gingrich and McKinney all represented Georgia in Congress.

More of Baldwin’s article here.

Among the state and local officials announcing they are endorsing Newt Gingrich today are:

Georgia Congressmen Austin Scott, Lynn Westmoreland, Tom Price, Jack Kingston and Phil Gingrey. Former Georgia Congressmen Mac Collins and Bob Barr.

Many other names follow–in fact the list is quite extensive. One of Newt Gingrich’s primary opponents is former Libertarian Party presidential nominee Ron Paul, who ran for President as a Libertarian in 1988, but is now running as a Republican.

This week, one after another, four prominent, national conservative groups issued a rare series of public warnings to a private citizen considering a run for Congress.

Don’t do it, they told Bob Barr. We will bury you.

The first organization was the most important – the anti-tax Club for Growth, whose members are a deep source of Republican campaign contributions. Then came Concerned Women, a Beverly LaHaye group, followed by Eagle Forum led by Phyllis Schlafly.

On Friday, the influential Family Research Council joined the pack.

Each group – or, officially, their political action committees – endorsed U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, the tea party favorite and Republican incumbent who replaced Nathan Deal, now governor, in Washington.

But each one also gave specific mention to Barr, the former congressman and 2008 Libertarian candidate for president. Once a favorite of the conservative movement, who helped lead the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the four groups denounced Barr as a traitor to the cause. Gay marriage topped their lists.

The article also cites Bill Crane as a strategist in the pre-campaign phase. He says polling in the district is “pretty favorable” towards Barr. The article cites Bob Barr’s run for President as a Libertarian as an issue that will probably play a central role in the campaign should Barr run.

WHEREAS, the actions by the LNC appear to have exceeded its authority and is in gross violation of the guaranteed autonomy of a state party as stated in Article 6, Section 5 of the National Party Bylaws and Convention Rules adopted in convention in May 2010 in St. Louis, Missouri (National Convention);
WHEREAS, the LPGA ExCom finds the LNC has established a dangerous precedent by interfering in the actions of a state party; and,
WHEREAS, Mr. Stewart Flood did previously refuse to read into the LNC records the LPGA motion dated December 1, 2008 regarding LPGA disapproval of the LNC activities regarding Angela Keaton; and,
WHEREAS, Mr. Stewart Flood did previously refuse the re-quest of the LPGA to vote for the Libertarian Party’s National Convention for 2012 to be held with a Region 1 affiliate’s state; and,
WHEREAS, The delegates to the last National Convention from the Libertarian Party of Georgia, Inc. (LPGA) voluntarily joined Region 1 and elected Mr. Flood to represent the interests of this state party and the other the states which comprise Region 1; and,
WHEREAS, in light of these facts, Mr. Flood can no longer claim to represent the best interests of the LPGA.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF GEORGIA, INC, AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. The Chairman is hereby authorized to vote for the removal of Mr. Stewart Flood from the office of Representative for Region 1 to the LNC.
Section 2. The Chairman is hereby further authorized to speak with the State Chairs of Region 1 in order to encourage them to vote to remove Mr. Stewart Flood from the office of Representative for Region 1 to the LNC.
Section 3. The LPGA ExCom encourages the Chairman to vote for a replacement that he believes will best serve the interests of the LPGA.
Section 4. The LPGA ExCom directs its remaining representatives to read this resolution into the record and provide a copy to LNC Secretary Alicia Mattson for inclusion in the minutes of the next LNC meeting.

Wherefore, this Resolution shall be in full force and effect immediately upon passage and shall continue to be in force until the close of Libertarian Party of Georgia’s annual convention on February 25, 2012, and no longer.

For history into the complicated situation in Oregon, the reader can do an IPR search on Oregon LP, and read the articles by date starting in February, 2011, or go to  this article.

The linked article lists other links.

For Immediate Release:

Friday, September 16, 2011

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on criminal justice and the death penalty:
http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-criminal.php

WASHINGTON, DC — The Green Party of the United States today called for a halt to the impending execution of Troy Davis, scheduled for September 21 in Georgia, and cited the case an example of why the death penalty must be abolished.

Green Party members will participate in public events urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to stop the execution when the board meets on Monday, September 19.

“Supporters of capital punishment insist that it should only used when no doubt remains about the guilt of the accused. The Troy Davis case shows that death-row inmates are facing execution even when significant doubts emerge. We know that racial disparities in sentencing and abuses by prosecutors such as the withholding of exculpatory evidence have led to wrongful sentencing. The only way to prevent erroneous executions is to end capital punishment altogether,” said Leenie Halbert, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and formerly active in Angels of Mercy in Louisiana and a volunteer with Sr. Helen Prejean’s Moratorium 2000 campaign.

Mounting doubts about the evidence against Troy Davis include seven of the nine witnesses recanting their testimony and the statements by several of the witnesses that they were pressured by the police to identify Troy Davis as the murderer of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Of the two remaining witnesses, one is the initial suspect.

Theresa El-Amin, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States, has arranged for a bus from Columbus to Atlanta on Friday afternoon, September 16, for Greens and others to participate in a “Too Much Doubt to Execute!” march and prayer service at Ebenezer Baptist Church with national and local civil rights, faith, and community leaders. The event is sponsored by Georgians for an Alternative to the Death Penalty, NAACP, and Amnesty International.

Greens noted that the Supreme Court’s McClesky v. Kemp ruling (1987) upheld the death penalty despite evidence of racial discrepancies in sentencing, which amounted to approval by the nation’s highest court for racism in the application of capital punishment. (Mr. Davis is Black.) See “United States of America: Death by Discrimination — The Continuing Role of Race in Capital Cases,” Amnesty International, April 23, 2003 (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/046/2003/en).

Furthermore, the Supreme Court, in Herrera v. Collins (1993), ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment does not prohibit the execution of a person known to be innocent, if he or she has already been tried and sentenced to death. Greens have called this decision a license for the state to murder the innocent.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, has imposed roadblocks, in the name of combatting terrorism, that have made it more difficult for death-row inmates to get new trials.

The Green Party Platform’s section on criminal justice endorses abolition of the death penalty (http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/social-justice.php#1001998).

“We urge all states to follow the example of Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, who imposed a moratorium on executions in his state in 2000 because of the number of inmates whose sentences were overturned because of the flawed and biased justice system. Capital punishment is not only irreversible, it’s barbaric and inhumane and a violation of human rights that calls into question all death penalty case convictions. Capital punishment does not deter crime, but instead has been used to exterminate the poor and people of color who are consistently treated unfairly in the justice system,” said Rev. Darryl! LC Moch of Inner Light Ministries, co-chair of the DC Statehood Green Party and a member of the Green Party Black Caucus (http://www.gp.org/caucuses/black/index.php).

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191

Green candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers

Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/ballotstatus
Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
Video Page http://www.gp.org/video/index.php

Press conferences, forums, and other events at the Green Party’s 2011 Annual National Meeting in Alfred, NY, broadcast and archived on the Green Party’s
Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
2011 Annual National Meeting http://nygreenfest.org

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States (Summer 2011 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog

~ END ~

By Wayne Allyn Root, Former Libertarian Vice Presidential Nominee and creator of ROOTforAmerica.com

The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?

Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today.

The central plot of Atlas Shrugged is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America’s business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike.”

They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama’s America, fiction is becoming fact.

The lesson of Atlas Shrugged is that without the $100,000+ earners paying into Social Security, there are no pensions for the poor and lower middle class. Without the wealthy owners of million-dollar mansions paying $25,000 and $50,000 annual property tax bills, there is no funding for public schools. Without the wealthy paying into Medicare, there is no “free” healthcare for the elderly. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no discoveries to eradicate polio or create miraculous cancer and AIDS drugs. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no jobs, period! That is what happens when the producers of society go on strike to protect themselves from the looters.

Ayn Rand was warning the looters that there are consequences to their overzealous actions. She was warning that if the productive classes felt used, demonized, ripped off, and taken for granted, they would go on strike — stop working, retire early, go underground, or move to places where achievement is celebrated and they feel appreciated.

The latest U.S. Census proves Ayn Rand right. Under Obama the wealthy are striking, voting with their feet. They are moving to low-tax red states in droves, escaping from high-tax blue states where they are being demonized and punished by the millions.

The Census proves that Obama’s tax and spend philosophy is a dismal failure, an economic disaster killing jobs. It is no coincidence that 1.9 million FEWER Americans are working than before Obama’s stimulus. It is no coincidence that jobs are not returning to the private sector. It is no coincidence that tax revenues have dropped dramatically and cannot support Obama’s bloated Big Brother government. The innovators, risk-takers, and wealthy he demonized and punished are on strike.

The high tech revolution has killed the progressive-liberal tax-and-spend dream. Because of the Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Satellite TV, I-phones, I-pads, and cell phones, business owners are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. Take a look at states where the latest Census shows Americans moved during the past decade: Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Virginia — all low- or no-tax red states, states that lead the USA in economic freedom.

Now look at states they escaped from: New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan. Taxpayers, business owners, jobs creators, retirees with assets are fleeing the high tax, big spending, Big Brother states — the states being run like Obama is running the nation.

Progressives be afraid, be very afraid. If Obama is re-elected, these valuable producers will pick up and leave America altogether. There is a big world out there begging them to come. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Monte Carlo, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, and Cayman Islands are low-tax havens that appreciate business owners and their sacrifices. They welcome wealthy ex-patriates. They celebrate individual achievement. They reward instead of punish business owners and financial risk-takers. They are wonderful places to live and are aggressively pursuing Americans.

I am just one small businessman, a third-party Libertarian political leader. Yet I personally have heard from thousands of fans, friends and supporters who have left America, are thinking of leaving America, are visiting other countries right now to decide where to go, or making preparations to leave in case Obama is re-elected. Just as Ayn Rand predicted, business owners are going on strike. Permanently.

The high tech revolution has freed them to run their businesses from anywhere in the world. The same high tech tools and toys that toppled a powerful and invincible 30-year dictator in Egypt and now threaten to topple powerful leaders throughout the Arab world, also offer mobility and freedom to U.S. taxpayers. Obama better learn the lesson of Mubarek before millions more business people decide they do not need to put up with looters, free loaders, and politicians who despise them.

Atlas is shrugging. Ayn Rand is saying “I told you so.”

And The Strike has begun.

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

The definition of “overreaching” in the next edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary could be a single sentence — “Over•reaching: see June 3, 2011 indictment of former presidential candidate and United States Senator John Edwards for alleged campaign finance violations.”

Every current and future candidate for federal office ought to file an amicus brief in behalf of Edwards. If the federal government succeeds in securing a conviction of Edwards in this case, the precedent will have been set for future administrations to employ federal campaign finance laws to reach and criminalize virtually any monies used by a candidate’s supporter(s) that even indirectly have the effect of protecting the “image” of the candidate.

Read the rest of the article here.

Comments on the above article also at Ballot Access News.

Bob Barr was the 2008 nominee for President of the Libertarian Party.

In 1964, the federal government reacted to a shameful but undeniable truth, that in many places in our country the most fundamental element of American freedom, the right to vote in a fair election process, was not only failing, it was being intentionally misused. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was targeted at racial segregation, including the practical denial of free voting rights to black Americans through various election limitations and requirements. During the long and contested process of pushing and passing that Act, states and localities that saw the momentum building and did not approve of it, made plans to offset the new law as best they could.

In Georgia, as in most other places, the two major parties controlled the offices of government. To the extent that these parties could, within themselves, limit the access of a rising black community to candidacy and thus elected office, they could maintain effective segregation; unless the black community went around the major parties and directly to the ballot. The answer was to institute non-racial but generically anti-independent/anti-alternative party election rules — rules designed to practically limit candidates for office to only those from the Republican and Democratic parties. In 1964, the State of Georgia did just that.

Since 1964, no independent or minor party candidate for Congress has managed to satisfy the Georgia petition requirements for getting on the ballot.

No other state in the nation can claim such an awful legacy.

Nearly five decades later, this is no longer about race. Were we to have a 47-year history of nothing but the best, most honest and incorruptible candidates advance to elected office, such statistics would be moot. Yet that is not the case and cannot be expected.

In the coming weeks, the Office of the Georgia Secretary of State will conduct two public hearings on the issue of election law reform. They are under-publicized and may only be intended to fulfill 2010 campaign promises, made in answer to strong public sentiment regarding the situation. If they receive only limited response and attention, the issue will be deemed “addressed” by those in power and pushed off once again, decades into the future.

Now is the time for you to make a date to personally, physically go and contribute to the fulfillment of America’s promise.

Calm but forceful, passionate but clear, Georgia citizens in large numbers from every social, political and ideological camp, must attend and lend their voice to these meetings.

The first hearing is to be held on Wednesday, April 27 at 10am in Room 341 of the Georgia Capital Building in Atlanta.

The second hearing is in Savannah, Georgia on Wednesday, May 25 at 1pm in the Savannah Marriott Riverfront Hotel, at 100 General McIntosh Boulevard.

Further details and directions are available through the Secretary of State website for the Elections Advisory Council (www.sos.ga.gov/GAEAC/) or by calling (404) 656-4269.

~~~~~~ end ~~~~~~

Fukushima Radioactive Release Should Serve as Warning Greens Urge
Obama to Withdraw Loan Guarantees for Nukes

“We are horrified, but not at all surprised by this latest nuclear
accident,” said Denice Traina, a health-care worker residing in
Augusta Georgia and former co-chair of the Georgia Green Party.
“Fukushima has now joined Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as beacons
to the human folly of boiling water with nuclear fission.”

News agencies from around the world are reporting on a Saturday
explosion at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan which destroyed the
containment building housing a nuclear power reactor, triggering a
radiation leak. The disaster was set off by an earthquake which hit
8.9 on the Richter scale and the resultant tsunami. The explosion and
resulting fire were caught on video and have been published to
youtube.

In 2010, the Obama Administration announced tax-payer financed loan
guarantees for the construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant
Vogtle in Burke County, Georgia.

“Greens in Georgia and elsewhere urge the administration to reverse
itself on the insanity of using public assets to finance a new round
of nuclear construction,” said Adam Shapiro, Co-Chair of the Georgia
Green Party, resident of Atlanta and a radio show host. “Private
capital has known for years what a poor investment nuclear power is.
If not for these taxpayer backed loan guarantees and the immunity from
liability provided by the ill-advised Congressional Price-Anderson
Act, the nuclear industry would have long ago succumbed to market
forces.”

Engineering firms and bond financiers still stand to make tremendous
profits from the industry, if public tax dollars can be found to
underwrite the failed technology. Heralding a new generation of safe
nuclear reactors, fission is being sold as a ‘carbon-free energy’.
That can only be said if one ignores the tremendous carbon footprint
of the nuclear fuel cycle. Greens urge investments instead in solar,
wind and geothermal technologies which would harness the Earth’s solar
income, rather than tapping its fossile fuel savings.

“While Fukushima underscores the insanity of the Yucca proposal to
store nuclear wastes over a fault line, the 1986 explosion in the
Ukraine shows us you don’t have to build a reactor on a fault line to
incur these risks,” said Traina, whose kids and grandchild all live
within thirty miles of Plant Vogtle. Studies have documented nearly a
million radiation-related deaths since the April 26th, 1986 Chernobyl
disaster, which led to nuclear fallout and raised background radiation
levels throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

VoterGa Supporters,

For the last two months I have been working with some legislators who are friendly to our cause so that we can get our good legislation from last year re-introduced. This would include bills such as the HB1215, Optical Scan Voting bill, we call the Election Integrity Restoration Act, as well as the HB1257 or HB1425  ballot access bills that would remove petitioning requirements and allow candidates who wish to run for office to simply pay the 3% of salary filing fee. While the legislators have agreed to do reintroduce them it has become obvious that the leadership of the house is pressuring the legislators not introduce these types of bills until cutover day has arrived and it is too late to press for a hearing.  Democrats want Republicans to be the first signer so that the bill will have a chance of passage but the Republican first signers seem to be delaying at the behest of the leadership. So the sad state of affairs for this session is that, at best, we will get late bills introduced that we can immediately push in the next session.  When that happens I will let you know.

Once this session is over I will be preparing a report for the new commission on non-partisan election issues that was established by the Secretary of State. The report will cover a half dozen or so nonpartisan topics that are long overdue for consideration. I will explain to the commission why we need this legislation and more. They are charged with recommending legislative changes for the next session. They should be scheduling town halls around the state during the spring summer and fall. I will let you know when I get their schedule. More legal announcements may be forthcoming in the near future as well. Thank you for your continued support.

Garland

www.Voterga.org

Wrights will be he luncheon speaker at the Kentucky LP convention in Maysville March 5. The convention will be held at the French Quarter Inn, 25 E. McDonald Parkway.

The following weekend, Wrights will attend the Georgia state convention which will be held March 11 and 12 at the Atlanta Airport Weston, 4736 Best Rd.

Wrights, 52, is a longtime libertarian writer, political activist, a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party, and a past vice chair of the Libertarian National Committee. He is considering seeking the presidential nomination because he’s determined that the Libertarian message in 2012 be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. To that end, Wrights has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will go toward ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states.

Wrights is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. He is also co-founder and president of the Foundation for a Free Society, an educational organization dedicated to promoting the principles of liberty, personal sovereignty, private property, and free markets in order to create a more free and prosperous society. Born in Winston-Salem, N.C., Wrights now lives in Texas.

-30-

To arrange an interview, contact:
Brian Irving
Press Secretary
919.538.4548

WRIGHTS 2012 EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE

http://www.wrights2012.com

Georgia is one of only three states in the country that does not provide some option for the off-premise sale of beer, wine, or liquor on Sunday.  Because Georgia is the only state in the Southeast with a total ban on Sunday sales, we are at a distinct economic disadvantage.  For many Georgians, the current law defies common sense.  “The state allows us to drive to a restaurant on Sunday to buy alcohol, but the state won’t let us go to the corner store to buy beer to drink in the safety of our own home,” says Zak Koffler, one of the organizers of the rally.

Moreover, shopping patterns have changed in Georgia.  Sunday is now the highest volume shopping day in many areas throughout Georgia.  Yet customers who enter a retail store on Sunday are prohibited from purchasing alcohol.  “As a busy mom, Sundays are the best days for me to do my family’s grocery shopping since our Saturdays are filled with soccer games, birthday parties, and other family activities.  Yet, I have to make a separate trip to buy a bottle of wine,” says Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, a state representative from Decatur and mother of two.

Two bills to allow local communities to vote on Sunday sales are currently pending in the Georgia Legislature, Senate Bill 10 and House Bill 69.  Both measures are currently held up in committee.

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In a letter sent this morning to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, officers of the Georgia Green Party urged that he suspend five Department of Corrections employees at Telfair State Prison pending the results of an investigation into the criminal assault of January 12th on Georgia inmate Shawn Whatley. Party officers ask if a ‘criminal conspiracy’ exists to conceal the crimes of DoC employees.

As stated in the letter, “Mr. Whatley suffered serious injuries to his ribs and back and had blood in his urine. He was refused proper medical care at the Waycross facility and it seems apparent that his sudden transfer was a part of an attempt to cover up the crimes committed against him in Helena.”

Reminding the Governor of an earlier letter from the Party related to the December 16th beating by DoC employees of Terrence Dean at Macon State Prison, Party officers wrote: “we fear that an ongoing pattern of such abuse continues in Georgia prisons.”

“The Governor is getting some good press for his prison reform initiatives,” said Adam Shapiro, CoChair of the Georgia Green Party. “So far what we’ve seen from him amounts to little more than deck chair shuffling which fails to address our state’s absurd commitment to criminalizing the health problems of its citizens. Deal’s proposals promise little if any impact on the budget, while failing to challenge the racism which leads to the disparate enforcement, prosecution and conviction of victimless crimes. The hateful rhetoric and policies enacted by our elected officials has justified rampant human rights abuses by DoC employees against those inmates committed to their care by the state judiciary.”

The Georgia Green Party continues to urge calls inquiring after the welfare of the Georgia-37. These thirty-seven inmates were identified by DoC investigators as ‘instigators’ of December’s stop-work action by Georgia inmates on the basis of being found in possession of contraband cell phones. They have been subjected to administrative segregation and reportedly transported to the facilities at Jackson, Reidsville and Washington. Jackson hosts the state’s death row and Reidsville and Washington State Prisons have SuperMax units designed to hold inmates in solitary confinement for extended periods of time.

The Georgia Green Party is part of a Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights working in solidarity with the inmates organizing for respect of their human rights. Georgia Green Party leadership are actively cultivating a slate of candidates prepared to bring into the 2012 elections the Party’s challenge to public policies which have created black mass incarceration. The nation’s drug war has saddled 15% of the U.S. population with criminal records, including 4% with felony convictions. Individuals with information about human rights abuses in Georgia prisons are urged to contact the Green Party.

Related:

• http://endmassincarceration.org/
• http://georgiagreenparty.org/ChallengingMassIncarceration/Concerned_Coalition_Demands_Investigation_of_Inmate_Beatings_By_Guards
• http://www.georgiagreenparty.org/system/files/Ltr_to_Gov_Deal_ShawnWhatley.pdf
• http://www.georgiagreenparty.org/QDC/Actions/Ga_Governor_urged_Investigate_Ongoing_Pattern_of_Inmate_Beatings
• http://georgiagreenparty.org/Media/2011/02/14/Georgia_Greens_Charge_Ongoing_Pattern_of_Inmate_Abuse
• http://www.georgiagreenparty.org/system/files/Ltr2Gov_TerranceDean.pdf
• http://georgiagreenparty.org/QDC/Actions/Ga_Governor_urged_Investigate_Inmate_Beatings
• http://georgiagreenparty.org/Media/2011/01/01/Georgia_Greens_Demand_Answers_on_Inmates_Brutal_Treatment

Related Articles

• In GA: Coalition Claims Retaliatory Violence by Georgia Prison Staff (wilderside.wordpress.com)
• Georgia Green Party Urges Negotiated Response to Georgia’s Inmate Sitdown Strike (wilderside.wordpress.com)
• Green Party celebrates Egyptian democratic victory, Asserts new government must be Egyptian, not US (wilderside.wordpress.com)

I have spoken many times on how government has forcibly intervened in nearly every aspect of our lives. Nothing represents more completely, the full control of government in our lives, than the issue of public roads.

Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die on our roads. Look at the death toll from more than 15 years of the Viet Nam war, and you will see we kill a greater number every two years on our roads. Only private innovations in vehicle technology and engineering have made it safer for us to drive. Government has done nothing to improve road engineering, signal technology, traffic management, and especially nothing to improve driver licensing, training, or education.

The time has come to find better ways to make ourselves, our families, and our fellow Americans safer on our roads. We have to honestly admit what has not worked and terminate those wasteful programs. Driver licensing has not made us safer. It has not stopped incompetent and dangerous drivers from operating their vehicles next to us on our roads. What licensing has done is to increase the size, scope, and the cost of government. Driver licensing is a failed program and it should be terminated.

As I said in my campaign, I believe Georgia has what it takes to be a leader to the rest of our country and to the world. Eliminating needless and failed bureaucracy will allow us to better use limited fiscal resources in programs that would better serve the safety of our families and our fellow Georgians.

Below is a letter written by Bill Evelyn, Director of the Georgia State Tea Party. I know that Bill has the best interests of his family and fellow citizens at heart, as well as the best interests of our state. I agree with him that this is the kind of legislation we should pass quickly.

Bold action and leadership are necessary to move Georgia during these difficult economic times and the far more challenging times I predict in our near future. HB7 is that kind of bold, forward reaching action.

In liberty,

CHUCK DONOVAN

The mission is liberty,The vision is now.

__________________________________________________________

Subject: HB7 Right to Travel Act

To: The Right and Honorable Georgia General Assembly,

When I was young and pestering my grandfather to allow me to drive his truck, he told me a very interesting story. My grandfather had moved from a farm in Virginia in 1929 to Pennsylvania for work. His farm had failed and he was broke. He managed to get a job driving a commercial dump truck for Samuel McAdam constructing the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He got that job with the experience of driving a vegetable truck to the Richmond Farmers Market. My grandfather taught himself to drive and he drove for 35 accident free years before he was required to get a license or test to get that license. He taught my father to drive in the 1940′s before a license and test was required. My father started teaching me to drive when I was ten. At the age of fourteen he cleared me solo and I drove down the street to a friends farm. On my 16th birthday we drove to the testing station and I earned my license.

You will note that not one bureaucrat had any input on my driving instruction. Both my grandfather and father made the decision to turn over the family car to their son when they were comfortable they could drive safely. Do you honestly think passing HB7 will make the killing lanes of I-285, I-85, and I-75 more unsafe?

Rep. Franklin’s Bill only returns us to a time before the big government people started requiring a license and testing. In the 1930′s and 1940′s you mailed for a license in Georgia, no testing was required until the 1950′s.

If you pass HB7 you can eliminate a huge bureaucracy, free up officers for the beat, and free up real estate to be sold off to the highest bidder. That should help you balance the budget. I really hope that you consider voting YES for HB7.

As proposed, HB 87 would make criminals of many otherwise law abiding Georgians trying to make a living. The bill makes it a criminal offense by merely “encouraging” an illegal immigrant to enter the state. It also allows almost any citizen to bring a lawsuit against any business, local or State government agency or official by just accusing them of violating immigration law. Further, HB 87 burdens every employer doing business in Georgia with using the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system.

“As it is written, this bill will have a tremendous impact on the every day lives of all Georgians and will cost the State quite a bit of money defending it from the several lawsuits already planned,” says Libertarian Party of Georgia Legislative Director Jeff Sexton. “We are calling on Representatives to truly get serious about immigration, and enact genuine reform that respects the rights of all individuals.”

One other aspect troubling the Libertarian Party of Georgia is the provision within that allows law enforcement officers to indefinitely detain anyone unable to provide their driver’s license or other “proof” document. HB 87 allows for anyone forgetting their driver’s license to be jailed even after release would normally be required without probable cause. It also re-introduces the secure and verifiable document issue, something that has landed the state in the courts as a defendant for the way Georgia tried to use it in election law… another action that could cost the state significant legal bills to defend.

“This bill is a reaction to a poor national immigration policy, and it acts to treat a symptom, rather than cure the underlying illness. That illness is the cost of the welfare state, and neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to address it,” explained Brett Bittner, the Party’s Executive Director. “Instead, they’ve politicized the immigration issue to the point that we can no longer have a discussion about a solution that works for every Georgian.”

“Our main economic engines, agriculture, poultry, and manufacturing, will be hit hardest by the proposed legislation,” Bittner says further. “They will find themselves with an increased cost of labor and compliance, or they will simply close up shop, because the arduous regulations are simply too much.”

Currently, HB 87 has been placed in the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee, chaired by HB 87 co-sponsor Rep Rich Golick (R-Smyrna), where it is scheduled to have a hearing this Friday, February 4, at 9:30am. Others listed as co-sponsors include Katie Dempsey (R-Rome), Rick Austin (R-Demorest), Stephen Allison(R-Blairsville), and Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta).

The Libertarian Party is Georgia’s third largest political party and the only party in Georgia promoting fewer taxes, less government and personal liberty for all Georgians. To learn more, please visit www.LPGeorgia.com

###
Contact: Greta Langhenry

Communications Director

The Libertarian Party of Georgia

(404) 590 – 1109

Greta.Langhenry@LPGeorgia.com

(Distributed by the Green Party of the United States)

Georgia Green Party

http://georgiagreenparty.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

For further information, contact:
Bruce Dixon, 678-298-9463 x3
bdixon@GeorgiaGreenParty.org
Press Secretary, Georgia Green Party

Greens Demand Real Reductions in Incarceration Costs Reject Deal Reforms which Fail to Challenge Racist Impact

After last week praising Governor Deal’s expressed concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce left in the wake of the nation’s war on drugs, Georgia Green Party leaders today rejected Deal’s specific proposals.

“None of this will meaningfully impact the budget, end the state’s social control of non-violent and victimless behaviors, nor undermine the racial caste system created by our current policy,” said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “The state’s disparate enforcement and prosecution of the drug use of working people while ignoring that of wealthy people costs our communities in ways far beyond those mentioned by the Governor the other day. The impacts are as venal as Jim Crow.”

Governor Deal is quoted as saying: “For violent and repeat offenders, we will make you pay for your crimes. For other offenders who want to change their lives, we will provide the opportunity to do so with Day Reporting Centers, Drug, DUI and Mental Health Courts and expanded probation and treatment options. As a State, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our State Treasury and depleting our workforce.”

Greens have criticized Georgia’s policy of mass incarceration, which rises to the level of recreating a racial caste system. As so well documented in a recent book on the subject by Michelle Alexander, it is legal to discriminate in matters of housing, public assistance, education, employment, participation on a jury and voting for those labeled criminal. And a series of Supreme Court decisions have made it impossible to effectively challenge the disparate enforcement, prosecution and sentencing which leads to the disproportionate
incarceration of black men and the immigrant community.

“The cost savings proposed by the Governor are a fraction of what we might enjoy were we to actually address the real harm caused by our rush to lock up our neighbors,” said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “Most of the costs of this misguided policy are born by the families and children and communities of those we lock up. Deal has not even offered much here for the taxpayers. We had hoped for more.”

– 30 –

Background:

Georgia Green Party
Georgia Green Party/Challenging Mass Incarceration

ATLANTA – In his inaugural speech, Governor Nathan Deal addressed an issue that the Libertarian Party of Georgia has long been aware of, the unusually high number of residents currently tracked by the Department of Corrections. “One out of every 13 Georgia residents is under some form of correctional control,” said Deal, adding that the total operational cost of the Georgia Department of Corrections is approximately $3 million a day. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the state of Georgia has about 53,000 residents currently in jail, and 1,500 of those have a prevailing offense of possession of methamphetamine, crack, or cocaine. Reducing the number of nonviolent drug offenders currently in the state’s custody would dramatically reduce the operating costs of the corrections department.

The program the Governor has in mind to reduce these numbers is an expansion of the state’s 28 drug courts, one of which his son, Hall County Superior Court Judge Jason Deal, is in charge of. While it is true that the operating costs of the drug courts are drastically lower than the operating costs of processing the same offenders in the state’s prisons (a report from the Department of Audits in 2005 lists that savings as $10,293 per individual), the expansion of the courts themselves is an expansion of the state’s government, an expansion that would cost money to establish, and one that the Libertarian Party of Georgia opposes.

“Decriminalization of simple possession of marijuana does not equate to legalizing the substance,” explained the Libertarian Party of Georgia’s Executive Director, Brett Bittner. “Decriminalization would be treated by our legal system in a manner similar to a speeding ticket, where the offender, possessing less than a predetermined limit, would be required to pay a fine before his or her court date. The removal of six words from Georgia’s Official Code would keep officers from arresting those in possession, judges from adjudicating bail hearings, county jails from being overrun with those who await trial, and allow the police, courts, and prisons to do what they were designed to do, which is find and keep the violent criminals behind bars.”

Reducing the number of Georgia residents behind bars for nonviolent offenses is a move the Libertarian Party supports, but not in a way that expands the current reach of the state’s government. Their position is that decriminalization would be more effective in that reduction, while also reducing costs as well as the size and scope of government in the state.

The Libertarian Party is Georgia’s third largest political party and the only party in Georgia promoting fewer taxes, less government and personal liberty for all Georgians. To learn more, please visit www.LPGeorgia.com

Contact: Greta Langhenry
Communications Director
The Libertarian Party of Georgia
(404) 590 – 1109
Greta.Langhenry@LPGeorgia.com

Greens Demand Real Reductions in Incarceration Costs
Reject Deal Reforms which Fail to Challenge Racist Impact

After last week praising Governor Deal’s expressed concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce left in the wake of the nation’s war on drugs, Georgia Green Party leaders today rejected Deal’s specific proposals. “None of this will meaningfully impact the budget, end the state’s social control of non-violent and victimless behaviors, nor undermine the racial caste system created by our current policy,” said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “The state’s disparate enforcement and prosecution of the drug use of working people while ignoring that of wealthy people costs our communities in ways far beyond those mentioned by the Governor the other day. The impacts are as venal as Jim Crow.”

Governor Deal is quoted as saying: “For violent and repeat offenders, we will make you pay for your crimes. For other offenders who want to change their lives, we will provide the opportunity to do so with Day Reporting Centers, Drug, DUI and Mental Health Courts and expanded probation and treatment options. As a State, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our State Treasury and depleting our workforce.”

Greens have criticized Georgia’s policy of mass incarceration, which rises to the level of recreating a racial caste system. As so well documented in a recent book on the subject by Michelle Alexander, it is legal to discriminate in matters of housing, public assistance, education, employment, participation on a jury and voting for those labeled criminal. And a series of Supreme Court decisions have made it impossible to effectively challenge the disparate enforcement, prosecution and sentencing which leads to the disproportionate incarceration of black men and the immigrant community.

“The cost savings proposed by the Governor are a fraction of what we might enjoy were we to actually address the real harm caused by our rush to lock up our neighbors,” said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “Most of the costs of this misguided policy are born by the families and children and communities of those we lock up. Deal has not even offered much here for the taxpayers. We had hoped for more.”

For further information, contact:
Bruce Dixon, 678-298-9463 x3
bdixon@GeorgiaGreenParty.org
Press Secretary, Georgia Green Party

“Greens are eager to see how Governor Deal intends to translate his concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce into public policy,” said Al Herman, Treasurer of the Georgia Green Party, DeKalb County resident and board member for Georgia NORML, the Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijauna Laws, “Greens welcome the Governor’s acknowledgement of the debilitating costs of mass incarceration, and would like an opportunity to help craft the policies which can reverse the tragic course set by his predecessors which have decimated communities across Georgia to feed our commitment to mass incarceration.”

Ms. Traina and Mr. Herman are responding to incoming Governor Nathan Deal’s remarks to the General Assembly on Monday, acknowledging that one in thirteen adult Georgians are under state control. He stated that “It costs about $3 million per day to operate our department of corrections. As a state, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our state treasury and it is depleting our workforce.”

The new Governor’s remarks come in the midst of the largest and still unresolved inmate strike in history. In recent correspondence, Georgia Greens have urged the Governor to respond with good faith negotiations, rather than retribution for striking inmates. They have expressed particular concern for thirty-seven inmates subjected to administrative segregation on suspicion of having ‘instigated’ the last month’s inmate strike.

“Besides responding to our earlier concerns for current conditions and the welfare of the Georgia-37, a great start would be an immediate moratorium on the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders and an end to locking up minors in adult prisons,” said Herman. “Our young deserve better. We will enjoy better results treating addiction as a health issue than we have seen from the failed war on drugs. Save for the prison profiteers spurred by past administrations privatization of this very public function, its hard to imagine who might be against spending fewer tax dollars locking up our fellow Georgians.”

On December 9th, inmates in five Georgia prisons refused to work, in what started as a one day strike, but organically spread to at least nine institutions and thousands of inmates before participants went back to work a week later. The Georgia Green Party immediately became involved in a coalition outside the prisons working to amplify the legitimate demands of striking inmates that their human rights be respected.

On New Year’s day, Georgia Green Party officers sent a letter to outgoing Governor Perdue and to incoming Governor Deal asking for an investigation of whether the acts of the Department of Corrections rose to a ‘criminal conspiracy’, in their efforts to conceal the injuries sustained when Terrance Dean was beaten by correctional officers at the Macon State Prison. In the following week, a similar story of prison guards beating Miguel Jackson at Smith State Prison came to light.

Last Thursday, the Concerned Coalition to Protect Prisoner Rights held a press conference to discuss the physical assaults perpetrated on inmates by prison staff. This event also responded to reporters questions about the ongoing investigation being conducted by the Coalition’s fact finding teams which have been given unprecedented access to Georgia prisons in the wake of last months non-violent inmate work-stoppage. Video coverage of that event is available online.

– 30 –

For further information:

http://georgiagreenparty.org/
http://georgiagreenparty.org/ChallengingMassIncarceration