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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
STATE WINS AND
Boom! Boom!: It seems lightning may not
have been the only force of nature blowing
things up around AthFest this year. Jeffrey
Abramsky. a senior VP at UGL Services, which
is managing construction at the new Biotest
Plasma facility downtown, alleged in a letter
to Mayor Nancy Denson dated June 22 that
Commissioner Jared Bailey, who is also AthFest
director, threatened Abramsky with political
retribution against him and his client during
a dispute over the use of a parking lot on the
Biotest site. The letter, which was also copied
to Chamber of Commerce prez Doc Eldridge and
Ken Daniel of Athens First Bank & Trust and
has since been circulated to ACC Manager Alan
Reddish, ACC Attorney Bill Berryman. Bailey
and goodness knows who else, states that at
the end of a contentious phone conversation
during which Abramsky told Bailey that UGL's
liability insurer would not allow the company
to let AthFest use the Biotest lot for "servic
ing the festival.” Bailey "called me something
derogatory and then announced 'I am a city
commissioner and I can make your client's life
miserable.'” Abramsky assures the Dope that's
a direct quote: that he wrote it down while on
the phone. Abramsky also claims in the letter
that at a later, face-to-face meeting with him
and two other construction managers, Bailey
said, "I am talking to 6C.000 people this
weekend... remember that.” Abramsky says he
and the others took that as a clearly implied
threat.
Bailey disputes the substance of the first
attribution, and the context of the second.
He says he never threatened Abramsky or his
client; that Abramsky was unnecessarily rais
ing his voice over the phone, prompting him
to say, "I am a county commissioner and I am
not used to being yelled at like this." Bailey
doesn't deny the second quote, but says he
meant that UGL was missing an opportunity
for some "positive P.R." with festival attend
ees. He admits there was a disagreement
over the parking lot. but says, "there was no
retribution" against UGL or
Biotest. "I haven't talked to anyone there or
done anything in any way to hurt this com
pany," he says. Two AthFest interns who were
within earshot of Bailey’s side of the phone
conversation both tell the Dope they never
heard him threaten Abramsky or his client.
Being essentially a "he said/ he said" situ
ation, it doesn’t seem likely this dust-up will
90 anywhere, except into the grudge files of
the participants. But that's probably bad
enough. Abramsky adamantly stands by his
story as recounted in the letter, but even if
Bailey's version of the events is completely
true, his handling of the situation was less
than appropriate for an electtd official, which
he is (as he admits pointing out to Abramsky)
even when he's conducting the business of his
other job. And against a backdrop of commis
sioners attempting to insert themselves into
the mechanism of the Economic Development
Foundation in the name of making it operate
more effectively, Bailey's pointless tussle with
a representative of a company that's poised to
bring 50 jobs to the community seems espe
cially ill-advised.
Of course, there’s also the fact that both
Denson and Eldridge responded by email to
Abramsky's letter on June 27—each assuring
him that the episode he described wasn't rep
resentative of the way Athens or its govern
ment do business—three days before Bailey
says he heard of the letter's existence. Why
in the world the mayor and the president of
the Chamber of Commerce would respond to
allegations of this seriousness against an
elected commissioner without first consulting
him is anyone's guess, but it's safe to say the
fractured politics between progressive com
missioners and the more conservative guard
represented by Denson and Eldridge weren't
an insignificant factor. Seems like everyone
involved in this dysfunctional drama has a bit
of growing up to do before any of them can
claim the high ground.
Dave Marr news - flagpole com
Krazy Korner
Conservatives in Washington have begun using the protests
in Greece to gin up fear over our own country's debt problem. We
must drastically cut spending, they say. so that we don’t face the
scenario that is bringing chaos to Athens' streets. Congressman
Broun’s BFFs over at Freedomworks, an organization begun by the
infamous Koch brothers (Google those shits), has made the dire
Greece-in-Amertca warning into a mantra
Ironically, though, it is this same crowd which is all but inviting Greek-
style unrest here in the U S. The people of Greece are not protesting their
fiscal crisis in the abstract, but protesting a particular way of responding to the fiscal
crisis—a response which effectively places the burden and the blame on those who
had nothing to do with the crisis in the first place This has been the conventional
response of many of the world's governments, including dur own: cuts to schools, hos
pitals. aid and retirement programs, while the wealthy elite go on accumulating more
wealth. The bankers who caused the crisis continue in their unimaginable luxury, and
Broun even fights to have their taxes significantly lowered. The corporations who have
shipped the jobs overseas continue to enjoy tax breaks and preferential treatment.
In a recent op*ed in The Hill, Broun explains his latest budget-cutting priorities.*
“Much of what I proposed to cut came from the WIC auxiliary welfare program and
foreign food aid.” WIC is a program which feeds the most needy children in our coun
try. those ‘‘found to be at nutritional risk." Instead of raising taxes, even moderately, on
the rich or reducing our fantastically bloated and expensive global military, Broun finds
the answer to our budget crisis in cutting food aid for the very poorest children. The
money saved by these measures would then find its way to the wealthy through the
unbelievably generous tax cuts Broun has proposed. It’s not that there isn’t money to
go around; it’s that it is being redistnbuted into the hands of the elite, with the help of
Broun and the GOP. IMatthew Pulver]
In the courtroom, as on the playing field,
the rules of competition are the same: you
win some, you lose some. We got a reminder
of that last week when the attorneys who rep
resent the state of Georgia were slapped down
by a federal judge in Atlanta, then received
a lot of loving just a day later from another
group of federal judges in the same city.
The legal maneuverings began when U.S.
District Court Judge Thomas Thrash presided
over the lawsuit that had been filed by the
ACLU and other civil rights groups against
the state's new immigration control law. Gov.
Nathan Deal and the legislative sponsors of
the immigration law had assured their constit
uents that the new statute was painstak
ingly written so that it would survive
any objections that might be raised
in court.
"We believe that the provi
sions of the bill will be vindi
cated when put to scrutiny in
the court system." said Rep. Matt
Ramsey (R-Peachtree City).
Ramsey may have been a little
premature. Judge Thrash ruled in
favor of the groups challenging the
constitutionality of the law and threw
out two of the law's major provisions: autho
rizing police to detain and question suspects
about their immigration status and making
it a crime to harbor or transport an illegal
immigrant.
"Seventy years ago the United States
Supreme Court declared that the federal gov
ernment had the exclusive right to legislate
the general field of foreign affairs, including
power over immigration, naturalization and
deportation," Thrash wrote. "That remains the
law of the land."
While Deal was displeased with the judge's
ruling, the attorneys who challenged the
immigration law were happy with the result.
"There should be no doubt in the minds
of Georgia citizens that this was. from the
beginning, a bad law that could never pass
constitutional muster," said Keegan Federal, a
former judge who was part of the legal team
representing Georgia's immigrant community.
It was a bad start for the state's lawyers,
but it was a week that would soon get better.
On the day after the Thrash decision, a
panel of judges from the 11th Circuit Court
of Appeals handed down a ruling that forti
fied Georgia in its lengthy water dispute with
Alabama and Florida. The appellate court
judges reversed a decision that would have cut
off most of Metro Atlanta's access to the water
in Lake Lanier by 2012. Federal Judge Paul
Magriuson ruled two years ago that Congress
had supposedly not authorized the use of
Lanier as a water source for Atlanta, a deci
sion that threatened the future of the
state's most populous region.
Magnuson was wrong, the
appeals court said. The congressio
nal act passed in 1946 to develop
the Lanier reservoir "clearly indi
cates Congress' intent to include
water supply as an authorized
purpose," the judges ruled.
This ruling was seen by the
state's lawyers and elected officials
as a major victory. Of course, in
our American legal system, it's never
over until it's over. The states' attorneys for
Alabama and Florida will appeal the latest
decision in the water wars to the full Circuit
Court of Appeals in the hope that a different
set of judges will rule in their favor.
You can also rest assured that both the
water litigation and the immigration lawsuit
will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court at
some point, and no one can predict with any
certainty what will happen then.
Who will be the ultimate winners? I say it
will be the attorneys. For the water litigation
alone, Georgia has been billed for more than
$8.5 million in fees and expenses by the pri
vate lawyers retained to help argue the state's
case. For that kind of money, I wouldn't even
care if the judge ruled against me.
Tom Crawford lcrawford@gaieport com
THIS MMfcKU WMLB
holographic teaching
INTERFACE activated:
GOOD morning, CHILDREN.'
TOD AT WELL CONTINUE
OUR STUDY Of YOUR ll*’
CENTURY ANCESTORS - -
KNOWN TO HISTORIANS
WANKIEST
YOUR ANCESTORS WERE
DEFINED 8Y THREE PRI
MARY characteristics:
THEIR UNSHAKABLE AD
DICTION to oil...their
irrational subservience
TO THE RICH...and. of
COURSE, their ALL-CON
SUMING, ENDlESS
LIKE TYPICAL ADDICTS,
THEY REFUSED TO ADMIT
THEY EVEN HAD A prob
lem: For instance, they
INSISTED that ThEiR mul
tiple, endless wars, in
ONE OF the PLANET'S
PRIMARY OIL-PRODUCING
REGIONS, ACTUALLY HAD
NOTHING TO DO
WITH oil:
TOM TOMORROW
they WERE SPENDING
AT LEAST TWO BILLION
DOLLARS a WEEK ON
THESE WARS--WHICH
WOULD BE about $700
HATRILLION IN TO
DAY S currency: and
YET, THEY SlMULTREMOUSLY
DECIDED that what TmEY
REALLY NEEDED AS A
SOCIETY...WE RE LARGE
TAX CUTS FOR THE
wealthy:
YOU SEE. YOUR ANCESTORS
APPRENTVY BELIEVED THAT
th£ PRIMARY PURPOSE
of SOCIETY WAS TO RE
DISTRIBUTE THEiR NATION'S
WEALTH--TO THOSE WHO
already posse ssed most
Of IT.' ALL OTHER CON
SIDERATIONS were se
condary:
YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW
WELL THAT WORKED OUT.
Finally, we mustn't
OVERLOOK THEIR OVER
WHELMING, CONSTANT,
INCHOATE FEAR-- THAT
SOME bad thing MIGHT
happen someday: in
RETROSPECT, IT'S CLEAR
THAT CIVIL LIBERTIES
AND the RULE Of LAW
NEVER STOOD A CHANCE
AGAINST their collective,
societal ANXIETY
disorder:
the ultimate legacy
Of THEIR malignant
STEWARDSHIP OF THIS
ONCE-THRIVING nation
WAS, of COURSE, A
HELLISH AND DYSFUNC
TIONAL POST-APOCALYPTIC
NIGHTMARE--OH, AS
YOU BlOLOGlCALS CALL
IT. DAILY LIFEr
AND THAT'S ALL OUR
TIME FOR today: WE LL
CONTINUE NEXT WEEK--
AT LEAST, WITH THOSE
OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T
BEEN CAPTURED BY
ORGAN HARVESTERS
OR SOLD To MUTANT
slavers:
4 FLAGPOLE.COM JULY 6.2011
1*M*Rft*W020ll ...www.thiamo<Jem»for1d.com...twit1ef.com/tomtomorrovv
