Shocker: One party rule in Georgia leads to total abandonment of ethics

[DawgPark]

Originally Posted by DreamKeeper

Well, if this type of stuff is going to prevent you from moving somewhere then you're going to have a hell of a time finding somewhere to live in this country. If you want to see real hardcore corruption try living in New Jersey or Illinois. I've lived in both and corruption in Georgia is mild compared to those two states.

Exactly right.

The unintelligent will look at Nathan Deal and use it as an excuse to whine about Republicans, or conservatives, or rich people, or whatever group they think is victimizing them at that moment.

To think that Nathan Deal is somehow exceptionally corrupt in today's political environment is idiocy. Have any of you whiners checked out Washington DC? 4 of BO's first 8 cabinet picks were current tax cheats when BO selected them out of the entire 300 million US population.

Have you checked the criminal records and history of Congress and the Senate? And try finding an honest election in Chicago, seriously. Think Blago was an isolated event?

And were any of you whiners around when Bill Campbell was controlling ATL? I personally know people who paid him off to get DOT/airport contracts. Some even went to jail for it. You'd be amazed at how the Mayor's office illegally controlled business dealings back then.

You ever check into the history and politics of the airport? Want to see some corruption? or how about checking into the Fulton County commission and how the City of Atlanta has been run the last 20-30 years? Might also want to check into the APD and its "missing" $7 million a few years back.

I don't like Deal anymore than you liberals on this thread. He was elected for one reason and one only . . . Roy Barnes. It's an embarrassment to GA that those 2 were our only choices, but that's a whole other topic of conversation.

Corrupt politician is a redundancy in 2011 . . . and has been for decades.

All is ask is to keep the partisan crap out of it, and see it fairly on both sides.

[SW30303]

Originally Posted by spotch

I've seen the "well everyone is corrupt so what are you going to do about it *shrug* " thing used far too often to excuse or justify bad actions. If everyone does it then it's not a big deal, and there's really not anything you can do about it anyway, and I disagree with both of those.

I wasn't sure what you disagreed with, so I figured it was partisan, but I was wrong. That is why I mentioned third parties specifically not being allowed easily on the ballots in Georgia in my earlier post. There is really not much difference between Democrats and Republicans, very little. It is all the same political machine and the machine does not want competition (competition is viable third parties). I really could be talking about the Presidential system at the national level in the US, but in this case, I am pointing out the GA laws making ballot access near impossible for real competition against the "two" party system.

Dreamkeeper:

... And yes, the entire U.S. is becoming third world. Our entire political system is corrupt and we are now buried under more debt that any country has ever held before. The corruption and stifling debt are what make a country third world. ...

Dreamkeeper, I think the US will become a Second World country within a lifetime, but not Third World. Governments are going bankrupt, at all levels and they don't want to reign in their spending. The current system will have to give in financially at some point, probably sooner than later.

[CharlotteNCRepublican]

I'm glad I'm not a resident in Georgia, with Nathan Deal as Governor. He's a maniac. It's sad that a crook like him was ever elected to office in a great state like Georgia.


....and I'm a republican bashing Deal. He was one of the only Republicans I refused to support last year.

[DawgPark]

Originally Posted by SW30303

I think the US will become a Second World country within a lifetime, but not Third World. Governments are going bankrupt, at all levels and they don't want to reign in their spending. The current system will have to give in financially at some point, probably sooner than later.

Agreed.

The dollar is on the brink right now because Obama/Pelosi/Reid have in 2.5 years doubled the entire debt our country took 200 yrs to accumulate. It can't and won't last. QE and increased debt ceilings are like giving new credit cards to drug addicts.

That being said, the US is still 24% of the world's GDP. So, to think the US will become a third world country is a stretch.

[spotch]

Well, if this type of stuff is going to prevent you from moving somewhere then you're going to have a hell of a time finding somewhere to live in this country. If you want to see real hardcore corruption try living in New Jersey or Illinois. I've lived in both and corruption in Georgia is mild compared to those two states.

You keep telling yourself that Georgia is no worse than the rest of the country... that should fix the corruption problem real quick.

Seriously, you apologists are the reason this stuff just gets worse and worse. Hell, where I'm living now has a Republican governor that I've been watching a lot more closely than I have Deal, and yet SOMEHOW I find a whole lot less corruption surrounding what he does. Sure, I disagree with him on a lot of stuff, but at least it's within some kind of ethical boundaries. What's going on in Georgia should embarrass and enrage ANYONE that knows what's going on there, but I guess the fact that it doesn't explains why it only seems to get worse.

And guess what, even IF lots of other states were just as corrupt as Georgia is (I certainly haven't found that to be true, but who knows), why is that an excuse for allowing it to happen there? Are you saying Georgia deserves the worst, and you're going to keep providing it? It's still a democracy, you don't HAVE to nominate and then elect the most crooked person you can find. Nathan Deal was widely known as an ethics nightmare long before he was elected Governor, and that hasn't changed a bit. The truth of the matter is that the people who voted for them are responsible for doing God knows how much damage (since it's still happening) to what is otherwise a wonderful state. The normalization of this kind of corruption alone (by showing that it can exist unchecked) is a terrible thing, even if he didn't actually cause a lot of harm with his specific actions.

[suprascooby22]

Originally Posted by spotch

I-Team: State Ethics Commission Shake-Up (http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/iteam/i-team-state-ethics-commission-shake-up-20110617-es - broken link)



Seriously y'all, I was hoping to come back to Georgia once my current work assignment end, but from where I'm sitting it's looking more and more like some kind of dysfunctional corrupt third world country. What the hell is going on!?!?

Another partisan hit piece about the awful Republicans here in Georgia. Seriously, you can count the number of Conservatives that post on this fourm with one hand.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by DawgPark

The dollar is on the brink right now because Obama/Pelosi/Reid have in 2.5 years doubled the entire debt our country took 200 yrs to accumulate.

I'm very concerned about the debt, too, and agree that the way we're going is completely unsustainable.

However, the statistic you mention is somewhat misleading because it only tells a small part of the story. For example:

-- Reagan tripled the entire debt our country took 200 yrs to accumulate.

-- Bush I inceased the entire debt our country took 200 yrs to accumulate by 1 1/2 times in only 4 years.

-- Clinton did the same thing, although it took him 8 years.

-- George W. Bush quintupled the entire debt our country took 200 yrs to accumulate.


I'm not saying this to "blame Bush" but simply to put the situation in perspective. We've been going down this road for decades. As everyone knows, the problem is structural. The Big Four expenditures -- healthcare, Social Security, debt service and the military -- gobble up the bulk of where our money goes, and it is extremely difficult to bend any of those costs downward.

And whether folks love them or hate them, there's no doubt that the Bush tax cuts have had and will continue to have a massive impact on the growth of the debt. While it's conceivable they may eventually help us grow our way out the recession, in the short term they've caused us to run into a brick wall on deficits.


What I really can't figure is why we don't just go ahead and adopt the Simpson-Bowles plan. It's not entirely painless but it does get us back on track.

[Ga Jerk]

Originally Posted by spotch

... this is the kind of stuff that the South was supposed to have outgrown decades ago. It's downright scary that these kinds of things can happen and nobody can or will do anything about it.

The South?

What are you smoking. Have you ever heard of Chicago or New York?

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by Ga Jerk

The South?

What are you smoking. Have you ever heard of Chicago or New York?

I think Spotch was just saying "South." I don't think he intended to imply that it was exclusive to the South.

[AcidSnake]

Newsflash:

You have no complaint with Bill Campbell. He was given jail time by the U.S. Federal criminal court system, so he's got his just desserts. Same with former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and then removed from office.

Justice...however imperfect, was served in both cases. Can we say the same for Governor Deal? That's the issue here.

Also, when looking at your past hyper-partisan postings on city-data, I find it absolutely laughable that you of all people, would demand that we complainers of Nathan Deal's double-dealings should maintain some polite sense of non-partisanship.

Just sayin'...

Originally Posted by DawgPark

Exactly right.

The unintelligent will look at Nathan Deal and use it as an excuse to whine about Republicans, or conservatives, or rich people, or whatever group they think is victimizing them at that moment.

To think that Nathan Deal is somehow exceptionally corrupt in today's political environment is idiocy. Have any of you whiners checked out Washington DC? 4 of BO's first 8 cabinet picks were current tax cheats when BO selected them out of the entire 300 million US population.

Have you checked the criminal records and history of Congress and the Senate? And try finding an honest election in Chicago, seriously. Think Blago was an isolated event?

And were any of you whiners around when Bill Campbell was controlling ATL? I personally know people who paid him off to get DOT/airport contracts. Some even went to jail for it. You'd be amazed at how the Mayor's office illegally controlled business dealings back then.

You ever check into the history and politics of the airport? Want to see some corruption? or how about checking into the Fulton County commission and how the City of Atlanta has been run the last 20-30 years? Might also want to check into the APD and its "missing" $7 million a few years back.

I don't like Deal anymore than you liberals on this thread. He was elected for one reason and one only . . . Roy Barnes. It's an embarrassment to GA that those 2 were our only choices, but that's a whole other topic of conversation.

Corrupt politician is a redundancy in 2011 . . . and has been for decades.

All is ask is to keep the partisan crap out of it, and see it fairly on both sides.