Conservative Watchdog

I come from the Atlanta area. For the most part we are a great state that is patriotic, passionate and ground breaking.

1st we were supposed to have a huge deal at the Gwinnet Place Mall complete with fireworks. Well some political hanky panky came along 2 weeks beforehand and we had to cancel it because Simon Malls decided that because it was political they couldn't have it. Well let me see, pretty much a 1/3 of that mall has empty stores and kiosks. Do you think the merchants are happy right now that so many are now going to boycott their stores? Well that is movement that is coming.

Well a lot of us decided to celebrate at the Cobb County Tea Party which was pretty darn awesome in itself. We Hermann Caine come in and have us on his show and the incredibly smart 14 year old wonder Jonathon Krone. I've got all the pictures HERE and will have video up as soon as I can. What was even better was that we had friends join us this time!

This was a phenomenal event!  Kevin and I arrived at the Doraville station around 6:45 and MARTA was already full of fellow Tax protesters. The train was full, but that was OK, nearly everyone wore red. Kevin wore his FairTax shirt. It was a bit chilly but a lovely clear night. God was watching out for us! By the time we arrived it was around 7:30 and we couldn't even get near the front. We got as close as we could and I took the pics as far as I could.  There were so many people there and it was just great, because like FairTax rallies, we were surrounded by Americans who want a better life for us and for our families. We all understood that this was a peaceful demonstration and in fact with the amount of people out there, we were more than surprised that with so many, nearly 20,000, that there were no breakouts because people were going in and out. It was crowded, and we had to leave early because of my back and knee and it was hard to breathe. I have video, but I didn’t get nearly close enough, so I took crowd video and the music is by Mike Church http://www.mikechurch.com called Mr. Jefferson which the 1^st time I heard it, I

cried. Really listen to it and you’ll know why.  This was a great event, I believe that there will be another on July 4^th and we plan on being there for sure! We love this country. We know that the challenges that we face with an out of control government and main stream media which is so inadequate that they have to misinform, lie and well frankly just don’t do their job will be hard, but these grassroot attempts are a great start. Normal people are going to make a difference.

Don't believe the main stream media when they say that these are insignificant, or Pelosi who flat out lied and said that these were funded by super rich, these are created by regular people around the country. No GOP influence at all, in fact they were disinvited so that this was NOT going to be considered a political rally. It was for ALL the people. Super rich, um how about the seriously UBER rich like Soros who is basically running the Democratic party?

Our country is worth our sacrifice and much more.

I believe that in the works is another National Rally on July 4th. Hope to see you all there!

To see all the photos go HERE.

A local LJ friend of mine was there and took some seriously incredible pictures.

According to DangerB they just sat in the vans and didn't bother to take any footage.

Thank you DangerB!!!

December 1st, Sarah Palin came to GA to help Saxby Chamblis on the run off race for the Senate. A super important race since all eyes are on the nation to see if we could stop a filibuster proof liberal majority from happening. It was very cold that day but I had my friends from the CRW there and it was a great time. Had decent seats and was able to get some video. Thankfully it worked because Saxby was voted with no problems. What was funny was that Palin was up against Ludicrious which was no challenge at all.

Watch Sarah Palin at the Saxby Rally in Politics  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

See all the Photos!

ATLANTA Several thousand neopatriots – some shouting “Give me liberty or give me death!” – took to the streets in over 30 US cities Friday, representing what some of them call the beginning of a new conservative counterculture in America. “The spark has been lit,” says Ben Mihalski, a “house husband” from Cobb County, Ga., one of at least 300 protesters who gathered in a hefty downpour outside the Georgia Capitol on Friday to protest what they see as profligate spending by Washington.

Protesters with sign-slogans like “Pillage and plunder: At least the Vikings did it openly” fanned out across capitols and courthouses in cities from Nashville, Tenn., to Los Angeles, objecting to bailouts and policy changes since the inauguration of President Obama. The Tea Party USA movement also added some symbolic flourish, vowing to gather tens of thousands of tea bags to be dumped on the floor of the US Congress. In Atlanta, the brand was Luzianne.

Critics call the protests a predictably partisan, ill-informed and unhelpful development in the midst of a deep-sink US recession. But the largely grassroots show of force hints at a sharpening thorn for Democrats and a potential powder keg that could threaten to blow ahead of the 2010 congressional elections. “It’s worth remembering that the rise of the New Right and the Christian Right, one after the other, were both spurred by tax issues, the whole idea of paying for things they don’t believe in,” says sociologist Eugenia Deerman at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston who studies conservative social movements.

To be sure, the federal spending package includes tax cuts for most Americans, and Obama has promised to eventually halve a US deficit the Democrats have largely blamed on the Bush administration.

But protesters like Kevin Tanner of South Dakota said deficit spending by both parties has unnerved Americans. “The Republicans have their own problems because we elected them and they didn’t do what we wanted,” says Mr. Tanner.
Many protesters expressed a sense that basic American freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are threatened by new Washington policies seen by many as more socialistic than capitalistic. The proposed taxpayer bailout of homeowners who may have inflated their earnings in order to secure mortgages is one example, says Jeff Crawford, a protester from Dacula, Ga.

“The first year after the Mayflower arrived, the colonists tried a communal method of storing and sharing food and it failed miserably,” says Mr. Crawford. “Why are things any different now?” Eighteenth-century symbolism was rife at the Atlanta event as speakers drew comparisons with the Boston patriots who dumped the King’s tea in Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation, an act that began the American Revolution and the founding of the United States.

Some kids at the Atlanta protest wore tri-cornered hats, and one held a sign that said, “When I grow up I want to be free.” In Tampa, two dozen protesters held handwritten signs with slogans like “Keep Your Bailout; I’ll Keep My Freedom.” About 300 people showed up in 25-degree weather in Wichita, Kansas, and someone brought a pig. In St. Louis, local media expected about 50 people to show up while actual turnout surged to over 1,000 people.

Sparked in part by the unity of House Republicans in saying no to the $787 billion stimulus package and a well-publicized rant against a proposed mortgage bailout by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the protests represent the largest turnout of conservative activists since the anti-gun control rallies of the early 1990s, says Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform.

“Fiscal responsibility is the new counterculture, and that’s what we’re seeing here,” says conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin. “People were so mad about how the bill was passed, not just what was in it, and the lack of deliberation that preceded the signing.” “It’s given voice to a fledgling grassroots movement … a ragtag bunch of homeschooling moms and little bloggers and a lot of people who are really deciding to get into grassroots activism for the first time,” she says.

How grassroots the movement really is, is debatable, says Ms. Deerman at Eastern Illinois University. “I’m suspicious only because … the conservative movement has repeatedly used this tactic of creating an appearance of grassroots activism when they’re actually very well orchestrated,” she says. “It allows them to mask this ongoing ideological battle that’s super-invested in small government, low taxes, and a free market.”

The protests have happened with remarkable speed, spread by Twitter and Facebook groups and the now famous TV rant by Mr. Santelli, who yelled “It’s lunacy!” as he complained about the spending package. The White House has fueled the fire, protesters say, by taking on conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and even Mr. Santelli by name. Some rallies that took place Friday were organized in less than 48 hours and had a raw, unrehearsed edge to them.

“One of the challenges the Bush administration had when they decided to invade Iraq … was they took the MoveOn.org institution from a sleepy group apologizing for Clinton’s personal behavior and turned it into a juggernaut,” says Mr. Norquist. He says a similar phenomenon is happening now with the tea party movement. “When you do things that poke the other team, they react.”

The tea party phenomenon has largely been derided by progressives who say it’s fueled by big-money Republican interests opposed to the philosophical shift in Washington that they say will benefit working class Americans. “Something tells me … that the Republican leadership has a lot more tea parties to throw – and a long way down the rabbit hole to fall – before they see what really concerns Americans nowadays,” writes Huffington Post blogger Jeffrey Feldman.
But Mr. Crawford, one of the protesters, says it’s not easy to get conservatives to take to the streets. The protests, he say, speak to a deepening concern about the direction of the country, especially future tax obligations.

He says the $13-a-week tax cut for individual Americans included in the stimulus bill is small change when it comes to the tax implications of the country’s growing deficit, now tagged at $1.75 trillion. In a recent study, the Rockefeller Institute estimates that states will have to raise at least an extra $100 billion in revenue to cover new obligations once the stimulus bill monies run out in 2012.

Calls to roll back the spending bill are farfetched, protesters agreed, but said the real prize is the 2010 Congressional elections. “These protests remind people that there’s opposition to taxpayer-funded bailouts, and people in the streets means that Americans will be asking, ‘Why are they objecting? Tell me what’s happening here,’” says Norquist. Given the dramatic circumstances of the Boston Tea Party, tax revolts are actually quite unusual in the US.

“The most interesting thing about the American people is that we are generally compliant in paying taxes, and tax revolts that seem surprising here are fairly common in a country like France where those farmers, if they get upset, they simply don’t pay,” says Mary Segers, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. “Americans are a strange people with respect to taxes, so this revolt is very interesting for that reason alone.”

Another advocacy group has come to the defense of the illegal aliens that are overrunning Gwinnett’s justice system.  Georgia Detention Watch has come out in opposition to the deportation surge being conducted in the Gwinnett County jail by ICE.  The surge is part of the process of Gwinnett County being approved to participate in ICE’s 287(g) “program that trains local jailers to begin deportation paperwork.”  

A press release issued by Georgia Detention Watch said it “condemns in the strongest terms this effort of expulsion of immigrants, many of whom are hard-working members of our communities.” Georgia Detention Watch bills itself as a coalition that includes activists, community organizers, persons of faith and lawyers.

“We believe local enforcement of federal immigration laws leads to racial profiling as well as erosion of trust between immigrant communities and the police, making our communities less safe,” the press release said.

Ah yes, the “racial profiling” boogeyman again.  This argument is patently absurd with respect to the situation in Gwinnett.  First, everyone in the jail is being screened.   Second, this screening is being done only to those booked into the jail.  The police are not setting up checkpoints randomly across Gwinnett to check immigration paperwork.  Please tell me how this could possibly be profiling of any sort?   The only profile being employed is whether or not one is a human being.  Also, I fail to see the reasoning of how this makes our community less safe.  The program seeks to deport those that have likely committed a crime.  To my logical way of thinking, this would actually improve the safety of Gwinnett County.

Sheriff Butch Conway is often good for a comment and he does not disappoint here:

Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said the program doesn’t violate human rights or constitute racial profiling. He pointed out that it targets people who have been arrested for a crime. Those who are here illegally are not immigrants, as this group claims,” Conway said. “An immigrant is someone who has entered the United States legally and has nothing to fear.”

Hammer meet nail.

It is evident that Georgia Detention Watch would have us do nothing about illegal immigration.  Here is the reality, folks: illegal immigration is overrunning Gwinnett’s criminal justice system.  According to the Sheriff’s Department, “60 percent of the 14,084 foreign nationals that were booked into the Gwinnett jail in 2008 were here illegally.”  That is 8,450 illegal immigrants that had to be processed by the system.  That is 8,450 trials which entail court costs, public defender costs, prosecution costs, and jury costs.  The volume of trials increase the demands on Gwinnett residents for jury duty.  Who is paying for all of this?  You and I, the taxpayers of Gwinnett.  In a time when our county budget is under pressure, can we continue to justify this drain on our resources?  This does not even begin to address the impact on Gwinnett County’s communities.  

You may think that I simply do not like immigrants.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have worked with and have known many people of varied ethinicities.  I count them as colleagues, classmates and friends. These individuals came to America legally.  While continuing to embrace their culture and teach others about their heritage, they have assimilated into the American community.  The have learned our common language and pursued the American dream just like many American-born citizens.  I recall a conversation with a coworker a few years ago where he recounted his dream of coming to the United State and ultimately becoming a citizen.  I would venture to guess he “gets” the American ideal better than most of us who were born and raised in this country.  The stance of Georgia Detention Watch is a slap in the face of the millions of people who originally came to this nation as legal immigrants.

I suspect most legal immigrants came to our country because of the promise American offers.  I am sure many illegal immigrants came for similar reasons, but by overrunning our nation’s borders and societal infrastructure, by refusing to learn our language and to become integrated into the rich fabric of our culture, they threaten the very reasons that brought then to this nation in the first place.  Liberal activist organzations like Georgia Detention Watch simply empower this destructive form of immigration.  We must vigorously oppose these groups who would flaunt our laws now while there is something to defend. If we don’t, America’s beacon of hope and promise to the world will be extinguished.  

Georgia Detention Watch takes exception to local enforcement of immigration law.  Unfortunately, the politicians in Washington have shown they are more interested in catering to potential votes than stand up for America’s heritage.  Based on the recent election season, there is little hope this situation will improve and things could well get worse.  Because of this, this battle must be fought at the local level.  I am pleased that Gwinnett is stepping up to the challenge.  While I do not always agree with him, I am thankful that Butch Conway is not the type of leader who will worry whether an organization like Georgia Detention Watch is upset over justice being carried out.  If only all of our politicians had such backbone.