October 30, 2015

An honorable man and a life well-lived: Goodbye, Joe Kirby

Posted by D.A. King at 9:53 am - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

With great sadness, we say goodbye to Joe Kirby who was the OPED editor at the Marietta Daily Journal and my dear friend and writing mentor. In 2003, Joe was the first newspaper editor to publish a guest column submission from me and proudly ran a balanced OPED page. Maybe the most patient man I ever dealt with, Joe passed last night after losing a battle with lung cancer. He leaves behind countless friends and admirers and a beautiful family. Joe was just 60. He will be greatly missed.

Adios, Joe Kirby. And thank you.

Below is a short profile from GPTV:

Joe Kirby
Marietta Daily Journal

Joe Kirby has been Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal since 1992 and has won the prestigious Freedom of Information Award and Public Service Award from the Associated Press (Georgia) and the Georgia Press Association numerous times, as well as winning awards for Best Columnist, Best Editorial, Best Editorial Pages and Best Feature from those groups. He is the Southeastern Region 2008 winner of the First Place “Green Eyeshade” Award for Editorial Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. Kirby worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a city hall/general assignment reporter for the MDJ. Prior to that, Kirby was a reporter/anchorman for radio stations in northeast Georgia. He has a B.A. from James Madison University in History and Communication Arts. He serves on the boards of the Marietta Museum of History, the Cobb Library Foundation, the Kennesaw Mountain Historical Association, and the Marietta Kiwanis Club. He and his wife and two children live in west Cobb. He is the author of “The Bell Bomber Plant” and co-author with Damien A. Guarnieri of “Then & Now: Marietta” and “Then & Now: Marietta Revisited.”

October 28, 2015

Georgia state Senator Josh McKoon tells it like it is to the Madison Forum in August: Georgia is issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens

Posted by D.A. King at 5:16 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Georgia state Senator Josh McKoon

RADIO: Tim Bryant interviews D.A. King on Obama’s nomination of GALEO’S Dax Lopez for federal judge – Monday, Oct 26, 2015

Posted by D.A. King at 12:33 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

As always, we are grateful to Tim Bryant for the time and professionalism.

7 minutes.

98.7 FM & A< 1340, Athens. WGAU

 

 

October 21, 2015

FAST FACT: Daniel Horowitz on Republicans and power

Posted by D.A. King at 4:30 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

“Republicans don’t pursue power as a means of promoting an agenda; they pursue an agenda as a means of promoting power.”

See more HERE.

Republican Lawyers Urge U.S. Senators to Back Lopez Nomination

Posted by D.A. King at 3:44 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Image of Dax Lopez above from DIS files

The Daily Report

Republican Lawyers Urge U.S. Senators to Back Lopez Nomination
R. Robin McDonald, Daily Report

October 19, 2015

 

Republican lawyers who have served in high positions in Georgia government and the state GOP have asked Georgia’s U.S. senators to support the confirmation of a DeKalb County State Court judge to the federal bench in Atlanta.

The letter to Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, both Republicans, seek their backing for Judge Dax Lopez to fill a final vacancy on the Northern District of Georgia bench.

The co-signers to the letter include Joshua Belinfante of Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield and Robert Highsmith of Holland & Knight, who were both executive counsel to Gov. Sonny Perdue, and Anne Lewis of Strickland Brockington Lewis, who is general counsel to the state Republican Party. Belinfante also is one of three lawyers advising Sen. Perdue—Gov. Perdue’s first cousin—on the selection of federal judges.

Other co-signers of the letter include Frank Strickland, Lewis’ senior partner and the state Republican Party’s former GC; GOP state treasurer R. Mansell McCord Jr.; and state Rep. BJay Pak, R-Lilburn, of Atlanta’s Chalmers, Pak & Burch; and state House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs. Former state Rep. Edward Lindsey, of Goodman, McGuffey, Lindsey & Johnson, also signed the letter.
The signers also include Belinfante’s Robbins law partner, Jason Alloy, a former president of the Atlanta Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society; Kilpatrick Townsend Stockton chairman J. Henry Walker IV; and Bryan Cave partner William Custer, whose clients include the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Bankers Association. Many of the co-signers have served on the state Judicial Qualifications Commission or the Judicial Nominating Commission.

The Sept. 22 letter identified the signers as attorneys and conservatives who have met, appeared before, or practiced law with Lopez. Lopez worked at Holland & Knight before he was appointed to the DeKalb State Court bench by Gov. Perdue in 2010.

“As conservatives, we recognize that the constitutional obligation of a judge is to decide cases based on the text of the law and not policy preferences,” the letter says. “We know that Judge Lopez views the law the same way.”
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has not yet scheduled Lopez’s confirmation hearing.

Lopez had already garnered public support for his confirmation from Marietta attorney Robert Ingram—who is a member of Isakson’s judicial selection committee.

Calling Lopez “an excellent nominee,” Ingram told the Daily Report in July that Lopez had the “enthusiastic support” of both Isakson and his two fellow selection committee members: Ronald Carlson, a law professor at the University of Georgia, and former state bar president Jimmy Franklin.

Ingram said that no one on either Isakson’s or Perdue’s selection committees had opposed Lopez’s nomination to the federal bench. Perdue’s committee includes Belinfante, retired King & Spalding partner Dwight Davis and Houston County lawyer Michael Long.

Last July, President Barack Obama nominated Lopez to fill a long-vacant slot on the federal trial bench in Atlanta. The post had originally been intended for Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs, who was recruited by then-Sen. Saxby Chambliss as part of a compromise with the Obama administration to fill vacant slots on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the Northern District bench. But national controversy generated by Boggs’ conservative stances while a Georgia legislator led the White House to withdraw Boggs’ nomination last year.

Lopez was born in Puerto Rico and moved with his family to Augusta when he was 6. When he was appointed to the DeKalb bench in 2010, Lopez, who described himself as a Republican in a 2010 interview with the Daily Report, became only the second Latino trial court judge in Georgia. When Lopez campaigned in a nonpartisan race to retain his judicial post in 2012, he garnered support from Democrats… WE URGE YOU TO READ THE REST HERE simple and free registration required

 

October 19, 2015

THE ILLEGAL ALIEN LOBBY – A beginners guide to Coca Cola-supported GALEO (Jerry Gonzalez, Exec Director) #10: Activist, anti-enforcement immigration corporation lobbies against local jails honoring ICE detainers

Posted by D.A. King at 9:33 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

**** UPDATE, January, 20, 2016: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED Dax Lopez nomination process for federal judge is eneded- see here and here.

This entry is dedicated to Dustin Inman and to Kate Steinle and the uncounted thousands of Americans who have been killed by criminal aliens released by local jails.

The activist GALEO works in partnership with the ACLU

GALEO: “Since Fulton County is the first jurisdiction in the state with such a recommendation, GALEO would also like to encourage other jurisdictions in the state to adopt similar policies and stop honoring the hold requests from ICE.”

 

Below is a GALEO press release boasting of their (successful)

lobbying effort in Fulton County, Georgia against the sheriff honoring ICE detainers.

Dax Lopez had been on the GALEO board for ten years at the time. 

From the GALEO website:

GALEO Commends Fulton County Commissioners for urging Sheriff to decline ICE hold requests
2014-09-03 12.41.43

GALEO Commends Fulton County Commissioners for urging Sheriff to decline ICE hold requests

PRESS Statement: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Media Contact: Jerry GonzĂĄlez, GALEO Executive Director Tel.: (404) 745-2580 / Email: Jerry@galeo.org

September 3, 2014 (ATLANTA, GA)- Fulton County Commission scheduled a vote today on a Resolution urging the Fulton County Sheriff to “implement a policy to decline detainer requests from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALEO, testified today before the Fulton County Commission urging them to adopt the proposed resolution which was co-sponsored by four County Commissioners and led by Commissioner Joan Gardner. The Fulton County Commission had heard from community members of SONG, GLAHR and 9 to 5, in previous weeks of public comment period educating the commissioners on the issue and why the immigration holds were bad public policy and bad for our communities.

Gonzalez, issued the following statement after the Fulton County Commission passed a resolution, 6-0, today urging the Fulton County Sheriff to decline ICE hold requests:

“On behalf of GALEO, I would like to commend Fulton County Commissioners’ leadership and resolution urging the Fulton County Sheriff to stop honoring the ICE hold requests in order to keep families together but to also enhance public safety. We urge the Fulton County Sheriff to move forward quickly and implement the recommendation.

Since Fulton County is the first jurisdiction in the state with such a recommendation, GALEO would also like to encourage other jurisdictions in the state to adopt similar policies and stop honoring the hold requests from ICE.”

About Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO)

GALEO’s mission is to increase civic engagement and leadership of the Latino/Hispanic community across Georgia.

CORE BELIEFS: Inclusive, Non-Partisan, Diversity, Responsive

 

More? Here is the 2006 page from the GALEO website on which the anti-enforcement corporation passes along information on how to defeat ICE hold requests (note, April 15, 2020: original GALEO site link now broken, we have replaced it with a link to the same “toolkit” from another anti-enforcement group):

The All-in-One Guide to Defeating ICE Hold Requests (aka Detainers)

Federal judge nominee Dax Lopez had been on th GALEO board for two years by then.

October 17, 2015

Letter to the editor published in Sunday’s AJC on the current media campaign to reward victims of borders with better treatment than real immigrants and Americans

Posted by D.A. King at 11:20 am - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

No in-state tuition for illegals

Re: the Oct. 12 AJC Get Schooled blog post, “Georgia has replaced Jim Crow with Juan Crow,” here’s useful knowledge in deciding who should pay in-state tuition at Georgia’s taxpayer-funded universities: Illegal aliens who have received Obama’s deferred action on deportation are still illegal aliens. The DHS website makes it clear: “Deferred action does not confer lawful status upon an individual.”

The shameful, misleading and race-baiting “immigration enforcement is Juan Crow, return to segregation” campaign to put illegals in finite USG classroom seats with a lower tuition rate than a legal immigrant or an American kid living in Chattanooga or Asheville really is “anti-immigrant” — and is un-American.

A 2010 poll commissioned by no less than the Georgia Newspaper Partnership showed that two-thirds of Georgians want to bar illegal aliens from attending public colleges altogether, even if they do pay out-of-state tuition.

It is true that Obama has intentionally muddied the language of immigration. This edition of the ridiculous incremental move toward “equal rights” for victims of borders can be ended quite quickly. All the Regents need do is to change the language of their regulations to read “lawful status.”

D.A. KING, MARIETTA, PRESIDENT, DUSTIN INMAN SOCIETY

HERE

October 15, 2015

Another letter to our U.S. Senators: Georgia state Senator Michael Williams expresses opposition to nomination of Dax Lopez to the federal bench

Posted by D.A. King at 6:48 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Senator Michael Williams letter to Senator Isakson

Senator Michael Williams letter to Senator Perdue

Hispanic Patriots reject Dax Lopez nomination for federal judge.

Posted by D.A. King at 6:37 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Letter from Hispanic Patriots to U.S. Senators Isakson and Perdue

October 14, 2015

Conservative Republican Women of North Atlanta letter of support for Sheriff Butch Conway & Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department.

Posted by D.A. King at 8:21 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

CRWNA-letter-To-SheriffConway-2015Oct14

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