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• “I challenge the concept that somehow the law requires use of an affidavit, that the auditor’s office is legislatively charged with creating the affidavit for use – but that the issuing agency is not required to use that affidavit.”

 

15 Dec 2022

Mr. John H. Cranford

District Attorney

Coweta Judicial District

Mr. Cranford,

 As promised, I write regarding your response to my complaint against Carroll County government in administering public benefits and the legislative intent and goals of multiple laws intended to ensure those benefits do not go to ineligible applicants. As I noted previously, I do not agree with most of your conclusions, and I respectfully urge you to take a second look at the matter.

I have tried to arrange my points to coincide with the numbered paragraphs in your letter.

1)  OCGA 50-36-1 requires (most) agencies administering public benefits to verify the “lawful presence” of any applicant for public benefits. I believe it is clear that Carroll County did not fulfill that obligation over the course of a decade:

(“b) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this Code section or where exempted by federal law, every agency or political subdivision shall verify the lawful presence in the United States under federal immigration law of any applicant for public benefits.”

The law then mandates a detailed, plain language process for that verification which includes requiring the applicant to swear that he is eligible within the “lawful presence” definition on a standardized affidavit. The law says the source of that affidavit form is the state auditor’s office.

(2) The state auditor shall create affidavits for use under this subsection and shall keep a current version of such affidavits on the Department of Audits and Accounts’ official website.

 I challenge the concept that the law somehow requires use of an affidavit, that the auditor’s office is legislatively charged with creating the affidavit for use – but that the issuing agency is not required to use that affidavit.

A reasonable consideration of the legislative intent and the language of the law seems clear enough. (*1) If the law intended to allow agencies to create their own forms, documents and affidavits bypassing the mandate that the auditor “shall create and keep a current version of such affidavits…” that option would be stated in the law. It seems a difficult stretch to conclude otherwise. There is no language or implication in the law that allows any issuing agency to create their own form or format. Again, to address otherwise this is to infer something that is not stated or even implied in the plain language text of OCGA 50-36-1.

Again, with respect, I regard a legal decision on the above as being within the realm and authority of a court – not an executive branch reading or opinion.

I urge you to reconsider your conclusion on this point.

2) From my Sept. 29, 2022 post “The SAVE affidavit used by Carroll County is not the SAVE affidavit designed by the Dept. of Audits and Accounts – the State Auditor. And in Carroll County there is no requirement for foreigners to complete the affidavit for renewals…”

 OCGA 50-36-1 recognizes that it is not usual for an American to lose U.S. citizenship status but that it does happen (a naturalized citizen may be subject to denaturalization proceedings in court or as a result of a conviction for knowingly obtaining naturalization through fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1425 ) . The law was amended after original passage to allow for that fact and  recognizes that foreign nationals (“foreigners) “lawful presence” status can literally change overnight for a variety of reasons.

The law provides that having proven eligibility through U.S. citizenship in the original application, issue, and verification process, that applicant is not required to prove eligibility again for renewals in the same agency/subdivision.

That provision and exception does not apply to foreigners, and by omission from the last sentence of the below pasted paragraph in the statute, they are required to prove eligibility with all steps of the process for all renewals. (4) The requirements of this subsection shall not apply to any applicant applying for or renewing an application for a public benefit within the same agency or political subdivision if the applicant has previously complied with the requirements of this subsection by submission of a secure and verifiable document, as defined in Code Section 50-36-2, and a signed and sworn affidavit affirming that such applicant is a United States citizen. (Emphasis mine)

 The law does in fact clearly distinguish between citizens and non-citizens regarding whether they must complete a redundant affidavit and/or secure and verifiable ID in the renewal process. To ignore the last words of the above paragraph is not a complete consideration of the law or an accurate response to that part of my column or complaint.

3)  As you noted, the affidavit that I received from Carroll county in my open records request (and have posted on in my Sept 29, 2022 column) “has a Revision Date of 2/25/2020.” You write that it “appears to be in compliance with the requirements of OCGA 50-36-1.” We agree that the “homemade” Carroll County affidavit does not include the sentence contained in the auditor’s version of the affidavit that reads “The undersigned applicant also hereby verifies that he or she is 18 years of age or older and has provided at least one secure and verifiable document, as required by 50-36-1 (f) (l), with this affidavit.

 The secure and verifiable document provided with this affidavit can best be classified as:

Because of that absence, the 4000-ish applicants that I am informed have applied for and been issued public benefits in Carroll County in the last decade have not sworn to the full requirements of verification under the law because Carroll County decided to ignore the affidavit created for use by the state auditor. Whether or not the law required the above entry on the affidavit, it does require the secure and verifiable ID oath process.

This was the exact reason for amending the law to require the creation of a standardized, auditor’s provided affidavit form. I do not regard the Revision date of 2020 as anything other than another indication of Carroll County’s refusal/failure to comply years after the law went into effect.

Respectfully, I do not agree that the Carroll County version seems to be in compliance unless you insist on rejecting the premise that the auditor’s form is not actually created for use (*1 please see above) or that Carroll County somehow has legal authority to not use it. If that authority exists, I hope Carroll County government official can cite it?

Carroll County apparently skipped the entire secure and verifiable ID collection process

Carroll County not only decided not to include the above paragraph in their version of the affidavit, but apparently bypassed the entire process of collecting any secure and verifiable documents until late this year – after I made this atter public and filed my complaint.

I have a recorded acknowledgement of this on audio from a half-hour October 24, 2022 phone conversation initiated by Carroll County officials to me.

You can easily check on this yourself by asking Carroll County to produce the secure and verifiable ID examples collected in the prior to my public concerned citizen investigation.

Ignoring this important security step in administering public benefits is a violation of the law.

I will provide the audio I mention above upon request from your office.

4)  You note that the E-Verify affidavit now posted on the Carroll County website now matches the version provided by the Attorney General’s office. That was not the case last month, as my post explains and illustrates. My original open records request to Carroll County asked for a copy of this affidavit in use. They were unable to provide anything close to the required document – even after a follow-up note from me. Then I was sent an affidavit form that was not in compliance with the law because it wasn’t the affidavit provided by the AG.

As I wrote, I notified one of the Carroll County attorneys of this fact. If they have now begun using the required AG provided affidavit it was after I explained that they were still in violation as you can see from my dated post.

The carelessness and defiance along with the cavalier attitude concerning the law has been evident at Carroll County on this matter since I began my effort to gain compliance early in 2022.

A shorter way to say it is that until I had pursued this to the public complaint level, none of the above was regarded as any sort of problem worthy of concern by elected and appointed officials at Carroll County. They took their time to comply with the rule of law only when it became a public problem for them politically. This is not a luxury enjoyed by taxpaying private citizens.

Allowing this to be ignored and without prosecution is reinforcing the already common attitude in other issuing agencies statewide that “unless we get caught, we can ignore the law designed to deter illegal access to public benefits.”

There are other agencies and political subdivisions within your jurisdiction that are in similar forms of violation of the laws we are discussing here. I mean no offense or disrespect when I note that your move to consider this matter closed will send a clear “we have nothing to worry about…” message to the officials in those agencies if your present consideration becomes more widely publicized.

As I have written to you previously, I do not agree with the conclusions in your investigation. I want to make it clear and repeat that I sent multiple, fact-filled and educated emails to the BOC starting early in 2022 on this matter. I was ignored and brushed off. They only began correcting their documented and admitted violations of multiple laws months later and after I made the issue public and filed my complaint with the sheriff.

It is difficult for reasonable people to regard those reluctant and delayed corrections as “good faith” actions that would allow dismissal of my complaint.

Additions to my complaint – Compliance reports:

 OCGA 50-36-1 contains language that makes it illegal to do what Carroll County has clearly (and admittedly) done for about a decade and after they were repeatedly warned of violation. It also contains a reference to 50-36-4 which was created for the specific purpose of making it seemingly impossible to claim ignorance of the law or it’s violation through the required filing of annual compliance reports with the DCA.

“(k) It shall be unlawful for any agency or political subdivision to provide or administer any public benefit in violation of this Code section. Agencies and political subdivisions subject to the requirements of this subsection shall provide an annual report to the Department of Audits and Accounts pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this subsection. Any agency or political subdivision failing to provide a report as required by this subsection shall not be entitled to any financial assistance, funds, or grants from the Department of Community Affairs.”

 OCGA 13-10-91 has a similar requirement for the issuing agencies to conduct “self-audits” on compliance:

(A) Public employers subject to the requirements of this subsection shall provide an annual report to the Department of Audits and Accounts pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this subsection. Subject to available funding, the state auditor shall conduct annual compliance audits on a minimum of at least one-half of the reporting agencies and publish the results of such audits annually on the Department of Audits and Accounts’ website on or before September 30.

I have not yet taken the time to gather any compliance reports Carroll County may have made or to validate the accuracy of their contents. I can inform you that my broaching this part of the law on the phone call I mention above was greeted with what seemed to me like honest ignorance and surprise. I would not be shocked to learn that no such reports were filed.

I hereby respectfully request that you reconsider regarding this matter as “closed” in your office and that you investigate the possibility of violations involving any filing of the required compliance reports and the possibility that if filed, such reports may contain false and fraudulent claims of compliance.

It is difficult to see how Carrol County can openly correct multiple, long-term violations and at the same time file accurate compliance reports.

I apologize for the length of this reply to your letter to me of December 8, 2022. I would be grateful for the promised phone call to me.

I appreciate your straight-forward and patient reply to my complaint. I am also grateful to you for sending my complaint to the Attorney General’s office and trust the same for this letter.

Please be advised that I have posted virtually all information and correspondence relevant to this matter on my website ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com. There is a “roundup” of my columns on the homepage and additional resources can be accessed using “Carroll County” in the search bar. I reserve the privilege of embedding educational links to this letter when it is posted online.

Respectfully submitted with my thanks,

D.A. King

 

“The Governor shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed and shall be the conservator of the peace throughout the state.” Section ll, Paragraph ll of the Georgia Constitution.

 

Another month, another column, and another reminder that Georgia has a significant illegal immigration problem. And that nobody in state government is checking on compliance with laws put in place to fight that organized crime.

There is an old saying that “no good deed goes unpunished.” It is difficult to convey the level of frustration this writer has experienced in the process of simply trying to warn the Carroll County Board of Commissioners and the county attorneys that they are in violation of state laws aimed at protecting public benefits, tax dollars and deterring illegal immigration.

I started my Carroll County project early in 2022. As I write on November 29, they are still in violation.

To review, the simplified, short version is that the state legislature has put in place multiple laws over the years that essentially require applicants for public benefits to swear under penalty of felony false swearing that they are not illegal aliens. And offices that administer these benefits collect the standardized paperwork on which these oaths are given along with “secure and verifiable ID” from the potential benefit recipient.

Some business owners are supposed to swear to use of the no cost federal E-Verify system before they are issued or renew a business license as are public contractors who want to bid on taxpayer-funded jobs. Carroll County isn’t following the law.

Yes, I am aware of how dull a topic all of this can be. The alternative to having a system in place to try to keep illegals from accessing the jobs and benefits meant for legal residents creates a place that looks a lot like California. Voters who don’t want to press their state officials to audit and enforce these laws should get accustomed to Georgia becoming more and more like that declining state out west.

Last month I described the fact that Carroll County had sent me a completely unrelated document when I filed an open records request to see a sample of a contractor E-Verify affidavit. Later in the month I received an email note from a county attorney, Ms. Stacey Blackmon, along with a different form she said was actually what the county was using. It was wrong as well. It was taken from a 2007 format and version of the law that has been changed four times since 2007. She said she has been using it since 2016.

Ms. Blackmon’s note and my reply can be read on the ImmigrationPolicitsGA.com website under “Article roundup – Carroll County government in violation of state laws on illegal immigration/public benefits.”  My previous columns on this are also posted there for readers who want to catch up.

As I have written here before, I have filed a complaint against the BOC with Sheriff Langley and asked him to forward it to the GBI. I am told he sent it to the District Attorney, Mr. Herb Cranford. We’ll see what happens. While we wait, let’s all make a list of the laws we are allowed to violate without any consequences repeatedly and publicly.

I close by repeating my educated warning to voters from my previous columns on this topic: While the District Attorney for Carroll County may prosecute this case, there will be no meaningful change in the attitude of “business first” state officials on auditing compliance and enforcing the many illegal immigration – related state laws unless and until voters raise their voices to their state legislators and the governor. The powerful anti-enforcement lobby under the Gold Dome has seen to that fact.

I have complied a long list of these laws that are ignored by Gov. Kemp. There is more of this coming.

D.A. King is an authority on illegal immigration matters and has assisted state lawmakers with related legislation under the Gold Dome since 2005. This column went to press on November 29, 2022.

 

We have noticed that most of the people pushing “school choice” are careful not to acknowledge the ongoing invasion at the southern border.

We remember a different quote from EWE on the same topic.

Related: Here is what a pro-enforcement conservative voter wrote to his local newspaper in Georgia on that lunacy.

The below was transcribed by Rev.com from the Erick Erickson radio show on WSB radio in Atlanta on Nov 18, 2022.

____

Erick Erickson (host):

“Erick Erickson here. Uh, there is some news Republicans nationwide should pay attention to. School choice motivated midterm voters in school superintendent races around the country. Even USA Today is noticing this. Americans are divided on school choice, that was reflected in their votes last week. Seven states chose state school superintendents, schools with robust school choice programs like Arizona voted in candidates who support it. Uh, Oklahoma ushered in new leaders who believe they could give school voucher options for the first time. Oklahoma’s incoming state school superintendent is Ryan Walters, a Republican.

He campaigned on giving parents the option of school vouchers to decide where their kids to go to school and to take public money along with them to a private school, religious school, or homeschool program if that’s their choice. He was one of a small number of state superintendents elected last week who’s an advocate of school choice and whose backing of powerful groups of politicians, uh, are calling it a school choice wave. Uh, unfortunately in Georgia it was the Democrat who’s the school choice advocate. And she lost to the Republican, all the Republicans in Georgia won. Um, but there is a pattern shaping up that you really need to pay attention to.

Republicans around the country are starting to realize they can win longterm if they embrace school choice. And it is my hope that in my state of Georgia and others, Republicans will realize this is really a winning issue for you. Not only is it a winning issue, but over time, uh, you as a Republican, uh, will see your share of the vote grow. Look at what happened in, um, Florida. There was a conversion of African American and Hispanic voters towards the GOP. And a lot of that had to do with Black and Hispanic parents not wanting their children to have to go back into public schools after being given options for private schools. And you had Charlie Crist of the Democrats campaigning on shutting down school choice in Florida.

Once you give this entitlement to parents, they’re not gonna vote Democrat if the Democrats try to reverse it. And even in Arizona where they went with a Democrat over Kari Lake, they went with Katie Hobbs, they elected a Republican school, uh, superintendent for the state to make sure school choice happens. Republicans, I’m telling you, you’re crazy if you don’t push school choice in your state. Georgia Republicans need to pay attention.

Now, before I get out of here, I need to tell you…

(end of “school choice” topic and show).

Carroll County government still in violation of state law aimed at illegal immigration

Below is my reply to the email sent to me by Ms. Stacey Blackmon which is pasted below with a screen shot of the affidavit in question. Here is a link (again) to what we think is the correct affidavit form.

• Related: Previously posted information on Carroll County

____

Ms. Blackmon,

Thank you for your reply and added information. I am assuming there was a mistake in the response to my original open records request.

Please be advised that the affidavit form you sent me and derived from Ga Comp. R. & Regs. 300-10-1-.07 is modeled on language from the 2006 SB 529 and the first version of OCGA 13-10-91. That statute was changed four times after the original 2006 passage. I worked on the original legislation and on each change. Please see the “history” at the bottom of the Lexis Nexis page for OCGA 13-10-91.

If this is the affidavit form you have been using for Carroll County public contractor bids relative to the law since 2016 as stated in your email, Carroll County is in clear violation and has been since at least 2013. As you can see noted on the bottom of the page from the outside source of your version, the affidavit you report using is from 2007.

Current language (since 2013) requires the following:

(b)

(1) A public employer shall not enter into a contract for the physical performance of services unless the contractor registers and participates in the federal work authorization program. Before a bid for any such service is considered by a public employer, the bid shall include a signed, notarized affidavit from the contractor attesting to the following:

(A) The affiant has registered with, is authorized to use, and uses the federal work authorization program;

(B) The user identification number and date of authorization for the affiant;

(C) The affiant will continue to use the federal work authorization program throughout the contract period; and

(D) The affiant will contract for the physical performance of services in satisfaction of such contract only with subcontractors who present an affidavit to the contractor with the same information required by subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C) of this paragraph.

_

As I wrote in my latest column with a link to the lawful affidavit (one that requires contractors to swear to all requirements to bid on a contract for services) the correct affidavit form looks like this. As is, it seems Carroll County is in violation and has no apparent legal recourse to sanction contractors who violate the law because Carroll County doesn’t require them to swear to all of the bid requirements stated in the law.

Please let me know if you disagree as I will be writing about this situation again in December.

Respectfully,

D.A. King

Cc: Carroll County Sheriff and legislative officials

_______

Hi Mr. King,

The County has been using the form at least since mid-2016 when I was appointed as County Attorney.

Best regards,
Stacey Blackmon

From: D.A. King <
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 11:21 AM
To: Stacey Blackmon <SBlackmon@tisi
Cc: Terry Langley <TLangley@carrollsheriff.com>
Subject: Re: E-Verify Affidavit – Carroll County.DOCX

Thank you. Please send me the date the County began using this form/affidavit in compliance with OCGA 13-10-91?

dak

On Nov 16, 2022, at 10:44 AM, Stacey Blackmon <SBlackmo> wrote:

Hi Mr. King,

I have attached a copy of the affidavit the County uses for purposes of OCGA 13-10-91, which is the form set forth in Ga Comp. R. & Regs. 300-10-1-.07.  Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Please note that Janet Hyde is out of the office on extended leave.   Please send all future open records requests to openrecords@carrollcountyga.com to ensure they are replied to in a timely manner.

Thank you,

Stacey Blackmon

Carroll County Attorney

 

 

<image001.jpg>

Stacey L. Blackmon Attorney at Law   100 Wagon Yard Plaza Carrollton, GA 30117 Direct: 770-214-5107 sblackmon@tis | vcard | www.tisiom Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GALEO – a partial history as published in The Islander newspaper in Glynn Co., GA.

Part 1

The Islander

October 17, 2022

The illegal alien lobby in GA: An introduction to GALEO

“California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. They ought to go back to Europe.” — Mario Guerra Obledo, co-founder of MALDEF, on the Tom Likus radio show, 1998

To provide some insider insight into how our state government really works, here is an abbreviated outline of just one of the many corporate-funded, far left non-profits that have staff and lobbyists working against immigration enforcement around the state and in the Georgia Capitol. Space does not allow more than a partial storyline. But I cannot give readers an honest view of the innocuously named Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, known as ‘GALEO,’ without the above quote from a founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), Mario Obledo.

The CEO of the Atlanta-based GALEO is former Democrat Party fund raiser, community organizer and Biden supporter Jerry (Gerardo E.) Gonzalez. Before he was awarded with the leadership of GALEO, he was also a MALDEF lobbyist under the Gold Dome where he is known for his vitriolic outbursts at Republican legislators in committee hearings and hallways. Gonzalez and his anti-enforcement corporation have actively fought every immigration enforcement bill in the state legislature since 2003.

Gonzalez once brought the leader of the Socialist Workers party into Georgia to fight for driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.

Gonzalez boasts on the GALEO website that American luminary Jane Fonda was a GALEO “founding friend.” A leader in Atlanta’s LGBTQ community, Gonzalez is also noted for his antics at a 2011 business luncheon at the Coosa County Country Club focused on use of E-Verify to detect newly hired illegal aliens by private employers in Georgia. Gonzalez had angrily shouted at Rome’s diminutive Republican state Representative Katie Dempsey from the audience after the event and was escorted off the property by local police according to the Rome News Tribune.

I was in the state Capitol in 2011 when Capitol Police warned Gonzalez that he would be removed if he continued his hallway-screaming at GOP state Senator Renee Unterman after she spoke in favor of immigration enforcement. Jerry is not what most would call “tolerant.”

A condensed list of Gonzalez’s accomplishments running GALEO Inc. include fearlessly marching in the streets of Atlanta demanding amnesty for illegals and escorting a busload of illegal aliens into the state Senate Chamber. GALEO has actively opposed voter ID (it’s “anti-Hispanic”), English as the official language of government in Georgia (“it would be an insult to “our culture”), ICE holds for criminal illegals in Georgia jails (“…bad for communities”) and in 2011 joined the ACLU and the SPLC in a federal lawsuit to stop state implementation of HB 87, the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011” – apparently enforcement of immigration law is “anti-immigrant.”

After this writer and several other pro-enforcement citizens spoke in favor of HB 202 in the House Public Safety and Homeland Security committee in 2019, we watched as GALEO lobbyists joined the SPLC and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) lobbyists in testifying against advancement of the bill. HB 202 would have required the Georgia Department of Corrections to publish a public, quarterly report on the number of foreigners in the state prison system, the number of that group who already are subjects of ICE detainers, their home nations and crimes committed along with the percentage of the entire prison population these aliens represent.

I write “would have” because the Republican-dominated House Rules Committee killed the bill.

Sponsors at GALEO fund raisers have included the Coca Cola Co., Telemundo, Western Union, Cox Communications (parent company of the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper), Georgia Power, State Farm Ins. Co., Univision, Atlanta’s Kilpatrick Townsend law firm and Southwest airlines.

I watched in person sometime about 2005 as Gonzalez marched in protest of then-CNN newsman Lou Dobbs with a large group of fellow travelers carrying signs calling Dobbs a “racist” with other placards reading “THIS IS OUR CONTINENT- GO BACK TO EUROPE!” I asked some of the group with Gonzalez to where my black friends who opposed illegal immigration should return. “Africa” was the quick, loud, and defiant reply.

I am out of space for now but not close to the end of the story. Please save this edition and see here next time for more recent information on how deeply GALEO is involved in Georgia politics and how our state government really works. You won’t get this from “the news.”

Part 2.

The Islander

October 31, 2022

More on the illegal alien lobby in Georgia – GALEO Inc. and our government

In my previous column here, we began an insider’s account and history of the corporate-funded GALEO Inc. as related to our government. As promised, here is some additional information. It’s worth the reader’s time to check out the October 17, 2022 edition of The Islander if you missed part one.

The innocuously named Georgia Association of Latino and Elected Officials Corp. (GALEO) is run by former MALDEF lobbyist and Biden-supporter Jerry (Gerardo E.) Gonzalez, who is known for badgering female Republican state legislators and escorting admitted illegal aliens into the state Senate Chamber. Gonzalez has been widely quoted in liberal news media as part of the effort to erase the obvious difference between illegal aliens and real immigrants – like this writer’s adopted sister. Gonzalez says use of the word “illegal” in the term illegal immigrant/alien is akin to use of “the N-word.”

It is imperative that readers understand a large part of the names of far-left groups are intended to provide a basis for mindless marginalization of critics. Example: “You don’t agree with us? You must be “anti-Latino.” “You oppose illegal immigration? – you are against Hispanics, and you are clearly “anti-immigrant.” Those of us who have been fighting for enforcement and sanity on immigration for decades were being attacked with the shameless race-baiting and name calling long before the Democrats and the liberal media took the practice mainstream and nationwide.

A 2015 press release from community organizer Gonzalez provides important insight into part of GALEO’s dangerous agenda: “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.”

The liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper refers to GALEO as a “civil rights group.”

GALEO’s Institute for Leadership (“a nationally recognized Latinx leadership program”) conducts classes every year to train future leftist community organizers – in partnership with UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute. Really.

In 2015 then President Barack Obama nominated GALEO board member, tactician, and fundraiser Dax Lopez for a lifetime seat on the federal bench in the Northern District of Georgia. Lopez was also a DeKalb County state court judge at the time. Happily, the confirmation process was stopped by then U.S. Senator David Perdue after Perdue was presented with irrefutable facts about GALEO by the Dustin Inman Society. Thank you, Senator Perdue.

Fast forward to 2022 Georgia: Dax Lopez was appointed to the prestigious and powerful state Judicial Qualifications Commission in June. The JQC educates Georgia judges about their ethical duties and conducts investigations and hearings regarding judges’ misconduct. Really.

Readers may have assumed that Georgia politicians, especially Republican elected officials who present themselves as conservatives would avoid all things GALEO Inc.

Consider this: GALEO board member and current Democrat candidate for state senate Jason Esteves (District 6, Fulton County area) is a favorite to win the seat Nov 8th. Current Republican state Senator Jason Anavitarte (Paulding Co) was a GALEO board member about the time he ran for the state House – as a Democrat. In June 2019, Gov Brian Kemp appointed then Doraville police chief John King as Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner. An ecstatic Jerry Gonzalez boasted to the media that “several years ago, Chief John King served as a keynote speaker for one of GALEO’s Power Breakfasts, one of our annual fundraising events…we look forward to working alongside his leadership,” Gonzalez gushed.

In 2015 then Secretary of State Brian Kemp and Attorney General Sam Olens, Republicans both, attended the 12th annual GALEO “Power Breakfast.” Then Gov. Nathan Deal (R) was scheduled to attend but changed plans at the last minute. Another notable attendee that year was AJC political reporter and blogger Greg Bluestein who was captured in a GALEO promo photo wearing a name tag provided by one of the corporate sponsors – not the press ID that normally hangs from working reporter’s necks.

It is a sad truism that most people have no idea how their government really works. We have done a bare outline of just one corporate-funded leftist group here. Unless you already visit our websites, follow us on Facebook or me on Twitter (@DAKDIS), we are guessing you read it here first.

end