MOODY’S ENDORSEMENT OF ALBERS POLITICALLY MOTIVATED?

I have become aware of two reasons for Dan Moody’s endorsement of John Albers.  First, apparently Brandon Beach advised Dan that he was going to run for his seat well before Dan announced his retirement.  According to the story Dan was not pleased and the conversation didn’t end well.  Second, when the grassroots campaign to form the City of Johns Creek was underway, Dan became irritated with that campaign’s leader, Rhonda Wilson, and harbors some hard feelings.  Rhonda is now David Belle Isle’s campaign manager. 

One has to wonder if this endorsement is more political payback than a carefully considered choice of the best candidate.

Mike Lowry, Alpharetta

WHAT’S UP WITH FINANCE REGULATION AND SENATOR CHAMBLISS?

What’s the point of electing Republican majorities to Congress if all we do is allow a constitutionally and fiscally irresponsible Congress such as we have now?  Our own Senator Saxby Chambliss is a great example.  Why is he playing footsie with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi over regulation of the finance sector?  Has he abandoned Republican principles of less intrusive government and adopted the concept of an economy micro-managed by politicians and bureaucrats? 

Senator Chambliss’ website praises the work of Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and brags about “a 180-degree shift for swaps regulation -- going from essentially unregulated to completely regulated.”

So one more aspect of Wall Street is going to be “completely regulated”?  No more recessions, right?  Then why the $50 billion slush fund to close failed financial institutions that Senator Chambliss seemingly tolerates?

 
There’s a simple rule of thumb about Washington politics.  The more tightly regulated any industry is, and the more it is under public scrutiny, the more lobbyists … and the larger the checks they write.  Example:  Goldman Sachs spent $2.8 million to influence Congress and the Obama administration in 2009, up from $1.4 million four years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal (Apr. 29, 2010).  Here’s another rule:  The more money sloshing around Washington, the more back room deals and corruption.

 
The worst recession since the Great Depression has revealed as much about politicians as it has about bankers.  Washington needs reforming, starting with sending Harry Reed, Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Chambliss back to the private sector and away from the public checkbook.

Perhaps The Beacon can find out why the Senator has abandoned the agenda of his Republican colleagues, and tolerates the agenda of the left in the name of bipartisanship.

Powell Harrison, Roswell, GA

WHY ARIZONA HAS IT WRONG

My name is Joseph H. Rosen, I retired from the U.S. government in 2001. I am a former FBI agent and a former U.S. Customs Agent, including time spent investigating narcotics smuggling on the Mexican Border. Since 2001 I have operated an Immigration law Practice in Roswell, Georgia. I am an Adjunct Professor of Law at John Marshall Law School and a Past President of the North Fulton Bar Association.

I have gotten a lot of calls recently about the new Immigration related law in Arizona. The calls range from outraged to interested. I received a very thoughtful call from a friend. He was scheduled to attend the American Bar Association conference in Arizona and was torn as to whether he should go. He called me and asked what I thought of the legal issues and the situation. Let me share what I told him.

You have to search your heart on an issue like this, not the law. How will this be looked at fifty years from now? Lawyers, judges and politicians have made defensible arguments about many things, some of them morally reprehensible. The U.S. defended not allowing Jews into the U.S. from Germany in the early Nazi years. The Supreme Court held that slaves were property, not persons. Lawyers defended internment of Japanese citizens in World War Two. The Courts upheld barring Chinese people from the U.S. in the late 1800s. In the 1890s the government argued that Native Americans were not persons under the Constitution and could be simply taken into custody and required to remain on reservations.

In 2007 I attended a conference in Budapest, Hungary. The head of the Budapest Bar Association spoke. He told the attendees that he had gone back and reviewed Bar Association articles and statements during the time that the Hungarian government was disbarring all Jews as lawyers and judges and handing their practices and positions to Christians. What struck him was that there was nothing in a Bar Journal or an article simply saying that what was being done was wrong. He cautioned all of us as lawyers to make sure that we don’t get sidetracked in looking at things legally. Sometimes you just have to say that something is morally wrong.

Even if the Arizona laws are legally defensible, they are simply wrong. They are wrong in the same way that the refusal to admit Jews from Nazi Germany was wrong, that Dred Scott was wrong, that Chinese Exclusion laws were wrong, and that federal decisions to not consider Native Americans persons under the law were wrong. They should be condemned as such.

Joseph H. Rosen, Roswell Immigration Law Offices, Adjunct Professor of Law John Marshall Law School, Past President North Fulton Bar Association