Battling the Left\u2019s Hate Mongers in Georgia
\nBy Phil Kent<\/p>\n
It is very gratifying that that Gov. Nathan Deal appointed me to a state panel to ensure compliance with Georgia\u2019s new immigration control law. The Immigration Enforcement Review Board will have the power to investigate complaints filed against city, county and state officials, hold hearings, subpoena documents, adopt regulations and mete out fines.<\/p>\n
Under Georgia\u2019s new law, businesses employing more than 10 people must utilize the federal e-verify program to screen new hires. Employers must submit affidavits confirming they use e-verify in order to obtain their business licenses. So the panel will no doubt receive a large number of complaints relating to e-verify usage. The primary goal of the law is to ensure that Georgia has a legal workforce\u2014 especially during a time of high unemployment.<\/p>\n
Why was I chosen? Perhaps because I\u2019m a former newspaper editor and columnist who has written and researched extensively on illegal immigration and has testified before governmental bodies on the issue. I\u2019m a former president of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, and currently serve as CEO of the American Seniors Association (a conservative alternative to the AARP). But it is my role as national spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control that particularly enrages the open borders lobby.<\/p>\n
Leading the pack against my appointment and the whole panel is left-wing Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Jay Bookman, who wrote a column claiming I\u2019m somehow a \u201cracist\u2019 and \u201cextremist.\u201d Outsiders like the radical Southern Poverty Law Center and The Anti-Defamation League took up Bookman\u2019s chant. (The ADL went to court to try to block the new immigration law). A particularly slimy individual, attorney David Soloway of the Georgia chapter of American Immigration Lawyers Association, fired off a hysterical media release about me, then sent another shortly afterward retracting the original main lie about me. And the Young Democrats, assisted by MoveOn.org, circulated an invective-laced \u201cpetition\u201d asking the governor to reconsider.<\/p>\n
These leftists love to call names but not debate.<\/p>\n
The lead instigator, Bookman, hates the governor, the new law, the board and me because of my opposition to the open borders lobby. This hater took selective quotations from my writings and analysis of our nation\u2019s changing demographics to discredit my work for strict enforcement of our immigration laws.<\/p>\n
In fact, Bookman\u2019s regular column may be a reason why a growing number of subscribers have dropped their Atlanta Journal Constitution subscriptions for more reasoned opinion. Bookman \u2013 get this!\u2014 is worried about just one individual on a seven-person state panel, yet voices no concern over issues of far greater magnitude.<\/p>\n
Did Bookman ever have a problem with a real \u201cextremist\u201d \u2013 Al Sharpton\u2014 getting a nightly program on MSNBC? Here is an agitator who once called a Central Park gang rape victim a \u201cwhore\u201d and perpetuated one of the biggest legal hoaxes in decades.<\/p>\n
Did Bookman have a problem with Barack Obama going to a church where the pastor wildly claimed whites created AIDs to kill off blacks? Did Bookman condemn Obama for not repudiating Black Muslim extremist Louis Farrakhan, or rejecting his endorsement for president?<\/p>\n
What about Jesse Jackson\u2019s corrosive comments about the Tea Party wanting to reinstitute slavery? Has Bookman said that Rahm Emmanuel was unfit to serve as Chicago\u2019s mayor because he openly mocked the learning disabled? Of course not. They are all liberals, and this columnist protects them.<\/p>\n
I have no problem with a robust debate on immigration. But these radical critics war against freedom of speech. As my pastor said to me, they throw around the accusation of \u201cracism\u201d to tar people and it has now become the modern equivalent of the medieval charge of \u201cwitchcraft.\u201d They seek to silence those who disagree by smearing them and trying to undermine their efforts to earn a living. As I told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, that doesn\u2019t play well in Georgia and America. And it won\u2019t work with me.
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As Appeared in the October 2011 Middle American News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":75,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-243","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions\/318"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philkentconsulting.com\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}