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If You Play With Fire, You Will Likely Get Burnt
A Few Things…. 1) The location of the Kemp fundraiser where the photographer appeared was not at his Athens fundraiser, but at the fundraiser held at the home of The Wileys in Buckhead on May 20. 2) Ellen Wiley is the owner of that home, and she is the mother of a Pre-K son who was playing in the yard when the MacGinnitie photographer started focusing his camera on the child rather than the adult fundraiser attendees. She gave the following quote about the incident: "I saw that there was a photographer in front of my house that was not a guest for the party. I thought he may have been with the press, then he focused his telephoto lens on my child playing in the yard. I was really frightened by the prospect of someone taking photos of my child. That is when I went over to him and asked him to stop. However, before he left, he plastered all my friends and neighbors cars with flyers claiming outlandish and negative things about Brian Kemp.” 3) Of course, you (the PV reader) would be asking a good question if you asked "How does anyone know this photographer works for the MacGinnitie campaign?" Because a short time after this May 20 encounter, Kemp’s Finance Director David Dove ran into MacGinnitie’s Campaign Manager Brandon Phillips at some event and made a comment to Brandon on the order of “Nice job getting your photographer to attend our event,” to which Brandon responded “Well, get ready because he’s going to be showing up at all of your events!” Thus, Brandon admitted right then and there that the photographer was connected to the MacGinnitie camp. On June 2, there was another Kemp fundraiser, this time in Sandy Springs, in a house near State Rep. Joe Wilkinson’s house. Sponsoring this event were Joe Wilkinson, Sandy Springs (“SS”) Mayor Eva Galombos, SS Councilwoman Ashley Jenkins, SS Councilman Chip Collins and former SS Councilman Rusty Paul. Galombos, Jenkins, and Paul all served with Doug MacGinnitie, and all 3 endorsed and support Kemp over MacGinnitie. And, the photographer was there as well, tucked-down into a car parked in front of the house right next to the house where the event was held. Joe Wilkinson had this to say about his encounter with the photographer, a man named Taylor Quarrells: “Wednesday night my neighbor across the street was hosting an event for Brian Kemp. As I was walking over to the home, I noticed a suspicious vehicle parked between my home and my neighbor's. I was concerned and went to speak to the man inside the car. He said he had a political interest in the event but denied any affiliation with a campaign. After talking with him further he admitted to being there on behalf of the MacGinnitie campaign. He had a camera and was taking photos of all the attendees and their cars as they entered the home. Quite honestly it was as if he was stalking Secretary Kemp and the attendees. I’ve been involved in Republican politics for over 50 years and this has to be the sorriest thing I have ever seen. It’s just creepy.”
A Little Back Story… I was actually informed of this photographer incident at the May 20th fundraiser a little over a week ago. I was content to let it stay in my brain and not do anything with it unless some sort of extraordinary event took place to get me to think “Hey, other people should know about this.” Brandon Phillips and his pal on the MacGinnitie Campaign, Clint Long, provided that extraordinary event to happen. On June 1st, I received a call from Brandon asking me if I was still in the business of selling promotional products for campaigns. I said I was. He then asked me these questions to which I gave him these responses: Brandon: “Are you on the Kemp campaign payroll?”
Bill: “Nope.” Brandon: “You’re not a consultant to them?”
Bill: “No. And, besides that, there are so many consultants on that campaign, I couldn’t possibly add anything to it.”
Brandon: “Oh. Okay.” Bill: “But, in full disclosure to you, Brandon, since you are calling me about business, the Kemp campaign did contact me a few months ago to buy something for their campaign and I did sell it to them.”
Brandon: (Dead silence for a few seconds…) Bill: “Brandon, knowing that, do you still want to do business with me?” Brandon: (Dead silence for a few seconds…and then) “Sure! We can still do business.”
Bill: “Okay. What do you need?” We discussed what he needed, I wrote a sales order, he paid, he sent me artwork, and I entered the order with my factory. No problems…until approximately 60 hours later, at 10:35 PM on June 3. But, before we get to that, you need some more back story… You might recall a few weeks ago the FOX 5 TV story by Dale Russell that discussed incidences of 2 corporate entities getting their “identity” stolen and credit cards issued in the corporate name to fraudulent people. You also might recall that the MacGinnitie campaign, smelling blood in the water, took it upon themselves to launch a pretty vicious attack on SOS Brian Kemp, and blaming him for the security breeches. In a blog post Dale Russell made on PeachPundit.com shortly after his story aired, Dale stated the following: “The federal indictment was this year...The two victims in tonight’s story reported their corporate identity theft to the Secretary of State’s office in 2007 and 2009 respectively." Dale Russell Blog Post (Note to Erick, Icarus, and any other Handel supporter on PeachPundit: Take it down if you want to...I have a PDF copy of the whole thread. :-) So, if the breech incidents actually occurred in 2007 and in 2009, Brian Kemp could not have been responsible in ANY way for those events because Karen Handel was the SOS from 2007 through 2009. So, the person MacGinnitie and ANYONE else should be blaming for the breeches is Karen Handel. She is the one who was SOS when the complaint was made in 2007…and because she had her eye only focused on how good she had to look when she ran for Governor in 2010, she ignored the 2007 complaint and failed to make changes to protect the entity in 2009 who got his business identity compromised. Handel was too busy firing personnel and starving the Corporations Division of repair funds to take care of an annoying little thing like “security.” It was not, in any way, the responsibility of Brian Kemp for those two breeches. Everyone got it now? If anyone continues to claim that it is, whether on the MacGinnitie campaign or not, then that person has just identified themselves as a liar whose word cannot be trusted. On Facebook a week or so ago, I got into a little row with two punk-asses named Mark Luttrell and Clint Long. No matter how many times I demonstrated to them the proof that Kemp could not have been responsible, they refused to care about the truth...and Clint Long was being a special a-hole about it. My reason for engaging with Luttrell and Long had nothing to do with business I had previously had with the Kemp campaign. It had everything to do with correcting unfair statements and claims about the Corporation Division’s security breeches. The more dishonest people think they can be in politics and get away with it, the worse politics gets. I happen to be one of those people who just think it’s simply dumb to ignore the truth and allow lies to spread, regardless of who it is about. If I happen to take it upon myself to do research on my own, and write something in defense of a candidate OR in opposition to a candidate, that choice is mine to do with no compensation given or expected from anyone. Those of you who spend your time on blogs anonymously slamming me can somehow never refute the documented facts I present, so you spend your time impugning the messenger: Me. Impugning my character still doesn’t change the facts about your candidate of choice, and when you do that, you demonstrate that neither you nor your candidate has integrity. Other people of integrity in politics will be able to quickly recognize you for that as well. The only thing a sale between me and a political campaign, or a politician, means is that I have a business-to-business relationship with that entity and the responsibility of providing goods and services to help them accomplish their political marketing goals. I am not there to sell or offer political advice or political favors. When a business relationship is in place, I do not give a damn about the candidate’s “politics.” All I care about is two things regarding that relationship: 1) You and I work on building a compartmentalized relationship of trust and honesty between us, and 2) You do not play politics with my business or me. A “compartmentalized relationship” means that if I am selling to two or more competing campaigns, what is said to me from one campaign stays with me and does not get transmitted to the competition. However, if we have a business relationship, and you violate either of these requirements, I do not care about the business relationship any longer. In the time span of 60 hours this past week, the MacGinnitie Campaign demonstrated violations of both of those requirements. How did they do that? Recall that I was honest and forthright with Brandon on his questioning of me. He didn’t specifically ask me “Did the Kemp campaign buy something from you?” I could have left my answers as such, but I knew what he was trying to ask, and, though I knew there was a possibility it would come back to bite me, I volunteered information in full-disclosure with the hopes that it would establish an element of trust. At 10:35 PM on June 3, I received a notice from Facebook that Clint Long posted something on the discussion thread we had previously been arguing on. He posted this: "Tell me, Bill...how many pens, magnets, etc did Kemp have to buy from you for you to get on here and argue with me?" Folks, on Thursday night, I had actually been working on a completely different type of Vine at that moment. An edition much more fun and engaging for my readers. But…when I read that shit from Clint Long, I then knew that Brandon had not been calling me to place an order because he was interested in a "business relationship." He was calling me to get information to use against me. Bad move on his part. Very bad move. Similar to the line from the movie The Untouchables, if you come after me with a knife to stick in my back, I’ll come after you with the equivalent of a gun through my writing skills. In this case, however, the MacGinnitie campaign and Brandon Phillips deserved the nuclear option. They got it. At the time that I was writing the PV that went out late Thursday evening, I was more pissed at Brandon Phillips than I had been pissed at anyone in politics in a very long time. The words just came out. Regarding the nature of my comments and inferences about Brandon Phillips, I do owe Brandon an apology for the venomous nature of those comments. They were completely off-base and I do apologize. The original source of those thoughts on Brandon was somebody last year who is one of those people I constantly encounter in politics who think it is their job to take me aside and whisper in my ear lies and innuendo about other people I don’t know and then tell me “You didn’t hear this from me.” That source has proven himself to be a prolific liar on so many levels since then with myself and others. But, on Thursday evening, I had forgotten who had originally whispered that crap about Brandon in my ear. However, the contributory blame for both that PV even being written, as well as the tone of the issue, must be placed squarely on Brandon’s shoulders…because were it not for him and his pal Clint Long on the MacGinnitie campaign, that PV would have never been written, or seen the light of day. On Friday morning, Brandon wrote me an e-mail canceling the order and requesting a refund. I promptly canceled the order and initiated the refund process to happen and sent him an e-mail informing him of it. I hope that those of you who read this and have integrity will understand the reason why I wrote this follow-up and disclosed everything to you. Of course, along with that statement is the double-edged sword that those of you who are the dishonest and pathological liars in politics now have more ammo to fabricate and use against me, as I'm sure you will. One can only hope that there are more people of integrity who are willing to correct the lies as they come across them.
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