Weekend @ Monmouth

Friday: Shopping. You might save time and money at Airport Plaza.

Friday @ 7PM:  Leftovers for dinner. NJN’s Reporters Roundtable on the television.

All weekend: See Gregslists

Sunday morning: 10AM. NJN’s Reporters Roundtable.

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NJN’S “BLOGGER’S” ROUNDTABLE WITH MICHAEL ARON

By Art Gallagher

I was privileged to join Murray Sabrin along with BlueJersey’s Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner as panelists on Michael Aron’s Reporters Roundtable on NJN.

The video is just under 27 minutes long.  The show will be broadcast on television Friday evening at 7PM and Sunday at 10am.

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Happy Thanksgiving

I’m looking forward to being with family today, even if it means several hours of driving round trip. Last year much of my extended family was scattered geographically during the holidays.  As I look forward to sharing today with them I realise how much I missed them throughout the past year.

Thank you for being a MMM reader.  Five years ago when I started musing on the Internet, I never imagined I would have the voice I have today.  Thank you for that.

If you need a respite from food or football today, check out NJN’s Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron, featuring Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner of BlueJersey, Murray Sabrin, and yours truly.  I’m thankful that NJN posted the show early.  It will be broadcast on TV Friday at 7PM and Sunday at 10AM.  Channel 23 on Comcast locally.  Maybe a commenter will post the Cablevision channel in the comments.

The link to the Reporters Roundtable video is here.

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“It’s an amazing world” ~ Christie disses Palin

By Art Gallagher

Governor Chris Chrisite dissed former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last night during his appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.  Asked by Fallon if he thought Palin could be President, Christie shook his head and said, “It’s an amazing world.”  Fallon followed up with “Crazier things have happened?”  Christie said, “I don’t know, it’s an amazing world.”

Christie’s dislike of Palin has been well known in Republican circles for quite some time.  He did not invite her to participate in his successful gubernatorial campaign last year and he instructed New Jersey’s Republican congressional candidates this year that his support was contingent upon Palin not being invited to New Jersey.  Palin cancelled an appearance in Ocean County for Jon Runyan during the last week of the 2010 campaign.

His slight of Palin during the Fallon show was the first public show of dislike between the national Republcian “rock stars.”

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Pigs Squeal

School Superintendents who stand to take pay cuts and loss of generous perks when Governor Chris Christie’s pay caps take effect are starting to squeal like pigs in the press.

Bloomberg has an article this morning, Christie Attack on Pay Enrages N.J. Republican Towns `Bullied’ by Governor. 

Bloomberg must be sharing their headline writers with the Asbury Park Press. The article doesn’t report on enraged Republican towns.  It quotes a superintendent that will take a pay cut, McGreevey’s education commissioner,  and a school board member from Franklin Lakes.  Senator Ray Lesniak was quoted as saying that superintendents will “convey the message to the families and to the students.  They are going to be very upset.”

Why are these superintendents upset?  I thought we had to pay them $200,000 + because that is what the market is for good superintendents.  If that is what they can get elsewhere, why don’t they shut up and go get it?  Because they are really love to the kids they are superindenting now and don’t want to leave them? They love them all right.  They love they lifestyle the kids provide that the supers could never earn in the competitive private sector and will not be found in school districts in other states.

The market has changed.  Superintendents are going to have to deal with that like the rest of us.

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DOHERTY DRAFTING NEW LEGISLATION TO REIGN IN TSA ABUSES

Legislation to Be Introduced At the December 6 Session of the Senate

Senator Michael Doherty, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement regarding legislation he is drafting to curb the abuses of civil liberties by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). 

“I am of the belief that our society is founded upon our ability to exercise our individual civil liberties freely, and I stand ready and willing to defend those liberties when they are threatened. It is with great sadness that I have come to recognize that one of our greatest threats have been presented by officials of the TSA that have begun to implement intrusive searches of law abiding Americans who are traveling within our borders,” Doherty stated.

“In response to the attitudes and actions of the TSA and top Obama Administration officials, I am drafting new legislation that will make it perfectly clear that in New Jersey, our constitutionally granted civil liberties are treasured and will be protected. I am calling upon my colleagues in the legislature to step up and co-sponsor legislation that will protect the rights of citizens in New Jersey,” Doherty continued.

“If an individual is touched in a private area during a search, when there is no arrest or probable cause that is affirmed by oath or affirmation, the person who violated that individual’s privacy will be guilty of the crime of “sexual assault”, and will not be immune from prosecution in the state of New Jersey.”

“If an image is generated that provides detail of an individual’s private parts that violates New Jersey’s privacy or child pornography statutes, the person who generated that image will not be immune from prosecution in the state of New Jersey.”

Finally, if imaging technology that uses technologies that are believed by the legislature to be dangerous to individuals due to their broad or random use in security applications such as airports, the state of New Jersey will prohibit such use and will provide no immunity to individuals who violate any New Jersey state law in New Jersey.

“When the federal government is actively limiting the liberties and rights of law-abiding American citizens, the Several States have both a right and obligation to respond to misguided leadership at the federal level,” Doherty concluded. “I believe that one of the founders of the nation addressed this issue most eloquently: ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Ben Franklin.

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O’SCANLON: NEW JERSEY NEEDS REAL REFORM NOT POLITICS AS USUAL

Assemblyman O’Scanlon today responded to the Democrat press conference concerning arbitration reform. At that press conference, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Speaker Sheila Oliver announced a bill with a 2 percent cap that allows for raises above the cap as long as the average yearly raise does not exceed 2 percent. After three years, the cap would be lifted and the arbitration process would be evaluated.

“This is not real reform; these guys just don’t seem to get it.  It’s astonishing, frightening actually, that our legislative leaders don’t seem to understand the most import policy reform we’re likely to discuss this session.” Said O’Scanlon (R- Monmouth/Mercer). “Any legislation allowing for a sunset does not help our towns. This is merely a temporary salary freeze that the unions can contract around a few years down the road.

“The legislature passed a 2% budget cap last year, but we did not give our towns the tools necessary to live within that cap,” O’Scanlon continued. “Arbitration reform is one of the keys to existing within that cap. There is no sunset on this budget cap, so why should there be a sunset on arbitration reform? This is not reform, it is pandering of the first order. The Democratic leadership is looking to preempt Governor Christie, and is doing so at the cost of true, workable reform.

“This sunset requires towns to go through this fight all over again three years from now. How does this help towns or relieve the property tax burden on our tax payers?” O’Scanlon asked. “It doesn’t. This is a token measure which allows the Democrats to declare a political victory when, a few years down the road, we’ll revert back to the same, unsustainable County and municipal budget crushing policy we have now and this ‘reform’ will be but a memory.

“Some people are arguing – or accepting – that the arbitration cap is only needed in these ‘tough economic times’. We must make clear the problem we’re addressing. It is the long-running property tax issue that we’re trying to tackle here, and that problem won’t be gone in three years,” O’Scanlon concluded.

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Congressional Staffer Busted For Soliciting A Minor

New Jersey Congressman Steve Rothman announced that he fired his Chief of Staff, Bob Decheine, following Decheine’s arrest in Maryland for soliciting a minor, according to a report on Politickernj.

If convicted, Decheine faces a possible 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine before he can apply to work as a TSA screener.

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Bloggers Featured on NJN

On the left, Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner of BlueJersey.com. Michael Aron of NJN, seated center. On the right, Art Gallagher and Murray Sabrin of MurraySabrin.com

NJN’s Reporters Roundtable will be a bloggers roundtable this week.

I was privileged to join BlueJersey’s Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner, along with Murray Sabrin for the taping on Michael Aron’s weekly show this afternoon at NJN’s studio in Trenton.

The half hour show will air Friday evening at 7PM and Sunday morning at 10AM and be posted on NJN’s website on Monday the 29th.

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Vote For Frank Pallone

Politickernj has a poll running, “Who is the Democrats’ best 2013 candidate for governor?” that includes Congressman Frank Pallone.

Governor is probably the only higher office that Pallone would run for because can run in an odd-year election and not risk his congressional seat.  He declined to risk his seat to take Senator Robert Torricelli’s place on the ballot in 2002.

The only way Pallone could win the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2013 is if no one else wanted to run against Chris Christie.

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