Jeffery Goldberg’s account in The Atlantic of the Springsteen concert he attended with Governor Chris Christie and his entourage at The Rock is a must read for friends and foe of Christie. Mitt Romney’s vetters and the DGA will be reading it. You might as well.
Christie is having a Town Hall meeting in Brick on Tuesday the 26th, four days before the State’s budget is due or the government shuts down, except for the State Police and the Casino Control Commission.
Bruce is invited but probably won’t show. You are invited too!
Usually we leave the posting of video from the Middletown Township Committee meetings to MiddletownMike or the Middletown Democrats.
This week we received several phone calls about Township Committee candidate Linda Baum’s remarks to the Committee. Since Mike hasn’t posted the video yet, we ran over to Town Hall and requested an audio of the meeting to hear what all the fuss was about.
Baum and Deputy Mayor Steve Massel face off in the November election for a three year term on Middletown’s governing body.
President Barack Obama has long tried to distance himself from the “Fast and Furious” scandal at the Justice Department, which stems from a program under which Mexican drug cartels were allowed to acquire U.S. firearms that were later used against U.S. law-enforcement personnel. By invoking executive privilege to stymie congressional investigation of the case, the president has placed himself squarely in the center of it.
President Obama, who had been a bitter critic of the Bush administration’s use of executive privilege, today through his representatives protested that he is only doing what the Bush administration did before him. The same man who once accused President Bush of “hiding behind executive privilege” is now hiding behind George W. Bush.
Executive privilege serves a necessary function in our constitutional order, reinforcing the separation of powers and protecting sensitive deliberations within the executive branch, and it is especially strong when the president or his closest advisers in the White House are involved in the communication. In this case, the administration has long denied that the president was directly involved. Instead, Attorney General Eric Holder wasted everyone’s time invoking a spurious form of deliberative privilege that was completely decoupled from executive privilege. Such a privilege has no force vis-à-vis Congress. By finally invoking executive privilege yesterday, the president belatedly acknowledged that his attorney general was full of it.
Executive privilege has legitimate uses — and illegitimate uses. For instance, it is not intended to be used merely to protect the president from political embarrassment stemming from grievous errors in judgment by members of his cabinet or officers of the departments over which they preside. There is good reason to believe that in this case the privilege is being abused.
Before running for Congress I was like so many people who had strong opinions on the way our country was being run, but I was contented doing my part as a conservative columnist and as a philanthropist. One evening in March, I was asked to do more for my community, when friends and acquaintances approached me to run for the Republican nomination for Congress. The opportunity would not have presented itself had I not been the writer of the Justified Right column in the TriCity News. My readers earned me that opportunity.
It’s important to mention that no elected Republican official or anyone else of note wanted the role. In fact, my former opponent, who won the primary, was registered at that time, and was still registered as a Senate Candidate and not a Congressional candidate with the Federal Election Commission on Election Day. When I was recruited to run it was apparent that the Republican Party had no one to represent the party in the race for Congress and so I took up the mantle.
Since that evening I have had a crash course on the inner-workings of the Republican Party, the various Tea Party groups, as well as grass roots organizations all across the 6th Congressional District, which now covers all of coastal Monmouth (from Asbury Park) through Middlesex County, ending in South Plainfield. But what made an impression upon me most was how too few people are involved in our two party system and how that reality means that voters have less and less of a significant voice in how their country is run.
For example out of the 95,071 registered Republicans in Monmouth County only 5,829 or about 6% voted for U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 6. So not only did no one want the job, but too few felt compelled to vote for either candidate.
I have to admit that I was once part of the overwhelming majority that did not vote in primaries, but if this country is going to salvage both its liberty and its free markets then more of us who are apathetic must become more involved in deciding who our candidates are going to be.
The Republican Party gets a bad rap in the press for being an old white guy’s club, but the party as a whole was one of the most inviting and supportive organizations that I have ever been a part of.
Freeholder Director John Curley said that tests performed by the County Department of Health have not determined the cause of the illnesses that befell employees and visitors at the Monmouth County Courthouse last Friday and again on Monday.
The Courthouse will remain closed until at least Monday while the State Department of Health conducts its own tests starting tomorrow and through the weekend if necessary.
“Our people have come up with nothing,” said Curley, “the State really should have stepped in right away. It’s a shame to spend all this money on a duplicate effort.”
Traffic rankings for APP.com, the Asbury Park Press’s website are down 25% in the month since the Gannett owned media outlet started charging for reading content on its website, according to the web information company, Alexa.
The religious exemptions clause of New York’s same sex marriage law was supposed to be the great compromise that broke down the barriers to gay couples marrying. Without the protections the clause provided to institutions that objected to same sex marriage on religious grounds, the law would not have passed New York’s legislature or been signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo last year.
New Jersey’s Gay Rights community, which has a history of litigating against religious institutions that refused to allow their properties to be used for civil union ceremonies, embraced the religious exemptions clause and convinced the Democratic leadership of the New Jersey legislature to make same sex marriage the number one priority of the current legislative session. New Jersey’s legislature passed the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act in February. Governor Chris Christie vetoed the bill and called for the issue to be decided by Constitutional Amendment via referendum. Despite polls indicating that New Jersey voters favor same sex marriage and that the favor Christie’s proposal to decide the issue via referendum, Garden State Equality and their allies in the legislature opposed a referendum, declaring that same sex marriage is a civil right that should not be decided by the majority at the ballot box. Privately, same sex marriage advocates have acknowledged that they expect to lose a referendum, despite the polls that indicate they would win.
New York is leading the way again.
The New York Post reports that a lesbian couple from Westchester is seeking to overturn the religious exemptions provision of New York’s same sex marriage law in federal court. “Jane Roe” and “Jane Doe,” a couple married on October 15, 2011, filed a class action suit in Manhattan because “Roe’s” employer, St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, refused to add “Doe” to the Catholic hospital’s medical benefits.
The class-action suit seeks an order declaring that both women are entitled to insurance coverage under federal law. It also says “thousands of legally married, same-sex couples” have been, or will be, denied benefits under similar policies administered by Empire, which is also named as a defendant.
The women are seeking an injunction ordering Blue Cross Blue Shield not to acquiesce to a company that wants to deny same-sex benefits because of religious beliefs, said Jeffrey Norton, their lawyer.
Further testing to be conducted for cause of illness
FREEHOLD, NJ – The Monmouth County Courthouse will remain closed tomorrow for additional testing of allergens – substances derived from plants, animals or items that can be found on people’s desks. Once the testing is complete, the courthouse will be cleaned again.
“All the tests so far have ruled out the most probable causes for the symptoms that were reported by employees and other individuals with business at the courthouse,” said William K. Heine, director of Public Information for the county. “We have ruled out possible causes that could be related to housekeeping, construction and general building maintenance.”
Tuesday night, the courthouse was tested for the presence of dust, pollen and mold on carpeting, chair fabric, desk surfaces and underneath desks. Nothing out of the ordinary was found. Levels of dust, mold and pollen were lower inside the building than outside the building.
To date, the county has checked the construction area of the courthouse’s East Wing and found nothing that would contribute to the symptoms of illness reported by the employees. Likewise, the heating and ventilation systems have been checked for leaks and none were found. The air filters in entire building were changed over the weekend and again on Tuesday. The county has also determined that there has been no change in the regular cleaning of the building.
“The county continues to work with the state Judiciary to resolve this issue,” Heine said.
On Monday, more than 60 courthouse employees reported symptoms of illness that included shortness of breath, chest pain, palpitations, rash and dizziness. A triage and treatment area was established outside of the courthouse where all individuals with symptoms were properly evaluated by emergency medical professionals. Thirty people were taken to area hospitals with symptoms that included rash or hives, elevated blood pressure and difficulty breathing.
After the courthouse was closed at 1 p.m. on Monday, the State Police Hazardous Materials Unit tested the building’s interior for 25,000 different compounds and found nothing that would have contributed to the reported symptoms of illness.
The situation developed on Friday when 17 courthouse employees reported the same general symptoms of illness. Several individuals were confirmed to be diagnosed with allergic reactions. The affected area of the courthouse was thoroughly cleaned last weekend.
“If a courthouse employee or anyone having business at the courthouse is experiencing any of the symptoms, we encourage them to go to the emergency room or their private physician,” Heine said. “We also ask that they contact the county health department at 732-431-7456 to report any symptoms.”
It is believed that there is no danger of person-to-person transmission. Anyone who was inside the courthouse since Friday should launder the clothes that they wore separately from other items. Individuals should also shower with soap and water as well.
Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden told MMM that the Courthouse will remain closed on Wednesday, June 20. Golden said that tests for over 3000 possible airborne contaminants came back negative. Additional test are being performed.
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Freeholder Director John Curley told MMM that all tests performed today to find the what caused 77 people to fall sick at the Monmouth County Courthouse yesterday have come up negative.
Curley said the officials conducting the tests are now taking a second look at the possibility that the cut flowers that were suspected of causing the sicknesses on Friday may also have been the source of the problem on Monday.
No announcement has been made regarding the courthouse opening or remaining closed tomorrow.
