American Conservative Union, the folks who put on the CPAC conventions and who have since 1971 been rating the conservatism of members of Congress have rated the conservatism of New Jersey’s state legislators.
ACU tracked the votes on 11 pieces of legislation for Assembly members and 9 votes in the Senate. Those who voted the way ACU favored 100% of the time were declared “Defenders of Liberty.” Those who voted with ACU on 80% or more of the bills earned the designation “ACU Conservative.”
Those legsilators who never voted the way ACU favored, most of the Democrats, earned the designation “True Liberals of the Garden State.”
Some of the results in the Monmouth County delegation, Districts 11, 12, 13 and 30, are surprising. At least they are to me.
If you asked me to predict who among the Monmouth County delegation would have earned a 100% conservative, “Defender of Liberty” designation I would have guessed only 11th District Assemblywoman Caroline Cassagrande. I would have guessed wrong. Cassagrande didn’t even make the 80% “ACU Conservative” cut. She voted the ACU way 8 of 11 times for a 73% rating. The 3 votes Cassagrande cast that did not meet ACU approval were for 1) for legislation that requires businesses to post notices that employees have the right to be free from gender inequality, 2) for legislation that would ban treating waste water from fracking and 3) a bill that provided tax credits for electric car charging stations.
Governor Christie will be in Aberdeen today to accept the endorsement of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) for his reelection bid.
Before wingnut conservatives get all crestfallen or disgusted, let me remind you that the Teamsters endorsed Ronald Reagan. A labor union’s endorsement doesn’t automatically make that Republican a RINO, unless you consider Reagan a RINO.
Yes, this means that New Jersey is not likely to become a “Right to Work” state so long as Christie is governor, It also means that we will continue to overpay “prevailing wage” on government funded and supported construction projects. As our friends at InTheLobby point out, it also explains why Christie has thwarted efforts to expand legalized gambling in New Jersey to race tracks, but those are all other stories.
What the LIUNA endorsement really means is that New Jersey Democrats are not likely to make a fight of the gubernatorial campaign in 2013. Christie’s post Sandy poll numbers make him look invincible. By locking up a major union endorsement early, Christie is creating an air of inevitability for reelection.
Governor Chris Christie will hold his first town hall meeting since Hurricane Sandy on Thursday, December 20 at 3PM in the Belmar Borough Gymnasium at the municipal building, 601 Main Street. The doors will open at 2:15.
The event is open to the public and seating is first come, first served.
The Governor’s office requests that those planning to attend RSVP here in order to ensure adequate seating.
The tragic news in Connecticut knocked the latest scandal involving U. S. Senator Bob Menendez out of the news. In case you missed it, last week the news broke that an 18 year old intern in the senator’s New Jersey office was arrested on December 6 for being an illegal immigrant eligible for deportation because he is also a registered sex offender. The initial report said that the Department of Homeland Security instructed ICE not to arrest the intern before the election. DHS strongly denied that allegation.
A week after the arrest, Menendez told MSNBC, that he had just heard about the situation prior to the interview and blamed the lack of screening of the intern on the college that recommended him:
The intern story was broken by the Associated Press and well covered by the mainstream media prior to the Newtown, CT massacre.
What wasn’t covered by the mainstream media where the ethics and sex scandals that broke in late October and early November. In case you missed those, the right-wing news site, The Daily Caller, reported that Menendez accepted free travel to the Dominican Republic from a campaign contributor for a sex party that included the services of young Dominican escorts who were promised $500 to party with the senator but only received $100. The left-wing news site GAWKER followed the Daily Caller story with a report of the senator’s frequent late night antics “with different women every night” that kept his Washington DC neighbors awake.
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House oversight subcommittee on homeland defense has launched an investigation into the delay in arresting Menendez’s intern. But no one seems to be investigating how an illegal immigrant sex offender became an intern to a U.S. Senator or Menendez’s sexploits funded by campaign contributors.
Menendez is on deck to become the Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee should Senator John Kerry be named Secretary of State.
Menendez has a history of interfering in foreign affairs to forward his personal and political agenda . His power to do so will naturally increase if he becomes Chairman of the committee that recommends the ratification of ambassadors and treaties and influences the economics of our relationships with our allies and enemies around the world.
MMM asked two prominent New Jersey mainstream journalists why Menendez was getting a pass over the sex scandals. “No body cares,” said one of the journalists. “The story is too thin,” said the other. Now that Menendez is on the verge of having real power, hopefully the media will get a more rigorous in how they cover him.
Governor Chris Christie and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno will be the Sea Bright this afternoon to make an announcement regarding small business recovery and relief from Hurricane Sandy.
The 3PM event will be at the Sea Bright Fire House, 1099 East Ocean Ave. A press conference will follow the announcement.
What did JCP&L’s parent company learn from Hurricane Irene and the October 2011 Nor’easter? Nothing. They just assumed their great grandchildren would have to just deal with the next one.
The president of First Energy Utilities (parent company of JCP&L) told financial analysts that the company doesn’t plan for 100 year storms, according to a report on NJSpotLight.
“And I think we really understood that these storms are — I mean I tell Tony [Anthony Alexander, chief executive officer and executive director of FirstEnergy] they are 100-year storms.’’
“So he’s not going to have to worry about them again, hopefully. But they can’t be prevented and you can’t plan for them,” Jones said.
“And I’ve gotten questions at the board [of directors] several times about how we’re going to increase our storm budget because of them and the answer is no. I mean, they are literally events that I don’t think we should plan for. When they come, we will deal with them,’’ Jones said.
Charles E Jones was speaking on a earnings call on February 29, 2012.
From First Energy’s website:
Charles E. Jones President, FirstEnergy Utilities
Charles E. Jones is president, FirstEnergy Utilities, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. He has responsibility for Energy Delivery, Customer Service, compliance with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission transmission requirements, and Energy Efficiency activities, while leading FirstEnergy’s 10 regulated electric utility companies and other regulated operations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia.
Chuck began his career with Ohio Edison as a substation engineer in 1978. He held a variety of positions in the Akron, Marion and Elyria areas, and in 1995 was named president of Ohio Edison’s Penn Power subsidiary. He returned to Akron in 1996 as division manager. Chuck was named president of FirstEnergy’s Northern Region in 1997, vice president of Regional Operations in 2001, senior vice president of Energy Delivery and Customer Service in 2003, and president, FirstEnergy Solutions Corp., in 2007. He was named senior vice president, Energy Delivery and Customer Service, in 2009, and senior vice president and president, FirstEnergy Utilities, in February 2010.
Belmar’s engineering firm, Birdsall Services Group, told the Mayor and Council of the Borough to expect their new boardwalk to cost $17 million. The winning bid came in at $6.6 million.
The winning bidder, Epic Construction of Piscataway is no fly by night. Mayor Matt Doherty says the borough checked them out thoroughly because they came in so much lower than expectations and lower than the other 22 bidders. The highest bid was $19 million, according to NJ.com.
Doherty told MMM that the borough benefited by getting the project out fast after the Hurricane Sandy, thereby attracting 23 bidders.
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez says he did not know that his 18 year old intern, Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, was an illegal immigrant and a registered sex offender.
How does the senator’s staff check to see if their interns are in the United States legally? They ask them.
The senator’s office said a background check didn’t show Zavaleta’s registration as a sex offender because he was a juvenille in 2010 when he was arrested in Hudson County. Zavaelta’s name does not appear on the NJ State Police registry of sex offenders. So where is he registered?
The Homeland Security Department has strongly denied media reports that they instructed ICE not to arrest Zavaleta until after the November 6 election. The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office tipped ICE off about Zavaleta in October.
How does Homeland Security or a prosecutor not tell a U. S. Senator that an illegal immigrant and sex offender are working in his office. Maybe there’s an ongoing investigation. One can hope.
How does a teenager from Peru get to be an intern for a U. S. Senator? Does he show up at the office in a suit and say “Me gustaría trabajar gratis como su interno”?
Or is the kid related to a campaign donor or maybe an executive of a bank that Menendez invests in or oversees as a member of the Senate Banking Committee?
