Senate President Stephen Sweeney famously called Governor Chris Christie a “rotten prick” last summer over the budget. Assembly Speaker Sheila has called Christie a liar, a bully and implied his his administration was racist. Christie just shrugs it off and keeps working with them.
Former Acting Governor Richard Codey, Sweeney’s predecessor, called Christie a liar earlier this week. Christie responded by firing Codey’s cousin from a $215,000 job at the Pork Authority and cancelling Codey’s State Police security detail.
Codey can take comfort in the fact that Christie is giving him more rough and especially tumble material for the paperback edition to his book and that he hasn’t tumbled as far as Jon Corzine.
The Borough of Oceanport, home of Monmouth Park, 1/3 of Fort Monmouth and 6,000 residents has offered to serve as a temporary landlord and transitional vehicle of the racetrack, according to NJ.com.
In a letter to Governor Chris Christie , Mayor Michael J. Mahon offered the borough’s resources and commitment to resolve the current differences and provide a new model for sustainability for the park.
The deal to transfer Monmouth Park from state control, under the auspices of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, to a private management by developer and casino investor Morris Bailey fell apart earlier this monthover a dispute between the state and the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association over racing date licenses. On Monday, Christie said the horsemen had a week to come up with an acceptable proposal or risk the park’s closure.
Holmdel Mayor Bob Walsh at the 2009 Optimist Club of Howell's Annual Breakfast for Special Needs and Underprivleged Children
By Art Gallagher
The photo posted this morning in Tis The Season has caused quite a stir and prompted many phone calls and emails, including a call from Howell Mayor Bob Walsh who said he expected such posts from Kathy Barratta but not from me.
Walsh put his appearance at the Monmouth County Federation of Republican Women’s Holiday Luncheon, dressed as an elf, in context and provided more photos. He said he has been appearing at the Optimist Club of Howell’s Annual Breakfast with Santa for special needs and underprivileged children for 8 years. That’s were he was prior to attending the Federation’s luncheon in Red Bank.
Walsh said his appearance as an elf at the luncheon was just a quick stop between events. After the luncheon he went on to a baby shower and then to another charitable event for special needs children at a private venue.
Walsh does not yet have photos from last Saturday’s Optimist event, but said he would send them on when he gets them.
MMM welcomes similar photos of any other Freeholder candidate.
Howell Mayor Bob Walsh, left, and Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso, second from the right, compete for support in their race for Freeholder, at the Monmouth County Federation of Republican Women's Holiday Luncheon.
So should the Assemblymen who are opposed to his nomination
Thomas Nast, the 19th century political cartoonist who gave Harper’s Weekly enough political influence to topple Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall and to sway the election of two presidents, Grant and Cleveland, has been nominated for the New Jersey Hall of Fame’sclass of 2012.
Nast, who popularized the image of Santa Claus and the partisan symbols of Donkeys and Elephants for Democrats and Republicans had an undeniable and enduring impact on American culture.
Nast lived in Morristown for over 20 years, starting in 1872.
His nomination to the NJ Hall of Fame has generated controversy from the Irish Catholic community who contend the artist was a anti-Irish/anti-Catholic bigot because he frequently depicted the Irish as drunken apes and Catholic bishops as crocodiles. Neil Cosgrove of New City, NY wrote in a Letter to the Editor in The Star Ledger that Nast is “the father of hateful and negative anti-Irish stereotypes that Irish-Americans continue to struggle against today.”
This Irish-American Catholic hasn’t struggled against stereotypes today, or any other day that I can remember.
Three New Jersey Assemblymen have jumped on the anti-Nast bandwagon. NorthJersey.com reports that Wayne DeAngelo (D-Mercer) and Dave Rible (R-Monmouth) have called on the NJ Hall of Fame to withdraw the nomination. Scott Rumana (R-Passaic) issued a press release echoing DeAngelo.
Pardon. Franchise. Columbia.-"Shall I trust these men, and not this man?" ~ Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1865
The Assemblymen and the Ancient Order of Hibernians have it wrong. Nast was not a bigot. Far from it. His political art, starting during the Civil War and through Reconstruction was fervently pro-equality for Blacks and other minorities.
'"The Chinese Question.' Columbia- "Hands off, gentleman! American means fair play for all men."' ~ Harpers Weekly, February 18, 1871
Nast’s anti-Irish and anti-Catholic cartoons were political, not ethnic or religious.
Morton Keller, Professor of History at Brandies University addressed Nast’s anti-Irish, anti-Catholic work on the centennial of the cartoonist death:
It may be asked why Nast’s sympathy for blacks, Indians, and Chinese did not extend to the Irish and Catholicism. Mid-nineteenth century liberals—and Nast certainly was one of them—regarded the Catholic church as the fount of anti-modernism and fanaticism. (See fig. 16.) This attitude was reinforced by the commitment of many Irish-Americans to the Democratic party, hostility to abolition, and Negrophobia. The intertwining of his hostility to the Church, the Irish, and the Tweed Ring suggest that for him this was another chapter in the ongoing struggle to preserve the American Union, and Lincoln’s new birth of freedom, from its enemies. In this sense the Confederates, the anti-Reconstruction, pro-Johnson Democrats, and the Tweed Ring and the Catholic church were parts of a collective whole. It stirred in Nast the peak of his distinctive mix of artistic inventiveness and political passion. (See figs. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22.)
These drawings spoke to the political and social concerns of the core urban constituency of wartime and postwar Republicanism: Protestant farmers, professional and businessmen, shopkeepers, artisans.
This is Nast’s third year as a nominee for the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He’s up against tough competition in the “General” category. If not for the controversy, I would have chosen between Milton Friedman, Joyce Carol Oates or Governor Tom Kean.
But I voted for Nast and hope you do too. My fellow Irishmen from the Ancient Order of Hibernians should have researched Nast before making a PC stink and acting like Tommy DeSeno with his rants about how Italian-Americans are depicted in the movies. If the controversy the Hibernians created over Nast puts him over the top of the voting and into The Hall, it will be just comeuppance.
The State of New Jersey is setting it self up to to replace the the $780 million that the horse racing industry contributes to the economy, including $115 million in tax revenue, by drawing tourists to the state for quickie weddings.
During his press conference in Trenton yesterday Governor Chris Christie said that Monmouth Park Racetrack would close unless the “completely untrustworthy,” “millionaire” thoroughbred horsemen offer the state acceptable terms to keep the track open within the next week.
The deal to transfer Monmouth Park from state control to the management of developer and casino investor Morris Bailey apparently fell apart over the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association’s demand that they have the rights to a small number of racing days or receive $5 million for not getting those rights for which they had previously negotitated but the state later didn’t want to give them.
Christie said, ““I am no longer going to permit millionaire horsemen to take money from waiters and waitresses and police officers and teachers or the taxpayers of this state to fund their industry,” according to The Asbury Park Press.
Those waiters and waitresses can serve food and drink to lovestruck tourists rushing to New Jersey for a quickie weddings. Down the hall from Christie’s press conference, the Assembly Judiciary Committee was unanimously passing a bill that, if passed by the full Assembly, the Senate and signed by the Governor, will eliminate the 72-hour waiting period for marriage licenses.
The police can take domestic dispute calls involving those tourists who come back to New Jersey within 30 days for the no questions asked annulments that the bill allows. The teachers can educate the offspring of those marriages, annulled or not, that stay in New Jersey and are not aborted.
The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Norcross, is designed to give New Jersey a competitive edge over neighboring states in attracting couples who want to get married immediately.
A bill to allow Atlantic City casinos to accept bets on the success or failure of new marriages has not been introduced yet.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney famously called Governor Chris Christie a “rotten prick” last summer over the budget. Assembly Speaker Sheila has called Christie a liar, a bully and implied his his administration was racist. Christie just shrugs it off and keeps working with them.
Nast, who popularized the image of Santa Claus and the partisan symbols of Donkeys and Elephants for Democrats and Republicans had an undeniable and enduring impact on American culture.
