Congressman Frank Pallone says his primary residence is in Washington, DC

The Pallone residence in Washington. The pink flamingos are on a neighboring property. Aug 31, 2018

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr and his wife signed mortgage documents and affidavits in 2016, and again this year, in which they represented that the home they have owned in the Glover Park section of Washington, DC since 1992 is their primary residence, according to District of Columbia property records.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

LD 18 GOP Assembly Candidate Slams Biased Reporter As Mouthpiece Of Trenton Democrats

Bakke Says Politico “Reporter” is Democratic Mouth Piece

“A mouth for the moth lover”

Press Release

East Brunswick, NJ- Synnove Bakke, a Republican candidate for New Jersey Assembly from Middlesex County responded to a recent hit piece on her by Politico-New Jersey reporter Matt Friedman with the following statement:

“The Columbia School of Journalism should demand it’s diploma back from Matt Friedman,” Bakke said. “He is not reporting, but rather is regurgitating opposition research paid for by Trenton Democrats and my opponent Nancy Pinkin.  The PC nonsense that Friedman is posting on Poltico-NJ is worthy of a partisan blog, not a journalistic news site and I am shocked Assemblywoman Pinkin would condone this nonsense.”

“Friendman’s recent garbage never would have gotten past the editors of his former employers, the Star Ledger and PolitickerNJ, and that says a lot”, Bakke continued.  “I’m not the only Republican he’s gone after.  Friedman has been reporting Democratic opposition research as if it was original reporting for weeks.”

Friedman wrote on Poltico-New Jersey beta,  an upstart division of the national Democratic leaning website, Politico, that Bakke tweeted that  the United States should consider deporting Muslims and faces a “Muslim invasion,” and suggested that President Barack Obama is not an American.

“I have issued 33,000 tweets in the two years I have had that twitter account.  That the Trenton Democrats paid someone to go through my tweets and come up with three politically incorrect entries is a sign that my true message is resonating with the voters of the 18^th Legislative District.”

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Scudiery Aggressively Out To See Pallone Defeated

Former Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

Victor V. Scudiery, the Monmouth County businessman and former 23 year Chairman of the Monmouth County Democrats, is backing up his endorsement of Newark Mayor Cory Booker in the August 13 Special U.S. Senate Primary with an aggressive negative endorsement of Congressman Frank Pallone.

Scudiery is launching a personally financed campaign this morning designed to weaken Pallone’s support in his 6th Congressional district home base of Monmouth and Middlesex Counties. Scudiery’s efforts are independent of and without the prior knowledge of the Booker for Senate campaign.

The $45,000 campaign includes a mailing to 75,000 likely Democratic primary voters, print ads in local weekly newspapers and a web based ad campaign on local websites.

“I might even spend more by the time the 13th (the August 13th primary) comes around,” Scudiery said this morning.

“He’s all about himself, not for the people,” Scudiery said of the congressman whose tenure coincided with his own marathon as party chairman, “When I brought him to events, non-political events, like for senior citizens, Italian-Americans or small businesses, people would always say, ‘Frank, you never got back to me, I need your help,’ He’s been an embarrassment.  He rarely followed through. When he did follow through, it was usually with excuses, not results.”

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Unity or Strange Bedfellows in the Monmouth GOP?

Anna Little, with good reason, has been taking credit for John Bennett’s election as Monmouth GOP Chairman.  If not for Little endorsing her benefactor and encouraging the County Committee members who are also Tea Party activists to vote for Bennett, Christine Hanlon would be Chairwoman.

Little’s reward, whatever it is, will come sometime after she loses to Frank Pallone in November.

The biggest change that Bennett has made since taking over the helm of the Monmouth GOP six weeks ago is to start to make good on his campaign promise to raise the money necessary for county campaigns.   He has informed the Monmouth GOP ticket of Freeholders John Curley and Serena DiMaso, as well as County Clerk Claire French, not to worry about rasing money for the fall campaign.  He has instructed office holders not on the ballot this fall, including the legislative delegation and the sheriff, all of whom have campaigns next year, to suspend their fund raising activities effective August 1 so as not to compete with his efforts for the current campaign.

But how will he raise the money?

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Turning up the heat on Middlesex County pay to play scandal

Politickernj writers Darryl Isherwood and Max Pizarro posted an in depth piece yesterday afternoon that exposes an incestuous web of influence driving planning, zoning and development approvals before the Middlesex County Freeholder Board and several municipal planning boards in the county.  

State Senator Bob Smith of Piscataway is the leader of the PACs that fund the campaigns of the Freeholders and municipal officials who approve the applications.  The applicants are donors to the PACs.  Smith is the applicants’ attorney.

It’s all legal.  And no one would know about it if not for Harold Kane of Monroe Township painstakingly examining thousands of pages of ELEC reports to find out where all the Middlesex Democratic money was coming from and the good journalists at Politickernj and The Star Ledger following the money.

Smith, the Senator working the system, and Peter Barnes, the Assemblyman and Middlesex County Democratic Chairman who’s candidates benefit from the system, know the solution to this “craziness.”   Barnes said that “any impetus to close the hole lies with the legislature.”  Smith said, “There is a solution to the craziness we have now and that is publicly financed elections – or complete transparency. “In New Jersey, we have nothing but chaos. The state needs one set standard across the state.”

Where is their legislation?   Smith and Barnes are both powerful members of the legislature.  They obviously know how the work the system.  They know how to fix it. 

Sponsor the legislation gentlemen.  Publicly financed elections won’t work.  Complete transparency will.

Here’s a campaign finance system that would be transparent:

1) Remove all limits on campaign contributions.

2) Require that all candidates and campaigns disclose all contributions of any amount on a dedicated website within 24 hours of receipt.

3) Competing campaigns, good citizens like Kane, and good journalist will examine the donations and expose influence.  Voters will decide if the influence is acceptable of not.

Correction: Peter Barnes, Jr, the Middlesex Democratic Chairman is no longer in the legislature.  His son, Peter III is an Assemblyman.

Now there are two Barnes and a Smith who can advocate for legislation that creates complete transparency.

• Tweet

CME Associates Buys Middlesex County Democrats

By Harold V. Kane, Monroe Township

It is no secret in Middlesex County that the Middlesex County Democrat Organization never seems to have problems raising money for political campaigns. What is strange is who some of the donors are. Did you ever hear of Citizens for a Green Environment, Women for Good Government, or the Coalition for Government Efficiency. These three groups are political action committees that support Democrats exclusively. One has to ask where their funds come from Are tree huggers, feminists, and efficiency experts so interested in electoral activity that they are willing to donate huge sums to their respective groups. The answer is of course NOT!

These three groups are among 12(list below) that the Democrats established for scrutiny-avoidance so that large sums of money could be contributed but not readily made available for review. The key to this type of operation is the difference in the contribution level that may be given to an individual candidate versus to PAC.  The maximum that a single person or organization can make to candidate’s committee is $2,600 per election. However, the maximum that can be made to a PAC is $7,200 per election. If a donor wants to contribute large sums to a candidate or series of candidates, the easiest way is to contribute to PACs and let the PACs distribute the money. This is what happens in Middlesex County.

Since January of 2008 up to August of 2011, the PACs controlled by the Middlesex County Democrats have accepted $1,715,264 from various contributors with $621,000 (36%) coming from the five principals  ( David Samuel, John Stefani, Jay Cornell, Michael McClelland, and Gregory Valesi) of CME Associates of Sayreville. This does not include the $250,000 that the CME principals contributed to various candidate committees. In total the CME principals contributed $854,550 to the Democrats and a paltry $17,550 to the Republicans for a total of $872,100 during this 3.5 year period.

Obviously CME was not alone. Second on the donor hit parade was T&M Associates of Middletown, third was the Gartland Family of Companies of Baltimore and fourth was Federal Business Centers of Edison. The citizens of Middlesex County have gotten a partial reprieve from these clandestine activities. Francis Gartland, the scion of the Gartland family of companies, has pled guilty to bribing a public official in Ocean County. This should keep the Gartland check book closed, at least for a while.

You must be wondering how this massive scrutiny-avoidance can happen. The Democrats are exploiting a fault in the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission computer system. The fault precludes a standard name query from extracting contributor names that gave to PACs. The information is available, but is not overly easy to find.

• Tweet