The Asbury Park Press is still struggling for relevance and their trying to get it by attempting to set Governor Chris Christie’s agenda and schedule. Their likelihood of success is less than that of Star Ledger Editorial Board Editor Tom Moran’s attempts to get Christie to improve his manners.
Back in May, APP ran an multi-part expose on the Lakewood School System. So few people read about it, cared about it or took it seriously that when Christie came to Freehold for a Town Hall Meeting the following week, no one brought it up. That prompted an front page editorial rant that bashed Christie, Congressman Chris Smith and others not directly responsible for the mess in Lakewood for not paying attention to the APP Neptune Nudniks.
Last week the governor visited a private school (publicly funded) in Lakewood that serves the developmentally disabled. The Nudniks responded with another front page rant and by getting the Lakewood Board of Education President to write an open letter to the governor complaining that he is not paying attention to them on their schedule.
Yesterday, the Nudniks sent a reporter to a Christie press conference in Hackensack about a new solar power farm to ask him about the Lakewood Schools and why he hasn’t visited:
Yesterday the Neptune Nudniks ran an editorial lamenting the lack of competition in the primaries.
This morning The Star Ledger reported that there are five candidates seeking the two major party nominations for U.S. Senate, 44 candidates for 13 congressional seats (they should have said 12 seats or 24 nominations) and 8 candidates for three special election primaries for State Assembly.
There are two GOP primary races in The Asbury Park Press’s coverage area. The CD-6 race between Monmouth GOP candidate Ernesto Cullari and Middlesex GOP candidate Anna Little, and the CD-4 race between incumbent Congressman Chris Smith and Terrence McGowan of Howell.
A search for “Anna Little” reveals that the former Highlands mayor’s name has not appeared on the site since February. “Ernesto Cullari” produced no results in a search of the site. On May 14 a letter to the editor in support of McGowan in CD-4 was published. Nothing else. Congressman Smith has made international headlines recently for his work to secure Chen Guangcheng’s release from China. Yet the APP is interested only in what Smith is doing for Lakewood’s schools, an issue that Smith’s office has no authority over. APP.com also reported that a 71 year old Manchester woman drove her car into the side of Smith’s Whiting office last November.
This is not to say that the press should cover every candidate that collects signatures to get on a primary ballot. Earned media should indeed be earned and so-called “fringe” candidates should be challenged to earn their coverage. MMM is aware that it could have made the CD-4 race more competitive than the rout it will be with Smith getting over 80% of the vote. However, McGowan did nothing to earn coverage on MMM. The first we heard from anybody in the McGowan campaign was last week when we were invited by a reader to a meet and greet a couple of hours before it started.
But there is no excuse for the APP’s lack of coverage of the CD-6 race where the competing candidates each earned the endorsement of a county Republican organization. That is a story.
One could argue, and the Nudniks do as an excuse for their lack of coverage in their editorial, that the gerrymandered congressional districts make the CD-4 and CD-6 races uncompetitive and the end result of each election is a fait accompli.
Where were they during the redistricting process? They ran an editorial lamenting the gerrymandering after fact, but provided little coverage that would have increased public awareness before or during the process.
How do the Nudniks think that voters will get their information about the electorial process? They are very supportive of pay to play restrictions that make it more difficult for candidates and parties to get their messages out, yet the APP does little to pick up the slack or provide coverage to to the electoral process.
I just saw an OP Ed story in the Press entitled “The Deadly sins of the Tea Party.
I take strong exception to that story. In fact I resent it.
Had it not been for the Tea Party Obama would have had a ” Clean” bill to raise the debt limit, without any spending cuts .
The Press has a very short memory. Obama’s last budget called for Trillions in new debt. It was voted down in the Senate 94 to 0. We the United States of America are working without a budget. That budget proves that he had no intention of reducing the debt. Just more spending as usual.
The Press said “compromise.” I say “BULLS SHIT”. It’s about time that someone stood up for their principles. The Tea Party stood up to be counted.
At the Alamo, Col. Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and challenged 180 men to cross the line if they were willing to fight and die for their freedom. They showed the world what Patriot’s stood for.
You the former Asbury Park Press have shown the world how bias the news media really is. You mention the Koch brothers “Oil barons and billionaires who have supported the Tea Party”. I did not see any mention of George Soros and the billions he has spent to further his and Obama’s agenda.
I am a proud member of the Tea Party; you have called us rowdy, rude and disruptive at town hall meetings. Maybe we didn’t like Obamacare being rammed down our throats, with all the backroom deals going on just for votes. There was NO open debate. Where were you the Asbury Park Press defending our freedom?
You say that it is time for the Tea Party to learn a lesson. We have learned a good lesson.
The Asbury Park Press, aka The Neptune Nudniks really needs to teach their editorial staff how to use google or they need to hire a fact checker who knows how to use google. In this information age there is no justification for getting the facts wrong as often as the Nudniks do.
In editorial published yesterday about the Live Action video depicting a Planned Parenthood employee in Perth Amboy coaching Live Action activists posing as a pimp and underage prostitute how to avoid being caught trafficking underage sex slaves, the APP editorial board inaccurately defended Planned Parenthood They said:
To its credit, Planned Parenthood said it had promptly notified law enforcement authorities after the visit, and it also announced it had fired the clinic employee for violating some of the organization’s policies.
Planned Parenthood also said at least 12 of its clinics across the country had been visited by Live Action undercover operatives claiming to be sex traffickers. None of the clinics’ employees at the other sites took the bait.
Emphasis added.
That’s not true. The Planned Parenthood clinics’ other employees, at least some of them, did take the bait. Live Action released four more videos on Friday morning that show employees in four Virginia clinics cooperating with activists posing as sex traffickers.
If the Asbury Park Press editorial board didn’t know that, they should have. At the very least they should have known that LiveAction was going to release more video footage. They said they were going to.
Incidentally, this is why, in part, that I’ve been critical of Live Action for releasing their videos without including an acknowledgment of the fact that Planned Parenthood’s leadership reported their visits to the authorities a full week prior the video releases. The mainstream media is both lazy and strapped financially. Their “news” is increasingly nothing more than regurgitated press releases and sound bites. It’s a shame that their editorials are as well.
On a much lighter note, APP sports writer Steve Edelson started his latest blog post with the cliche “You can’t make this stuff up.”
Edelson’s post was about a Dr. Scholl’s Super Bowl commercial featuring Jets coach Rex Ryan and his wife Michelle of foot fetish video fame.
The press release about the commercial that Edelson received was made up.
It snowed too much too fast. That’s what went wrong in New Jersey this week. New York too.
It wasn’t a personal snowstorm, yet naturally many, if not most, people relate to the aftermath of a storm out of their personal concerns. The numb minded media, especially the Asbury Park Press editorial board, who is once again is living up to their Neptune Nudniks moniker, granted a full page in the print edition to selfish rants, 12 pages on their website, contributing to an online frenzy of wind-bagging.
The Nudniks are contributing to directly to the frenzy with yet another editorial premised on inaccurate information and assumptions. They say the storm was predicted days in advance. Hogwash. Forecasts as late as Saturday night were predicting snow falls in Central Jersey in the 12-18 inch range. It wasn’t until just a few hours before the storm hit that any forecaster was talking about accumulations of 25-30 inches with 55 mph winds. Folks in Buffalo or Syracuse might be expected to be prepared for the type of storm we got, but the truth of the matter is that New Jersey’s various governments don’t have the equipment or the personnell to handle the this type of weather quickly. That is why the clean up is continuing now, 48 hours after the snow stopped falling.
The Nudniks started their editorial rant accusing road crews of “surrendering” to the storm.
I was out Sunday night to plow my properties. The DOT crews were out. The visablity was terrible. It was dangerous to be plowing. It was snowing too hard too fast.
If they were not still out there cleaning up, I would suggest those crews dump truck loads of snow that they surrendered to at APP headquarters in Neptune. Cancelled subscriptions should suffice for cooler heads.
It snowed too much to fast. That is what happened. There have been lots of rumors and comments that there have been job actions and sick outs in some towns and maybe the state. Given how well Monmouth County’s crews performed vis-a-vis many towns and the DOT, you have to wonder. Investigations should take place and corrective action taken where appropriate. However the APP should be tracking down the validity of those rumors rather than wind-bagging that road crews “seem to have” quit on the storm.
The media driven brouhaha over Governor Christie and Lt. Governor Guadagno being out of state at the same time is as absurd and insulting as the Nudniks’ assumption that road crews quit.
As published elsewhere and confirmed by MMM, Guadagno and her brothers are spending what is most likely their last Christmas holiday with their father who is suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer. The trip was planned and booked months ago with Christie’s approval. Shame on the pundits and politicians who have been trying to score points over Guadagno’s absence.
Once the news about why Guadagno is “on vacation” at the same time as the Governor gets around, watch he feeding frenzy on Christie step up. I’m looking forward to his first press conference back. I hope he shames the mindless numbskulls of the press.
There’s little going on in Trenton this week. That’s why it was a good week for the Governor to take his family to Disney World. Guadango’s situation made the decision to take a vacation delicate. Senate President Steve Sweeney’s good character made the vacation doable. But various pundits and political hacks won’t care. Let the Christie kids give up one more thing because their Dad is tough to lay a political glove on.
Does anyone really doubt that Christie would have returned to New Jersey given the “state of emergency” if it was possible? The airports were closed. They are just opening today.
Christie’s presence would not have made a difference in how the snow was cleaned up, or not cleaned up. His leadership from the bully pulpit would have made a difference though. He would have told the media the truth. It snowed too much too fast. We’re doing the very best that we can and we’re working about the clock, he would have said. He would have done a much better job than New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg did when he told NY that everything is OK and that they should go shopping. Christie would have told people to remain calm and safe; to look out for the elderly and disabled. And the media would have had something responsible to write about, rather than create a frenzy over the fact that it snowed too much too fast.
Middletown did not miss a loan payment. It didn’t even miss a deadline as the headline states. The township’s leadership chose not to apply for a loan now for a project, the dredging of Shadow Lake, that they don’t anticipate happening until 2012. Why would they?
If your bank was having a special on home mortgages that expires on on Friday, but you’re not in the market to buy a new home, did you miss the deadline for the mortgage special?
The Asbury Park Press article does present interesting and useful information about the Shadow Lake situation. It reveals that township officials are on top of the situation and are examining their alternatives. It is unfortunate that the Nudniks chose to spin the information as if there was crisis.
I wish it wasn’t necessary to keep bashing the Asbury Park Press. The Neptune Nudniks are just that bad lately. I wish Gannett would put some competent people over there. We need a good newspaper in the region. In the meantime I’ll just take my chances that Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini won’t accuse me of cyberbullying.
I’ll give the nudniks this much. Today’s paper must have been printed on recycled material. Recycled birdcage liner to be more precise. The editorial pages are full of bird bleep.
The two items I take issue with are the editorial board’s grossly inaccurate editorial, Constitutional? Not a prayer and Angelini’s OpEd touting her anti-bullying legislation.
The nudniks first. Apparently they fancy themselves experts on the Constitution and prayer. In their nudniktorial today the APP editorial board argues that prayer at public meetings violates the U.S and New Jersey Constitutions and that the ACLU should pursue their suit against the Borough of Point Pleasant Beach “vigorously” because the borough’s council has been opening meetings with a prayer with the blessing of the borough attorney.
I know I’m not an expert on the Constitution or on prayer (the APP even has the gall to say what “most religions” consider appropriate prayer). I was taught constitutional law at a Jesuit university. This much I do know. If the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the NJ Senate and the NJ Assembly all start their sessions with a prayer, which they all do, then prayer at public meetings is either not unconstitutional or the ACLU lawyers are bullies that don’t have the balls to take on the U.S. Justice Department and/or the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. They would rather take on tiny Point Pleasant Beach and other small governmental agencies who’s leaders are more likely to cave to the ACLU’s litigious bullybleep than to inflict the pain of legal fees on their already overburdened property taxpayers.
The arrogance of the editorial board is appalling. Not only do they presume to be more expert on the First Amendment than Point Pleasant Beach’s attorney, they have the audacity to judge the sincerity of the Point officials’ prayers and to use the name of the Lord to condemn the prayer. I won’t even get into their questioning whether or not the Lord really authored the Lord’s Prayer. This from the nudniks who know so much about Jesus and prayer that they invoked the Sacred Heart to praise Asbury Park’s Upstage Club, Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny.
As a service to the nudniks, I publish the text of the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for what I suspect will be their first reading:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I hope they can find someone other than ACLU bullies to explain it to them.
Regarding the nudniks’ infuriating habit of writing about religion as if they know what they are talking about, the reprobates on the editorial board should leave such writing, if they must write about it at all, to Pastor Michael Riley who is on their staff. At least Riley has a relationship with the Big Guy. If they can’t do that, they should start using Islamic rather than Christian references in their editorials. That could solve the problem permanently.
Now, about Mary Pat Angelini’s Anti-Bullying Bill; Angelini is not a nudnik nor is she a reprobate. However, her bill, as well intended as it may be, is a bad idea. Its not that bullying is not a problem, it is. It is a problem that all of us have had to deal with as part of growing up and that all children will have to learn to deal with in the future. Legislation will not change human nature and government can not solve all of our problems. Nor should it.
I’m not an expert on child development. However the lessons my father taught me about dealing with bullies, both physical and psychological lessons, prepared me for the rough and tumble of the business world and Monmouth County politics. The lesson I taught to the bully who was picking on my sister endures to this day. His nose was never the same. Growing up in the 70’s that made me a hero and gave my sister a confident sense of security throughout her adolescent years. No one ever picked on her again. Today, it would probably land an older brother a stay in the Middlesex County Youth Detention Center.
Schools administrators and faculty should not tolerate bullying. We need legislation for that? The red tape and additional personnel Angelini’s bill calls will be a waste and a burden on property taxpayers. The kids who have been victimized should be trained to be “anti-bully specialists”, like my father trained me. If parents won’t teach kids how to defend themselves, or brothers how to defend their sisters, the schools can teach the kids the art of a kick in the cogliones and how to break a nose right after the class where they learn to put a condom on a cucumber.
Another problem with the bill…how long will it take for the evil manipulative adolescents to figure out that they can cause a whole lot a grief to both their school administration and to an unfriendly teen rival by falsely claiming they’re being bullied. Ever know or hear of a kid threatening their parents with a call to DYFS?
Legislation is never going to control adolescents’ uncontrollable and natural behavior. Making school personnel responsible for managing that behavior is ludicrous. Outlawing teen suicide would be just as effective. Cheaper to enforce too.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I don’t believe bullying causes teen suicide. I was bullied and I didn’t kill myself.
I don’t mean to minimize the problem of teen suicide. I’m not an expert and I don’t know the answer. I do know that legislation that is a knee jerk reaction to a tragic and highly publicized suicide is not the answer. The answer lies in things that can’t be legislated. In families, churches, with health care professionals and even in schools. I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but I bet there was less teen suicide when there was prayer in schools. But that’s not likely to happen because no one has the cogliones to stand up to the ACLU.
On Wednesday I made the casethat the Neptune Nudniks are unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent based upon the amount of ink that gave the news of Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger’s job as Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy and the fact that he did not want his job to be an issue in his reelection campaign, vis-à-vis other stories of more consequence that they chose to ignore or bury.
Today I make the case that the APP’s coverage of the Scharfenberger story itself is unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent.
In Kevin Penton’s article, Planners question credentials of Middletown committeeman coordinating N.J. policy, and in the editorial the same daythe nudniks question Scharfenberger’s qualifications for the Director of the Office of Planning Advocacy job because he is not a certified planner. Had they done their homework, rather than go out and seek quotes from representatives of special interests, they would know that the job is an executive/administrative job, not a planning job. ” Says who?,” you might ask. Governor Jim Florio’s Attorney General’s Office. If I can find that information, why didn’t the Asbury Park Press, you should ask.
Not in the job three months yet, Scharfenberger has already saved the State $386,000, more that his annual salary X 4, according to the APP’s own account. Why are they questioning Gerry’s qualifications?
In their editorial on the matter, the nudniks argue that Governor Christie is not serious about eliminate double dipping. They use Scharfenberger’s appointment and Jackson Mayor Mike Reina’s appointment to a job at the Department of Transportation as examples. To use the APP’s own words, they are being “disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.” It is also possible that they are just plain incompetent. I don’t know which is worse, disingenuousness or incompetent…you decide.
Christie’s proposed reforms call for the end of dual office holding, i.e. the same person holding two elected offices AND prohibition of one person earning more than one government salary. Christie was clear on the campaign trail last year and has been clear in town hall meetings this year that he has no problem with government employees serving their communities in elected office, so long as they do so as volunteers. Scharfenberger was a volunteer as a member of the Middletown Township Committee before he got his new appointment. Reina gave up his salary as Mayor of Jackson after he was appointed to his job at DOT. (Though, to the APP’s credit, Reina did not give up his Jackson salary until after the nudniks brought it up…more on that and the culture of trough swillers in a soon to follow post about “greed and arrogance”).
There is no question that Scharfenberger did not want his new job to be an issue in the Middletown campaign. The APP say their reporter asked Gerry about his employer and he didn’t mention it. Scharfenberger denies this and Penton, the APP reporter who wrote two articles about the job since the election has not responded to inquiries from MMM. I believe Gerry because he was honest with me when I asked him specifically about the job over the summer. Penton either asked the wrong question or is being disingenuous at best in his reporting.
The APP says Scharfenberger not announcing the job with great fanfare was mendacity. I say it was clever and good politics. The APP’s coverage of the story and the Middletown Democrats reaction to it, since I broke it, demonstrates that Scharfenberger’s political instincts were spot on. The Dems, and the APP at their behest, have distorted the issue and misreported the facts. To his credit, Sean Byrnes, Scharfenberger’s opponent in the election told The Independent that the issue of Gerry’s job would not have changed the outcome of the election, “its not a 2000 vote issue,” Byrnes said. However, as we have seen since I broke the news of the job, the issue would have changed the tenor of the Middletown campaign. The Dems and the APP would have very likely distorted the issue, like they have since, and made the campaign about Gerry’s job, rather than about the issues pertinent to Middletown.
The nudniks conclude their editorial with a call for Scharfenberger to resign one of his positions or for Christie to either insist upon a resignation or explain why he has changed his thinking on public servants holding more than one job. That was never Christie’s thinking, and the nudniks call for Gerry’s resignation from one of the jobs is thoughtless and irresponsible given his record in Middletown and his performance in the new job so far.
Scharfenberger won re-election by a large plurality in a year with strong anti-incumbent sentiment and the local Democrats conducting a yearlong smear campaign that included stealing, smashing and defacing his campaign signs. The reason he won so big? He is clearly one of the best, most effective elected officials in the state. The residents admire his down to earth, no nonsense style and his reputation for personally contacting people who call or write to his office. Under his leadership, Middletown has one of the lowest municipal tax rates in the region, one of the smallest work forces per capita and most importantly, one of the lowest spending per capita in the state. Middletown has also been named one of the top 100 places to live in the country by Money Magazine for three years in a row of eligibility. His innovative ideas include devising one of the first municipal Green Initiatives in the state and the first municipal Veterans Affairs Committee in the state. He was also the first mayor in the state to sign his town up for the Adopt-A-Unit program, which collected tons of supplies and well wishes to our troops overseas. He has also been a tireless advocate on behalf of Middletown in fighting COAH, unfunded mandates, and excessive union contracts, among other harmful policies.
Scharfenberger is also a career volunteer who currently serves on the Middletown Landmarks Commission, the Open Space Committee, the Middletown Drug and Alcohol Alliance, and the Monmouth County Greenhouse Gas Reduction Committee. He even serves on the Township Committee as a volunteer, foregoing his salary out of respect for the taxpayers. He was recognized for his service by the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce with the Public Servant of the Year award in 2009, an honor given to Governor Christie in 2008 and Lt. Governor Guadagno in 2010.
His appointment to the position of Director of the Office For Planning Advocacy (OPA) was a brilliant move on the part of the Christie Administration. Scharfenberger brings a unique combination of municipal and professional experience to the position. Prior to serving on the Township Committee, he served on the Zoning Board of Adjustment and has served as a Landmarks Commissioner for over 14 years. As mayor, he has been involved in several major redevelopment, brownfields mitigation and development projects. He was also integral in the aquaculture study to revitalize the Bayshore and the NPP grant to revitalize North Middletown. Professionally, he is a Ph.D. with numerous professional publications who has worked on hundreds of land use projects in every county in the state for such diverse entities as the NJDOT, NPS, NJDEP, SCC, NJ Transit and dozens of private organizations. Of the past 10 directors of the OPA, Scharfenberger’s overall credentials put him at or near the top. Even with his state position, he has shown his consideration for the taxpayers of New Jersey by waiving taxpayer funded health benefits and retaining his own at a cost of $6,000 per year. He has also enrolled in the deferred compensation program, the state’s 401K which he contributes to himself.
This is who the APP wants to drive out of public service.
PRINCETON, NJ — The final USAToday/Gallup measure of Americans’ voting intentions for Congress shows Republicans continuing to hold a substantial lead over Democrats among likely voters, a lead large enough to suggest that regardless of turnout, the Republicans will win more than the 40 seats needed to give them the majority in the U.S. House.
The results are from Gallup’s Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot — depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup’s analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.
The Asbury Park Press has yet to report on this poll sponsored by their parent company’s flagship paper.
The lead story on APP.com? Baby elephant attacked by crocodile.
The attack did not happen in Monmouth or Ocean County.
Photo credit: Johan Opperman/Solent News
In another encouraging sign for Republicans, the baby elephant was saved by its herd who scared off the croc by trumpeting and stamping around like Tea Partiers.
