Former Monmouth Democratic Chairman Victor Scudiery
Former Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Victor Scudiery is breaking with the organization he lead for over 20 years by endorsing Newark Mayor Cory Booker over Congressman Frank Pallone in the Special Senate Primary on August 13.
“I was born and raised in Newark,” Scudiery told MMM, “I have great admiration for Mayor Booker and what he has accomplished in the city and with their schools. I believe he is the right person to move up to be our next United States Senator.
“Newark is not an easy city to govern, but they’ve made great strides under Mayor Booker. I am proud to support him.”
Scudiery said that the Monmouth County campaign headquarters of the Booker campaign will open on Thursday in the Airport Plaza Shopping Center which he owns.
NJ Media trips over itself to give the Senate President cover
Photo credit: nomblog.com
Senate President Steve Sweeney referred to Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell, Barbara Buono’s choice to be the new Democratic State Chairman, as “Cryan’s beard” yesterday while condemning the choice as divisive. Buono is the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee. By tradition the gubernatorial nominee of both parties chooses the state chairman of the party. Cryan is former Democratic State Chairman, Assemblyman Joe Cryan.
“Beard” is a slang term for a person, most often a woman, who is used, knowingly or unknowingly, as a date or spouse to conceal their ‘partner’s’ homosexuality.
Can you imagine the media outcry if Governor Chris Christie or another prominent Republican denounced an advisory as a beard?
NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) is having another tantrum.
The puerile legislator who called Governor Chris Christie a prick over a budget veto and responded to Superstorm Sandy by calling for the elimination of beach badges on the Jersey Shore is upset that he will face competition in November.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) had the audacity to recruit a strong candidate, Niki Trunk, to challenge Sweeney in the 3rd legislative district. Sweeney’s been pissed about that for months, as if he is entitled to being reelected without having to make his case to the voters in November.
Sweeney went off the deep end when he learned that Kean donated $8200 to Trunk’s campaign.
Yesterday Sweeney knocked all Republican sponsored legislation off of the Senate’s agenda. The following bills won’t be heard in committee next week:
S1071, permitting conversion of fines for violation of certain municipal ordinances into tax liens; S1726, requiring municipalities to comply with state audit prior to receiving state aid; S1852, authorizing municipalities to deliver property tax bills, construction permits and receipts for payment via email; S2494, permitting municipalities to use beach fees to improve tourist areas; S2617, properly closing the hazardous Fenimore Landfill; S2618, concerning valuation of properties condemned for dune construction or beach replenishment; and S2457, making discretionary driver’s license suspension for first offense of driving without motor vehicle liability insurance.
Assemblyman Joe Cryan and Senator Barbara Buono. Photo credit: NJ Assembly Democrats
Assemblyman Joseph Cyran, the former Democratic State Chairman, used the computers of his legislative office and computers of the Union County Sheriff’s Office where he is employed as an undersheriff to exchange sexually explicit emails with a woman he repeatedly denied being involved with, according to a New York Post report.
In the emails, which can be viewed here, Cryan and Karen Golding, a former Corzine staffer and a lobbyist, read like cyber foreplay. The couple wrote graphic details, during work hours, of what they will do to each other in coming trysts. Cryan frequently describes his state of arousal and on at least one occassion invited Golding to his legislative office for a sexual encounter on his desk. “Surprise visits are welcome”, Cryan wrote in addition to the specific invitation for the desktop encounter.
The emails are part of a pleading in Morris County Superior Court wherein Golding argues for a sentance reduction for her conviction for stalking Cryan after their relationship ended. The NYPost says that Cryan has fought for years to keep the emails from becoming public.
Senate President Steve Sweeney has been waging a little noticed campaign over the last few weeks to get Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr to commit not to accept campaign contributions from Ashbritt and other contractors who cleaned up New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy.
This morning, Sweeney ramped up the campaign with a video parody of the viral Harlem Shake.
Harlem Shake is owned by songwriter Harry Bauer Rodrigues, who records under the name “Baauer”and the record label Mad Decent.
The song’s viral popularity in recents weeks has spurred claims of copyright infringement on the part of artists whose voices are in the song who have not been credited or compensated by Baauer or Mad Decent, according to the New York Times On the flip side, Mad Decent and Baauer stand to collect millions of dollars from people, like Sweeney, who “steal” their song, according to Hollywood Reporter. YouTube and a company called INDMusic have created a program, ContentID, to track copyright piracy and collect from the offenders.
MMM wondered if Sweeney’s video was funded by New Jersey taxpayers and if the Senate President had obtained a license from Mad Decent for the use of the song. The YouTube channel that hosts the song is called NJSenDemsMajority, a similar name to the state funded website, njsendems.com.
MMM called Sweeney’s West Deptford and Trenton offices to find out. Within a half hour, a well known political hired gun who asked not to be named in this story called back.
State Street Wire, the pay sister site of Politickernj, is reporting that Governor Chris Christie said that the controversy State Senator Ray Lesniak is making over former Monmouth County Sheriff Joe Oxley’s nomination as a Superior Court Judge is “just another excuse” by Lesniak and the Democrats not to give Christie’s judicial nominations confirmation hearings.
Lesniak wants the FBI’s files from their investigation into Solomon Dwek’s allegations that Oxley, while sheriff, tipped off the real estate swindler to foreclosures in Monmouth County prior to the information becoming public. Oxley has refused to authorize the release of the files and the Justice Department has declined Lesniak’s appeal that the public interest outweighs Oxley’s privacy.
Christie said that his successor as US Attorney, Paul Fishman, found “no factual basis” in Dwek’s claims.
Christie said he knows first-hand how the data provided by cooperating witnesses can be.
“Sometimes it can be reliable, sometimes it can be fiction,” he said. “I think it’s unfair to put that kind of fiction on the public stream.”
Christie said that the judiciary committee should do its job and hold a confirmation hearing for Oxley.
Oxley has referred requests for comment to the governor’s office.
As a practicing attorney, Oxley could have legitimate reasons, including attorney-client privilege, for refusing to authorize the release of his recorded conversations.
Former Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vic Scudiery was honored by Democratic leaders from throughout New Jersey last week at the annual Democratic Chairman’s Ball. Scudiery retired as chairman if June after 23 years of service.
The following video was shown at the event which occured at Windows on the Water in Sea Bright on Thursday evening September 27:
Governor Chris Christie took his tax fight to a standing-room-only town hall crowd in Brick Township (Ocean County) yesterday afternoon.
And at that Brick gathering, my dear Save Jerseyans, we caught a welcome glimpse of the no-nonsense style of politics that quickly transformed Chris Christie into a national figure; you’ll likely remember his viral warning to beachgoers in the run-up to Hurricane Irene:
Surely, the contrast between Christie and Corzine in Election ’09 couldn’t have been clearer. I was proud to have been one of his earliest and most vocal grassroots supporters. I still am.
But what is our state party’s winning contrast with the liberal legislature right now in this ongoing budget fight?
Assemblyman Gilbert Wilson, D-Camden, has sponsored legislation that would compel genetic parternity testing of all infants at birth, according to a report on NJ.com. The cost of the test would be born by the parents or the insurer.
While Wilson said the measure applies to mothers and fathers alike, “mostly this should be geared towards the father because with the mother, of course, there is no doubt.”
The problem is not limited to guests on angst-ridden television talk shows, said Wilson, a Democrat from Camden County who goes by the nickname Whip.
“I’ve heard different stories about fathers who are raising children and paying support for a child and come to find out years later that it wasn’t their child,” he said. “It’s a devastating thing to find out.”
Wilson said the bill would allow men who turn out not be a child’s father to seek reimbursement for support or other expenses they have incurred raising the child.
Our liberal friends at Blue Jersey called the bill “man-centered, not kid-centered. Shame.”
It seems to me that the legislation is truth centered but nanny state centric.
The bill doesn’t seem to have much of a chance of becoming law according to the NJ.com piece.
Wilson might have a shot of getting Republican support for the bill if it granted either parent named on a birth certificate the authority to order such a test at his/her own expense….if they don’t already have that right.
Throughout the spring and summer the conventional wisdom has been that the Monmouth GOP will not face serious challenges in legislative and county races of 2011. 2011 is supposed to be a “good Republican year.”
It still could turn out that way. Probably will. But MMM has learned that the Democrats think they have unexpected opportunities.
On the legislative level, the Trenton Democratic machine has taken interest in the new 11th district.
Back in April after the new legislative map was released the Democrats were scrambling to field a slate of candidates. No Democratic elected officials would challenge Republican incumbents Senator Jennifer Beck or Assemblywomen Caroline Casagrande and Mary Pat Angelini. Now the Democrats think the 11th is in play and will dedicate financial and human resources to elect Ray Santiago to the Senate and Marilyn Schlossbach and Vin Gopal to the Assembly.
Both sides fear that Independent Assembly candidate Dan Jacobson will draw votes away from them and could end up being a spoiler. In his column in last week’s triCityNews, Jacobson said that he expected to take votes from both sides and that he would need 20% of the voters to cast an uninformed protest vote for him in order to win a seat. Jacobson said he expects Beck, Casagrande and Angelini to prevail in November.
On the county level, the Democrats are planning a character assassination on Freeholder Lillian Burry. They will allege conflicts of interest on Burry’s part going back to her tenure as Mayor of Colts Neck and continuing in Freehold.
