A-Team disenfranchises hundreds?

Asbury Park ballot applications wrong again

Dan Jacobson

By Dan Jacobson

ASBURY PARK — For weeks, I’ve been blasting the A-Team slate for taking custody and control of hundreds of vote-by-mail/absentee ballots, with their supporters and paid operatives delivering them to voters. The voter then completes the ballot and mails it back for counting — or the A-Team delivery person can even take them back. It’s absurd.

The A-Team led by Mayoral candidate Remond Palmer is on track to deliver 500 of these ballots, known as vote-by-mail [VBM] ballots. That’s the election right there. Of course, this law was originally for invalids or shut-ins who had trouble getting their mail and wanted an absentee ballot. The A-Team is trying to drive hundreds of votes through that loophole.

I’ve consistently said they’re doing it wrong. In fact, we went down this road last year, with the Board of Elections disqualifying 250 ballots the A-Team organization delivered to voters in the 2013 election. A Judge agreed and said the applications for the ballots were flawed and the ballots can’t be counted.

Guess what.

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The Ugly Truth About Cory Booker

photo via facebook

Olivia Nuzzi’s, The Ugly Truth About Cory Booker, New Jersey’s Golden Boy, at TheDailyBeast.com should be read by every New Jersey voter before election day on November 4th.  Please read it and share it widely.

Nuzzi, a Middletown native who interned for Vin Gopal’s 2011 Assembly race and wrote for MMM and the triCityNews before emerging as a nationally prominent political reporter, while helping to bring down Andrew Wiener along the way, has grown into a unique story teller with a commitment to telling the truth regardless of the political fallout.

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Nuzzi Accepts Morgan’s Apology Via Twitter

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Barbara Morgan, Anthony Weiner’s potty-mouthed hack, apologized in the press to Olivia Nuzzi for her vulgar rant over the Fordham junior’s New York Daily News spread.  Morgan said she thought she was off the record.

It was reported that Morgan said she called and emailed Nuzzi a personal apology.

Nuzzi wouldn’t confirm that she received the personal apology, but she took to twitter to announce her forgiveness.

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Weiner’s Potty-Mouthed Hack Rips Nuzzi

Potty-Mouthed Barbara Morgan, left. Anthony Weiner’s better side, right

Weiner for New York Mayor spokeswoman Barbara Morgan was more upset that Olivia Nuzzi wrote in her New York Daily News article that the Weiner campaign staff is inexperienced than she was about Nuzzi’s revelations that Weiner called his interns “Monica” and that much of his staff joined the campaign to curry favor with the candidate’s wife, Huma , who is on Hillary Clinton’s staff, rather than to get Weiner elected, according to a vulgarity laced rant at TalkingPointsMemo.

Which more than proved Nuzzi’s point about inexperience.

Morgan used language in reference to Nuzzi that Dan Jacobson wouldn’t print in the Tri CityNews and that, if uttered by a male spokesperson or Vice President of the United States, would cause more of an uproar than Eliot Spitzer’s socks.

Prior to joining the Weiner campaign, Morgan was the Director of Communications and Media Relations at the New Jersey Department of Education, a job she started in May of 2012 and is still listed as current on her LinkedIn profile.

MMM is not going to inquire with NJ DOE about Morgan’s departure.  We’re just glad she’s gone.

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Olivia Nuzzi’s first 15 minutes

I knew this woman was going places.

Former MMM columnist Oliva Nuzzi is on the front page of the New York Daily News today.

“Oh no, what did she do?” said both Dan Jacobson, who stole her away from MMM for $50 bucks, and Vin Gopal, for whom she had her first political internship in 2011, when I asked them if they’d seen it.

Nothing bad at all!  Actually its great for Olivia!  The Daily News saw her piece on NSFW about Anthony Weiner calling her “Monica” when she was his intern and paid her to write an article for them.

Olivia is smarter, funnier and better looking than most TV news personalities and pundits of any ideology or gender.   The Middletown native, now a junior at Fordham, has a lot more than 15 minutes of fame in her future.

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Weiner Called His Interns “Monica”

Early in his New York City mayoral campaign, former Congressman Anthony Weiner gathered his twenty interns into his private office for an introduction.

Olivia, not Monica, Nuzzi

“I always say that on every campaign, there are one or two volunteers who really make a difference,” he began. (There were roughly twenty of us in the room.) “So I just want to let you know that no task is too small, and the work you’re doing is important and it is appreciated.” He continued to speak for a few minutes, reiterating this point over and over.

“Okay!” Weiner said loudly, though not enthusiastically. “I’m going to go around the room now and ask you your name and a fact about yourself, and then I’m going to go back around and repeat your name to you.” A member of the campaign staff looked on, nervously. “I’m great at this,” Weiner said.

The Weiner proceeded to listen to the interns names and facts and then went back around the room and called the first tw0 women “Monica” and gave up.

“We all laughed nervously. Monica is an interesting intern name to pick out of the air. (Weiner’s wife, we should remember, works for Hillary Clinton.),” wrote former MMM columnist Olivia Nuzzi in a piece for her current gig at NSFWCorp.

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Nuzzi bursting the false equivalency bubble

Far be it from me to note the superficial and inconsequential, but when I see Fluke I think more “chaste librarian” than raging “slut.”

By Olivia Nuzzi

The Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh drama has succeeded in sparking a national debate about false equivalency in the media. Of course, things like sexism and misogyny exist on both the right and left. But on which side is it worse? And on which side – if any – is it fundamental? 

In a piece posted here yesterday, Art Gallagher attacked “misogynists lefties” whom he admitted he had “never heard of” until The Daily Beast’s Kristen Powers brought them to his attention. Though, not knowing about these media figures didn’t stop Gallagher from blindly agreeing with Powers that they were “misogynists.” 

I have a big problem with anyone making a diagnosis from a distance. Is Rush Limbaugh a misogynist? I suppose to figure that out you’d have to talk to his mother and four wives. 

Does Rush Limbaugh say misogynistic things, and has he done so consistently throughout his career? From his claim that having “two or three abortions” is a part of a feminist “paying her dues” to his cracks about First Lady Michelle Obama’s figure, the evidence isn’t difficult to find. 

However, none of that means that Limbaugh is without insight. And liberals who nod in agreement with the establishment left – conceding that he’s a mere useless blowhard – are not doing themselves any favors. 

Limbaugh is right on occasion – there are indeed militant feminists, and what they espouse is arguably as harmful as Mel Gibson calling your daughter “sugar tits.” Admitting that doesn’t mean that I’m not a feminist, it means I’m not an ideological imbecile (though the readers on this website may disagree.) 

The assertion that “lefties” are never reprimanded for their sexist or racist remarks may read as accurate if you live in a bubble. Evidently, Gallagher’s bubble hasn’t yet been punctured by reality on this topic.

Last May, MSNBC host and converted-liberal, Ed Schultz, was suspended by the network after calling Laura Ingraham a “right wing slut” on his radio program. I condemned that statement, as did every one from Alyssa Rosenberg from the left-wing Think Progress, to the Women’s Media Center’s President Julie Burton, to Keith Olbermann – that’d be one of those “misogynists lefties” Gallagher had “never heard of.”

In 2008, the National Organization for Women (NOW) circulated a petition, protesting MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ “record of ‘overt sexism when discussing women.'” They based this claim on research conducted by the known-liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America. The left-leaning NOW denounced Matthews for “sexist comments” made about Hillary Clinton, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the female correspondents who he worked with at MSNBC.

Also in 2008, MSNBC suspended Tucker Carlson’s guest-host David Shuster for suggesting that the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” Chelsea Clinton. 

The late, great Christopher Hitchens was often the subject of liberal rage for his alleged sexism in the form of observations such as “Mrs. Clinton, looking like the dog being washed” and assessments of that same target as being “flagrant, hysterical, repetitive and pathological lying.” One of Hitchens’ later works, a Vanity Fair piece entitled “Why Women Aren’t Funny” saw him denounced as “sexist” by Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar and comedian Sarah Silverman. 

In 2010, liberal hero Michael Moore, along with noted feminist author Naomi Wolfe, was the subject of a left-wing protest labeled “Moore and Me.” After making comments deemed “insensitive” regarding rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and offering to post his  $20,000 bail, Moore was declared a “rape apologist.” Also smeared with the label was Naomi Wolfe, who – along with Moore and a handful of others – refused to condemn and dismiss Assange by virtue of the unclear rape allegations made against him. 

And should you be under the impression that those on the left are only castigated when they’re criticizing fellow liberals, you’re mistaken.

Keith Olbermann has come under fire numerous times from the liberal and feminist establishments for his bombastic remarks about conservative women. In 2009, Olbermann was called out by the left-wing Air America’s editor of news and politics, Megan Carpentier, for “belittling” Malkin’s voice with his impersonation of her. Carpentier went on to suggest that Olbermann’s attack relied on “silly stereotypes” and “imagery that brings to mind victims of domestic violence.” 

This past November, Bill Maher – another one of those “misogynists lefties” Gallagher had “never heard of” – was scolded by feminists after he made a joke about the detention of CBS’s Lara Logan, wherein he suggested that America would be willing to send Elisabeth Hasselbeck to Egypt in exchange for the safe return of the foreign correspondent. 

The Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh episode is a unique one, mainly because Sandra Fluke is not a public figure. Limbaugh did not simply take a one-shot at a commentator – he used his platform as the loudest voice in radio to verbally batter a civilian for days. 

Far be it from me to note the superficial and inconsequential, but when I see Fluke I think more “chaste librarian” than raging “slut.” Not to mention, Fluke’s testimony itself had nothing to do with sex. Which leads me to believe that Limbaugh didn’t even bother to listen to her speak – and perhaps he didn’t even bother to look at her. Had he done so, he would’ve witnessed a civil woman discuss a friend who paid, out of pocket, for the birth control pills she was prescribed to treat a medical condition. 

It’s true that both the liberal and conservative movements have leaders, followers and mouthpieces who often thoughtlessly employ incendiary rhetoric. But it’s also true that those with sharp tongues on both sides of the aisle face consequences. 

Unfortunately for ideologues, more people are governed by their sense of Right and Wrong than Right and Left. 

Olivia Nuzzi was briefly a MMM contributor until Dan Jacobson’s triCityNews lured her away with money and colorful language. We’re glad to have her back, even if only to set us straight.

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Casagrande’s Cowardice

By Olivia Nuzzi

As noted here, six of LD11’s seven legislative candidates have come out in support of gay marriage. They include Democratic Senate candidate Ray Santiago, Democratic Assembly candidates Vin Gopal and Kathy Horgan, and independent Assembly candidate Dan Jacobson. 

Also on the list are Republicans Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, both of whom pledged – Angelini after significant hesitation – on September 18th during an interview with Garden State Equality at Monmouth University, to override Governor Christie’s veto of a same sex marriage bill should the opportunity arise in the next legislature. 

Conveniently, Caroline Casagrande, Beck and Angelini’s running mate, could not attend the event at Monmouth because she was busy with a “family commitment.” I suspect her family committed to travel far, far away from anyone asking her about gay marriage, an issue she has refused to take a stance on.

One of the many jobs of a public figure is to know a thing or two about public relations. Everybody, public figure or otherwise, knows that “no comment” is, more or less, always a confirmation. Evidently, no one forwarded that memo to Caroline Casagrande who has adopted a strict policy of “Don’t Ask me about gay marriage and I won’t Tell You a bunch of evasive nonsense.” 

Her refusal – while inexcusable – is understandable, given that without question, there are a significant number of voters in newly formed LD11 who are not going to agree with, accept or respect a politician who opposes gay marriage. However, no one can respect a coward. A coward, as it stands now, is precisely what Caroline Casagrande is.

If you want to be a social conservative, go ahead and be one – your base will revere you for it, and your ideological enemies will have no choice but to respectfully disagree. 

Instead of taking a stand, Ms. Casagrande has skirted around the issue of gay marriage, going as far as to employ Senator Sweeney’s regrettable history as a cop-out. 

By asking the “tough” questions that anybody who knows anything about the fight for marriage equality already knows the answer to, she is doing the best she can to make this seem complicated. “What about protections for religious institutions?” she challenged, as if the Big Bad Gays are planning to storm into Sunday mass to force the congregation to Vogue in unison. 

Ms. Casagrande is attempting to slide under the radar. She is hoping that this massive insult to the intelligence of those that she hopes to represent goes unnoticed. In adopting dishonesty as her policy, she has succeeded in fooling no one, she has merely made a fool of herself. 

You could call her running mate, Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck, many things (a lobbyist or a liar, for instance), but a cowardly ideologue she is not. Ms. Beck at least had the guts to flip-flop as soon as LGBT-supportive Asbury Park and Ocean Grove became her problem. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer the audacious displays of dishonesty to the panicked whispers… I’m a romantic, what can I say? 

Beyond embarrassing herself with her stunning lack of bravery and admission (however fabricated) that she cannot comprehend a simple issue, Ms. Ummmmm? also managed to miss an opportunity to follow the wide path of Declare and Defend set by her Messiah, Governor Christie. Aw shucks, what a shame.

We elect people who we believe possess the skills necessary to handle the many issues that NJ faces at once. If Ms. Casagrande can only handle one issue at a time, perhaps it is time for us to reevaluate her competence to serve. I say this only because I care about her well-being. After all, it would be cruel to continue to overwhelm her with the many complex legislative responsibilities that rest on her shoulders in Trenton. 

Olivia Nuzzi is a student from Middletown and an intern for the District 11 Democratic campaign.  MMM welcomes her fair and biased contributions. 

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