While the NJEA and CWA are pressuring the Democrats in the Legislature to stop the pension and benefit reforms that Governor Christie and Senate President Sweeney have agreed to, the media is looking to create public sympathy for state retirees.
The Asbury Park Press has a piece this morning, Former NJ state workers ask: Now what? The article by Jason Method of Gannett’s Statehouse bureau is an expose of the worries of a 85 year old retired DOT bus inspector who faces possible increased co-pays for his life saving medicine and the loss of cost of living adjustments under the Christie-Sweeney plan. The three time cancer survivor who still remembers to worst bus accident he ever investigated and is taking care of his son who has been out of work for three years is worried.
His son, who is probably in his 50’s or 60’s should be very worried. If junior had followed in his father’s footsteps and taken a state job he wouldn’t be a burden on dear old Dad.
The millions of private sector workers and business owners who will pay the bill for the state workers retirement and health care before they pay for their own should also be very worried. We’ve been worried for years. Very worried for the last three years as we have cut back expenses and adjusted our expectations for the future based on the reality that the borrowing and speculation orgy that fuel economic “growth” over the last twenty years is over.
The fifth biennial Jersey Shore Workcamp will occur in Monmouth County during the week of July 10th through 16th.
Founded by Bill and Gail Bechtoldt, the owners of Koch Flowers and Gifts, Middletown, in 1999, the project brings 440 teenagers from throughout North America to perform home repairs for the needy.
This year the project has accepted 130 applications for home repairs. Bill Bechtoldt expects that the camp will complete between 80 and 100 of the requested repairs during the week that the teenagers are working.
Here’s a video of an NJN report on the camp in 2007:
The Bechtoldt’s are looking for help from the community as they prepare for the teenagers arrival.
There is a need for 200 ladders, both steps and extensions, which will be returned upon completion of the project.
Donations of paint brushes and rollers are needed.
Volunteer labor is needed on July 6, 7, and 8th to dig holes and pour concrete at seven sites where wheelchair ramps will be built during the project. The bearings must be inspected before the teenagers can build the ramps.
Volunteers are also need to deliver paint and other materials to the sites on July 6,7 an 8.
Bechtoldt is also looking for volunteers for the weeks after the camp to perform clean up and to complete repairs the campers do not reach.
Money is always needed. The cost of materials this year is $45,000.
To volunteer, lend a ladder or donate paint brushes or rollers contact Bill or Gail Bechtoldt at 732-671-1036.
Send money to Jersey Shore Workcamp, 1870 Route 35, Middletown, NJ 07748.
Jersey Shore Workcamp is a 501 c 3 non-profit.
High school students 14 years of age and older can still be enrolled into the project here.
As the news of Anthony Weiner’s auto erotic photography becomes even more tawdry, Strong New Jersey Chairwoman Diane Gooch is stepping up her campaign to pressure Weiner to resign with radio ads.
Strong New Jersey launched a nationwide petition drive on the Internet 22 hours after Weiner’s Monday press conference in which he confessed to sending lewd photos of himself via the Internet to six women over a three year period including after he was married.
In the last twenty-four hours news was released the Weiner’s wife is pregnant and a photo of his nude genitals has been posted on the Internet.
Since the petition drive was launched at 2pm on Tuesday, over 5000 people have signed at WeinerMustResign.com, according to, according to Strong New Jersey spokesman Tony Sayegh.
Capitol Quickies has a summary of the proposed deal that reportedly has been agreed to by Governor Christie, Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver.
There have been multiple news reports of shouting, not cheers, coming from the Democratic Assembly caucus room. Oliver said “we’re not there yet” about her caucus supporting the deal.
In the past Oliver has implied that she will not pass the deal with the support of Republican Assembly members. In effect, even if the majority of the Assembly supports the reform legislation, Oliver won’t allow it to be voted on unless a majority of the Assembly Democrats support it. There are 33 Republican Assembly members, 46 Democrats and one vacancy. If Republican unanimously support the deal and 7 Democrats join them, the legislation would pass. Oliver who said, “My caucus must have the chance to have their concerns considered. The voters who elected them deserve no less,” won’t let that happen.
What do the voters who elected Assembly members who support the reforms deserve?
The presidents of the NJEA and the CWA condemned the deal, saying it would reduce employee compensation and was an assault on collective bargaining.
Governor Christie will address the American Legion’s annual convention in Wildwood at 10 am and will hold a press conference in Camden at noon where he will announce legislation to create private-public partnerships to run some New Jersey schools.
Princeton – June 8, 2011 –The newly formed Lincoln Club of New Jersey wasted no time in jumping into the debate for New Jersey’s future by announcing its support for three challengers in the 2011 legislative elections, all of whom are first-time candidates for statewide office. Club President and 2010 Congressional candidate in NJ-12, Scott Sipprelle, said,” We cannot solve a problem by re-electing the problem. The time has come for a new breed of public servant, connected to the people, committed to problem-solving and willing to make the honest and difficult decisions required to restore our sickly state to health.”
Sipprelle continued, “There is a large void in American politics for new entrants, people who choose to enter the arena despite having limited resources and few political connections. The Board of Directors of the Lincoln Club has decided to provide support and assistance during this election cycle to send to Trenton three fresh faces committed to serving the public good. We strongly believe that these independent-thinking New Jerseyans, if elected, will work courageously to challenge the broken status quo.”
Lincoln Club Focus Candidates
Richard Kanka for Senate in District 14
Rich is a member of the Plumber and Pipe Fitters trade union and a member of the Hamilton Township School Board. Rich and his wife Maureen set a powerful example of problem-solving in the face of tragedy after their seven-year old daughter Megan was abducted and killed nearly two decades ago. The Kankas fought to enact a new law that required sex offenders to register with law enforcement and subsequently created the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation to provide background checks to organizations that hire employees that work around children. Rich Kanka and his family are deeply committed to improving the quality of life in their community and state. Rich often says that he “likes to fix things” and has been successful in getting things done on the Hamilton school board without asking -or even knowing- whether his fellow members were Republicans or Democrats.
Marcia Silva for Assembly in District 18
Marcia is the former Assistant Prosecutor for Middlesex County, where she spent seven years taking dangerous criminals off the streets. She currently has her own law practice in her hometown of South River and she takes pride in providing pro bono legal assistance to local veterans groups. Marcia has witnessed first-hand the struggles of small businesses and the ideal that we call the American Dream. Her father immigrated from Brazil to New Jersey, where he labored as a factory worker until he was able to start his own small business. Starting with a small masonry operation, he eventually built a successful real estate company. Marcia is a single mother of two young children.
Shane Robinson for Assembly in District 19
Shane recently graduated from Sacred Heart University only to return to his home state of New Jersey to find, like many other young people, a distressingly unattractive job environment. Shane is the son of the Rev. Winston Robinson of Faith Fellowship Ministries, a large ministry in his hometown of Sayreville. As a young, underemployed African-American, Shane represents multiple different constituencies that have been hard hit by the economic downturn and which are also strikingly under-represented in the state legislature. His presence in Trenton would bring a fresh and youthful perspective to addressing the ills affecting our state. Shane serves on the Sayreville Board of Health and has remained active in politics as he continues to pursue employment opportunities.
About The Lincoln Club of New Jersey
The Lincoln Club of New Jersey is an independent political club engaged in ideas and actions for a better governance in New Jersey. More information at www.LC-NJ.org.
While Mulshine’s headline is clever and funny, the rest of his blog post is weird, sexist, and homophobic:
And another aspect of this that should tick off any red-blooded male out there. Note in the video below a photo of Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, from Vogue magazine back when she was an aide to Hillary Clinton.
Seriously, guys, answer this: Would a dweeb like Anthony Weiner have the slightest chance with a babe like that if he weren’t a congressman?
Just asking.
The video Mulshine posted is a three year old gossip piece from the controversial blog lukeford.net that implies that Weiner’s wife is in a lesbian relationship with Hillary Clinton.
Mulshine’s use of that video raises several questions besides the obvious one:
1) Should Mulshine and his “red blooded” male readers be jealous of Weiner or Clinton?
2) Would Hillary Clinton have a chance with a woman like Abedin if she was not Hillary Clinton?
3) Would the mainstream media (Mulshine) and the new media (Ford) be speculating over Huma Adedin and Hillary Clinton if Adedin didn’t look the way she does? Quick…name the assistant of another first lady or Secretary of State.
4) Did Mulshine view the entire video before he posted it on nj.com? Did he check the source?
5) How much longer will Mulshine have unedited access to post on nj.com?
Democratic primary voters in the 13th legislative district saw the words “No Nomination Made” on the top of their ballots in the slot for State Senator yesterday. Former Hazlet Mayor Christopher Cullen was endorsed by the Monmouth County Democratic mini-convention in April but failed to file his petitions with the Secretary of State.
385 of the 2,099 Democratic voters in the district cast a write-in vote for Senator. Cullen is expected to be the candidate after all of those votes are manually counted. He will then face Senator Joe Kyrillos in the general election. Kyrillos received 2,103 votes in the Republican primary against 23 write-ins.
For the Assembly in the 13th, Republican incumbents Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon were nominated with 2,073 and 1,998 votes, respectively. There were 15 write-in votes. Democrats nominated former Hazlet Mayor Kevin Lavan with 1,572 votes and former Middletown Committeeman Patrick Short with 1,551 votes. There were 23 write-ins.
Since the “chopper gate” story hit the fan last week, The Record’s Charles Stile has been gleefully making the case that the media and partisan noise about Governor Christie’s use of the State Police helicopter has been so ferocious because of “smash mouth” style. Stile, and other NJ media elites, have cited two recent polls, both taken before the chopper hullabaloo, that showed Christie’s approval ratings slipping as evidence that his style is wearing thin on New Jersey voters.
Stile has noted correctly that the chopper noise has been so harsh, despite the facts that Christie’s use of helicopter has been far more frugal than that of his predecessors and that his use of the chopper didn’t cost taxpayers anymore money than if he had traveled by SUV, because of Christie’s “in your face” plain spoken style. Christie’s political opponents and their media lapdogs have been laying in wait for an opportunity bash him back.
Stile has joined The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran in arguing that Christie should be nicer and more polite while turning Trenton upside down. Stile and Moran would have Christie’s compromising more and reforming less.
The irony here, from my point of view, is that over the last few months Christie has been nicer and more compromising. He’s toned it down. His opponents have subsequently stepped it up.
Maybe Christie’s poll numbers have slipped because he’s toned it down. Last spring he was railing against the NJEA and urging voters to defeat school budgets where unions wouldn’t compromise. Voters responded by defeating budgets in record numbers. Christie’s polls were strong. This spring Christie was silent on the school budgets.
Is there no more waste in our public schools? Has the the problem of excessive compensation, pensions and benefits been solved?
Since the GOP lost the legislative redistricting battle, Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney announced a compromise over Supreme Court nominee Anne Patterson’s nomination that had been held up for a year. Part of the compromise included a promise by Sweeney that a hearing to fill the Court seat of former Justice John Wallace, which has been vacant for a year because Sweeney didn’t like that Christie did not reappoint Wallace, would take place next March. By making that agreement Christie acknowledged that Sweeney would still be Senate President in March, meaning Republicans are not going to win control of the State Senate in the coming election.
That the Democrats will retain control of the Legislature after the November election is probably realistic calculus on Christie’s part. He probably made a strategic decision that he can get more of his agenda accomplished by compromising than by fighting. That might be the best decision, but it also means that New Jersey will only have incremental improvement to our dysfunctional governments, rather than real reform…turning Trenton upside down reform…for the rest of Christie’s term.
I’d rather have the confrontational governor we elected. Even if it means stalemates and the shutting down of government, I’d rather Christie ridicule and embarrass the Trenton cesspool than compromise with it. Christie has only been in office less than 18 months. The cesspool has spent decades putting us into the mess we’re in.
As a matter of style, the chopper hullabaloo demonstrates that the media/establishment cesspool is not going to respond to a kinder, gentler Christie in kind. As a matter of substance, today’s news that the Democrats are going to attempt to increase education spending more than the Supreme Court has ordered and increase income taxes, demonstrates that the cesspool will always try to maintain and protect the status quo that makes them fat at the taxpayers’ expense.
Christie came into office promising to govern as if he only had one term to get the job done and without consideration for whether or not he’d be re-elected. Since then he has admittedly fallen in love with the job and become enamoured with national attention and presidential wooing his in your face style has brought to him.
Christie’s “in your face” style works. His adjustments should be by adding humor and charm to his ridicule, like Reagan did, not by compromising and being more polite.
If Christie has concluded that he has accomplished all he can in New Jersey with confrontation, he should get ready quickly and run for President. New Jersey and the United States both face horrendously serious problems. Compromise and tinkering around the edges of a broken system will not do.
We need Chris Chirstie’s unabashed leadership in New Jersey and in America. As Christie advised the new Republican leadership in Washington, we need to put up or shut up.
