Showdown at the Press editorial board!

By Dan Jacobson, also published in the October 13th edition of the triCityNews

So I’m running as an Independent for the state Assembly. And there’s been one campaign appearance I’ve been anticipating above all others.

The interview with the Asbury Park Press editorial board for their endorsement!

Yup, for almost 13 years I’ve been trashing that paper for their hypocrisy, moving out of Asbury Park…you name it. So fireworks were expected.

The interview took place earlier this week. All the candidates for both state Assembly and Senate in the 11^th District were there.

I don’t know who threw the first projectile. Maybe it was me. Maybe it wasn’t.

But I can swear to this: It wasn’t me who threw the chair. Fortunately, Senator Jennifer Beck is one hell of an athlete. She dove out of her seat like a third baseman snagging a line-drive to deflect the thing before it went crashing through the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the conference room.

OK, OK. None of that happened. Dammit! You bet I’m disappointed it didn’t go down that way. I always envisioned the flying chair, the shouting. Denying I threw the first projectile. It would have been great.

But it was not to be.  Actually, it was quite a sedate affair. The seven candidates for Senate and Assembly only faced Press Editorial Page Editor Randy Bergmann and editorial writer Michael Riley. That’s it. Veteran reporter Larry Higgs was there to report on the discussions.

Bergmann is a surprisingly low-key guy, given how his paper’s editorials regularly infuriate me for their hypocrisy. Yeah, he was gracious. Big deal. I wanted fireworks.

As for Michael Riley, I know I blasted the shit out of him about ten years ago for some column he wrote. I’m sure he forgot about it – hell, I can’t even remember it at this point. So he was quite friendly. Screw him!

In addition, former Press food critic Andrea Clurfeld is now an editorial writer and board member. I’d been brutal with her in the past – for justifiable reason – about her food reviews. Never met her. Would have loved it. But she wasn’t there! I should have walked out right then.

Adding to the sedation is that the other candidates themselves are all very gracious and intelligent people. In fact, I like my opponents. It’s the whole Goddamn system that’s pissing me off. That’s what I’m running against.

(I face Republican Assembly incumbents Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande, as well as Democrats Vin Gopal and Kathy Horgan. There are two Assembly seats. Beck is running in a separate race for Senate against Democrat Ray Santiago.)

I did have one interesting observation at the editorial board, however. Way back in 1986, I worked as a reporter for about a year at the now defunct Daily Register in Shrewsbury. And I’ve always loved old newspapers and newsrooms – like the one in the old Asbury Park Press building in downtown Asbury.

Journalists have always been characters. The old newsrooms and buildings matched them perfectly. So I mean this as a compliment: Looking across the table at journalistic veterans Bergmann, Riley and Higgs reminded me of those old-time newspaper characters. There aren’t enough around like them anymore. Hypocritical editorials or not.

And as much as I welcome the demise of the Asbury Park Press – because they’ve been such a destructive force in our region – there was something poignant about seeing these three guys in that quiet and sullen building. It’s a metaphor for the whole newspaper industry.

That Asbury Park Press newsroom was opened back in 1985 when they moved out to Neptune. That was the advent of a long-ago era, just as newspapers were transitioning into soulless corporate cultures at full gale. The ensuing corporate conformity, and of course the internet, would decimate journalism as we know it – and the excitement and character that came with it.

I thought back to the first editorial board meeting I attended in that same conference room. It was 26 years ago – when the building had just opened. It was my first run for the Assembly at the age of 23. (I lost that one, but won the seat four years later and served a term.)

Back then, the paper was locally owned by Don Lass and Jules Plangere, who both ran the place. Present at that long ago meeting in 1985 were the four candidates for the two Assembly seats, as well as a room full of editors. Must have been about seven other people there, including several senior editors. Plus the reporter specifically assigned to the race. (That practice of assigning a reporter to each legislative race went by the wayside years ago.)

I remember tons of energy in that brand new state-of-the-art newsroom. And a brisk and confident manner of all the editors in the editorial board meeting. They knew they were a force in the community, and they didn’t have to answer to anyone else. The future was exceptionally bright in their gleaming new suburban headquarters 26 years ago – they had moved far beyond their beautiful little building in downtown Asbury Park, the then struggling city of their birth they had just abandoned.

Of course, the Plangere and Lass families sold the paper to the Gannett corporation at the right time well over a decade ago. Today, Gannett papers are sucking wind, collapsing as advertising revenue and circulation plummet. The Asbury Park Press is no exception. It’s a joke.

And those at the Press – including the three journalistic vets sitting across from me earlier this week – answer to much higher, and much more remote, authority. Specifically, Gannett corporate headquarters down in Virginia. Who in turn answer to Wall Street analysts and the stock market.

That’s a big difference from answering to the two owners who had their offices down the hall. When slow economic times came, those owners could hold off on cutting people. They had no fear of Wall Street analysts and earnings reports. They owned the place. And they could invest in the journalism however they wished. It was their money.

In the end, I still hate the Asbury Park Press. But I’m more than ever convinced that it’s the corporate takeover of journalism that’s responsible. Gannett doesn’t give a shit about those three guys who sat across from me in the editorial board meeting – they’d lay them off in an instant if that’s what it took to satisfy Wall Street. That’s the system, man.

At this point, working for the Press is like working for a pharmaceutical or insurance company. And Bergmann, Riley and Higgs are definitely not corporate cogs by nature. They’re clearly journalists. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t. 

In the end, I’ve got to say that Press writer Larry Higgs was more than fair with the story. I actually saw the words “triCityNews” on the front page of the Asbury Park Press for the first time ever. They had to say what I did. That was fun.

Now if they’d just endorse me. Not that it makes that much difference with the voters. Who cares what the Press says?

It only makes a difference to me – I’d have a ball with the headline in this paper! And I could have a field day mocking myself in the process. Hey, I’m not exempt from taking hits in this paper – even from myself.

Don’t expect an endorsement though. That’s asking way too much of these hypocrites.

(The 11^th District where I’m running includes: Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank, Ocean Township, Neptune, Neptune City, Interlaken, Deal, Allenhurst, Loch Arbour, West Long Branch, Eatontown, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township, Tinton Falls, Colts Neck, Freehold Township and Freehold Borough.)

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Change is inevitable for the post office…..and newspapers

The Neptune Nudniks got one right today. 

In their editorial, Change inevitable for post office, The Asbury Park Press editorial board accurately spells out how the Internet and digital technology has changed the economics of information delivery, making the United States Postal Service obsolete and insolvent.  

The post office is undergoing a major downsizing. Appropriately so because people are just not using it they way we used to.  Electronic exchange of documents and information is just far more efficient than physically moving paper across town or across the country.

The Press concludes that, “we cannot subsidize what should be a self-sustaining entity any more than we could subsidize the buggy whip industry at the turn of the last century.”

That unassailable reasoning should also be applied to the subsidies the newspaper industry receives in the form of state mandated legal and public notices advertising.

Classified advertisings in newspapers has gone the way of the buggy whip industry. It has been replaced by craigslist, ebay, autotrader.com, realtor.com, realtytrac.com, and countless other websites.  The once thick classified sections of newspapers are now four or five pages daily, half of which is government compelled legal and public notices.

Bi-partisan legislation, The Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act, passed the State Senate in July of 2010 and the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee in February of this year.  Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver has blocked the bill from being voted on by the full Assembly.

With millions of dollars in government mandated subsidies at stake, the newspaper industry came out in force to lobby against the bill arguing that legal notices on government websites instead of in newspapers really wouldn’t save the government money, that poor people without computers would not have access to the vital information( do poor people attend foreclosure auctions and zoning board hearings?) and that elected officials could use the power to withhold legal notice advertisements to punish newspapers for unfavorable news coverage.  The newspaper publishers said that their role as unbiased watchdogs would be compromised.

The assertion that newspapers fill the role of unbiased watchdogs is laughable.   Yesterday’s Star Ledger editorial laying out a strategy for Democrats to counter Governor Christie’s effective Town Hall meetings, along with the paper’s slanted “news” coverage of Christie’s meetings eariler in the week is just one recent example of how “newspapers” are just as biased as this or any other blog.

But the publishers’ argument that allowing newspaper advertising and/or Internet advertising on governement websites of Legal Notices gives government officials the power to punish newspapers whose coverage they don’t approve of (or to reward newspapers for coverage they do approve of) has merit.

That potential for abuse could be fixed by amending the Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act to require that legal notices be published only on government websites.  Reasonable fees for ads that are now paid to newspapers by planning and zoning applicants, foreclosing lenders and other private interests that are compelled to advertise could be collected by the municipalities to offset the cost of maintaining their websites and as a new source of much needed revenue.

The rest of New Jersey’s traditional media should embrace The Asbury Park Press’s outstanding reasoning, as it applies to the post office, and apply it to themselves in the interests of the public good. They should let Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver off the hook and suggest she post The Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act for a vote before the full Assembly where their friends in the chamber should amend the bill to prohibit governments from spending taxpayers dollars on legal notice advertising and eliminate the requirement that private interests pay to advertise anywhere other than on a government website.

Of course, the 1st amendment would allow the newspapers to continue publishing the notices, as a public service, or as a private sector revenue driven profit center.

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Neptune Nudniks: Pass the American Jobs Act. Now.

The Asbury Park Press Editorial Board opined to its declining readership that President Obama’s American Jobs Act should be passed now.

The problem with that is that is that the bill  hasn’t been written yet.  Obama launched his reelection campaign in earnest Thursday night in an address to a joint session of congress that proposed a 1/2 trillion in spending.  He said it would be paid for, but didn’t say how.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, hardly a Tea Party radical “determined to dismantle government and its vital programs piece by piece”  said he would have to see the bill before deciding whether to vote for or against it.

I never would have thought that I’d be writing that Kucinich exhibits more sanity than my hometown newspaper.

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Dustin Racioppi Leaving RedBankGreen

Prolific Reporter Is Joining The Asbury Park Press

Dustin Racioppi is taking his considerable talent to The Asbury Park Press.  Hopefully the creative and entrepreneurial scribe will not be stifled by the suits at Gannett.

“Hopefully I won’t become a “Nudnik'”, said Dustin when confirming his move.

In his two years at RedBankGreen Dustin demonstrated an enviable ability to report local events from car accidents to council meetings with a compelling flair that kept readers coming back for more.  He contributed mightly to the impressive growth of RBG and to the emergence of the “hyber-local” news business that the corporate media giants are now unwittingly attempting to homogenize.

Focus is a key to Dustin’s success. He lived and breathed his beat of Red Bank, Fair Haven, Rumson and Middletown.  Last year while preparing to cover Congressman Frank Pallone’s office hours in Long Branch, I reached out to Dustin to see if he was going to cover it.  “Long Branch is Jupiter to us,” was his response.

I was surprised when I first heard that Dustin was leaving RBG.  While preparing to move MMM to this domain from the old blogspot site I sent a feeler out to Dustin about joining me.  “I love working for John Ward,” was his immediate response.  That was obvious from the quality of his work.

And Ward, owner/publisher of RBG, obviously loved having Dustin work for him.  In an “Help Wanted” ad for reporters on RBG, Ward says:

We’re interested in teaming up with people who can quickly gather information and shape it into brief stories that are factually solid and fair, yet more than mere stenography. A distinctive and confident writer’s voice, or a desire to develop one, is a must. So is a broad range of interests, from the arts to public policy to business. The ability to take a decent photograph is a big plus. Wannabes, whiners and prima donnas: please don’t waste our time. We’re interested in working only with those who demonstrate entrepreneurial energy and focus on what needs to be done. Yeah, they sound boring, but they’re the most fun to be around. And we do have fun here.

In other words, John is looking to clone Dustin.   Not an easy person to find, as I have learned over the last year. If you’re out there and love politics more than sprinkling fire hydrants or fireworks shows, call me first, or last.

Dustin’s move comes at a difficult time for RBG as it faces competition for advertising dollars from the patch.com sites and perhaps The Two River Times.  Two weeks ago, Dan Jacobson reported in the triCityNews that TRT’s new publisher Ellen McCarthy was planning to convert the weekly paper’s website to an active news site with daily updates.  If McCarthy has started doing so, I haven’t noticed.  It’s probably still in the planning stages.  Diane Gooch is still listed as publisher on the TRT site, an indication that they haven’t gotten to working on the website yet.

MMM wishes the best for Dustin at APP, and for Ward and RBG.  While we’re at it, we wish the best for McCarthy and TRT and we pray the Neptune Nudniks learn from Dustin rather than trying to train him into a dead tree scribe.  The more quality sources of local information available the better for all of us in this Internet age.  I’m pretty sure Ward knows that.  Maybe the Nudni’s are beginning to figure that out, but probably not.  Jacobson doesn’t care.  Only Dan knows how to make dead trees sing.

We don’t wish Patch well so much.  We’d love them if they put out a consistently quality product, but that’s difficult if not impossible to do with part-time writers working for an extra $50-$100 per week.  In the mean time they’re only mucking up the revenue side of the business.  Patch’s only hope long term is for AOL/Ariann Huffington to pay Ward, Jacobson or me hundreds of millions of dollars and then leave us alone to do what we want to do. 

Not likely to happen.

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Bayshore Tea Party Responds To Neptune Nudniks

By Barbara Gonzalez,  published in The Press (formerly The Asbury Park Press) on August 12, 2012

As the founder of The Bayshore Tea Party, I must take exception to the Press’ Aug. 7 editorial, “The deadly sins of the Tea Party.” It showed a lack of understanding about the Tea Party, our motives and objectives. But it did reveal a lot about the mindset of the editors.

The editorial states that refusal to raise the debt ceiling would constitute the “first default in American history.” In 1933, President Roosevelt confiscated privately held gold. In 1971, President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard.

We are upset, not “angry” as the editorial stated, that the actions of the federal government have put each and every American over $46,000 in debt to creditors.

We are upset Congress has “borrowed” $2.6 trillion of the assets in the Social Security Trust Fund, which they have no way to pay back. Borrowing of this nature in private enterprise is called embezzlement, but in the world of politics it is called an “investment.”

We believe the president and Congress engaged in “intellectual sloth” by passing the health care bill without reading it.

The editorial asserted that federal, state and local income taxes are at historical lows. It only mentioned federal, state and local income taxes. It failed to take into account payroll, sales and embedded taxes. When all taxes are factored in, the real total of taxes paid is more than 45 percent.

Many Press editorials and special investigative reports have highlighted government waste. Now, we are being taken to task for calling on the government to fix the very things the Press exposed.

The Press implies that the Tea Party shows too much “courage.” Did the Founding Fathers show too much courage by refusing to prostrate themselves to King George?

Courage is precisely what is needed today. The courage to speak out and tell self-serving politicians that they work for the people and not the other way around.

As for raising taxes on the “wealthiest Americans,” how about defining “wealthiest Americans?” The federal government could tax every person who earns $250,000 or more per year the entire amount and it wouldn’t raise nearly the amount needed to cover the increase in spending. The “wealthy” would simply park their money in the tax shelters their friends in Washington have created.

The editorial called the raising of the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion “routine,” leading one to conclude the Press has lost touch with reality. What is “prudent” about borrowing $2.1 trillion that you have no way to pay back, a fact that was evident to Standard & Poor’s and our nation’s creditors? Prudence is only borrowing what you can afford to pay back. Stupidity and greed is borrowing more than that amount.

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APP Turns On Obama

By Art Gallagher

The newspaper formerly known as The Asbury Park Press (their print edition masthead now reads “THE PRESS”) has irrefutably revealed itself as a far left extremist publication.  In an editorial published on their website last evening, Obama caving in to GOP demands, the Neptune Nudniks have moved on to the left of the New York Times, the old Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Middletown Mike.

The Press called the President “weak,” “hardly a leader,” and said his speech Monday night was “too little, too late.” They said his speech “was not tough so much as it was petulance.”  As Dan Jacobson would say, hilarious, though hysterical would be more accurate.

“Left wing extreme, Art?” you might say, “that sounds like right wing rhetoric I might read on MoreMonmouthMusings.”  You’d be correct, except the nudniks are complaining that Obama “has alienated his base, gone back on what he held as rock-solid principles,” while drawing a “line in the sand” that is inside the Republican Tea Party right’s tent.  APP is now short for apparatchik.

The Press did get one important thing right in their rantitorial.  They correctly identified Obama’s reelection concerns and the only issue that is holding up a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, reduce the deficit and prevent a default.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also not left enough for the apparatchiks, and Speaker John Boehner have already agreed on a plan that would raise the debt ceiling, reduce spending and not raise taxes.  Obama killed the deal because it only lasted for a year.  He doesn’t want to go through this again next summer only a few months before the Presidential election.

If Obama thought his economic policies and philosphy were popular with the American people, he would welcome having such a debate next year.  Instead, he’s willing to put the full faith and credit of the United States of America at risk rather than debate “redistribution of wealth”  and massive government expansion months before the American people decide whether or not to give him another four years. 

It is no accident that most of ObamaCare kicks in after the election.  This is more of the same.  Obama wants his lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave renewed before the American people realize what he has done to them.

The “Tea Party Republican” members of congress are controlling the debt ceiling debate because Obama is letting them control the debate.  If Reid and Obama agreed to Boehner’s proposal, Nancy Pelosi would deliver enough Democratic votes in the House to pass Boehner’s plan with moderate Republican support, thereby neutralizing the “Tea Party” Republicans who are uncompromising.

Obama would have to take a page out of Chris Christie’s book in order to make a deal like that.  And Christie says he’s not ready to be President.

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APP Plays The Race Card

By Art Gallagher

The ignorant fools on the Asbury Park Press editorial board have joined the left wing media chorus that will taint anyone who is critical of the Obama administration as racist.

In their editorial today, Fox resumes tired refrain, the disgraceful demagogues of Neptune smear Fox News, its viewers, or “devotees” as they call them, and “the right” as “bile-ridden,” stupid (“vacuous”), and racist.

The outcry over rapper Common’s appearance at the White House poetry night is what set off the race baiting yellow journalists of Gannett.

In case you missed it, Common is best known for his ” A Song For Assata” in which he glorifies JoAnne Chesimard, the former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member who murdered NJ State Trooper Werner Foerster on the NJ Turnpike in East Brunswick on May 2, 1973.   In “A Song For Assata” (Chesimard changed her name to Assata Skakur) Common wrote and sang, “Your power and pride is beautiful. May God bless your soul.”

Apparently Fox News broke the story of Common’s White House appearance.  The APP race mongers lament that Fox couldn’t give Obama “even a week” to bask in the success of the Bin Laden killing before “bashing” the President again.

The news of Common’s White House invitation made national news, including in the APP and its sister rags, prompting a strong reaction, especially from the New Jersey law enforcement community.  NJPBA President Tony Wieners  issued the following statement:

New Jersey State PBA Denounces Cop Killer Support

New Jersey State PBA President Anthony Wieners denounced rapper Common appearance at the White House. Wieners who is in Washington to honor officers during Police Week called Common’s take on Chesimard “utterly ridiculous”. “Lets not rewrite history to glamorize a terrorist from the 1970’s” , he said. “ In 1973 Chesimard killed a New Jersey State Trooper and then in 1979 she took two of our members hostage in her escape from jail, that’s the facts. While she may change her name, she may even have songs written about her, but in the end she is a cold blooded terrorist. No one should be praising her or lending her support.“

Wieners noted the irony of the controversy over Common occurred during Police Week. He should be ashamed of his presence at the White House this week while the nation’s law enforcement community gathers there to add more names to its wall of officers killed in the line of duty. “This week each year is our annual pilgrimage to Washington D. C. to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster is on that wall. As we pursue modern day terrorist, let us not forget those who made sacrifices to pursue the terrorist of our past. Let those terrorist of the past know that we will never falter in our attempts to bring them to justice.”

The APP apologises for Common because he wrote the rap more than a decade ago and he has written songs that extol “self-respect, community and taking responsibility your life and actions” since he glorified Chesimard.  They bash the “Fox chorus” condeming Common’s appearance at the White House as “ignorant” and “empty headed” because “most Fox commentors and fans” don’t appreciate the virtuous raps that Common wrote.

Well the APP apparently didn’t appreciate this Fox commentator who likened Common to Shakespere and said his lyrics are being taken out of context.  They ignored this Fox commentator  who wrote a poem of her own that says the President should be working on more pressing issues instead of attending a poetry reading.

The APP got one thing right in their disgraceful editorial.  They said:

What’s good about America is the ability of artists to express themselves freely, even when we disagree with their viewpoint or positions. What’s great about America is that even the ignorant get a soapbox to spew their empty-headed rhetoric.

That last line is self-referential, even though the APP didn’t mean it to be.

America would be even greater if the traditional 4th estate maintained its traditional role of skeptics of the government charged with holding our leaders to account.  The APP and the rest of the leftstream media should refrain from playing the race card every time criticism of their darling in the White House sticks.

The media’s use of the race card to silence Obama’s critics was very effective in the 2008 campaign, especially after they successfully used it to smear even former President Bill Clinton’s criticism of candidate Obama during the South Carolina primary.  We’ve seen that the media will employ such disgraceful tactics again in support of Obama during the 2012 campaign which has already started.  This is yellow journalism of the worst kind, designed to silence legitimate critics and thwart debate.

The APP should be ashamed.  Its customers, readers and advertisers alike, should put them on notice that there will be consequences to such irresponsible trash.

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The Asbury Park Press Needs A Fact Checker

By Art Gallagher

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.

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Fox News PAC Gave to Pallone

By Art Gallagher

Remember the hullabaloo last summer over News Corp, parent of FoxNews, giving $1 million dollars to the Republican Governors Association?  The lefty media made a big deal about it.  The Asbury Park Pres, aka Neptune Nudniks, even wrote an editorial condemning the contribution wherein they made a laughable assertion about how “real journalists” work hard to maintain their objectivity.

Turns out Fox gave to Frank Pallone before they gave to the RGA.   They also gave to Andrew Wiener, James Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.   The Nudniks probably didn’t know that…..because they probably didn’t check.

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So what went wrong and who is at fault?

 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.

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