Governor Christie killed it, according to the Neptune Nudniks in their editorial, A death blow for prosperity, by killing the ill conceived ARC tunnel project that would have boosted New York’s economy while New Jersey tax payers paid the open ended bill.
What a bunch of hyperbole.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Monmouth and Ocean counties don’t have a reliable and trustworthy news organization to serve the region, the head Nudnik wants to export his special brand of propaganda throughout the nation. Hollis Towns, the Executive Editor of the Neptune Nudniks was recently elected president of the Associated Press Managing Editors.
“I’m thrilled to be elected president of an organization with such a rich history and bright future,” said Towns, 46. “I plan to build on the successes of the past year by growing the membership, extending our reach and launching an important national reporting project with The Associated Press.”
Good grief. Did the APME members read his rag before electing him? This nudnik is going to launch an important national reporting project with the internationally syndicated Associated Press?
If there was any doubt left that the Asbury Park Press’s candidate endorsements are irrelevant to the electorate, the Nudniks made the point themselves today when they published an editorial declining to endorse a candidate in the New Jersey’s 3rd congressional district. The 3rd district includes Toms River and 22 other Ocean County towns that the APP purports to serve.
The Neptune Nudniks don’t like GOP candidate Jon Runyan because he is a former NFL star who, they say was once rated the second dirtiest player in the league. They don’t say who rated him that way or why it is relevant to his being elected to Congress. They say Runyan “seems to have stolen the playbook from the conservative elements of the Republican National Committee and adopted it as his own,” as if that was a bad thing. For voters in the 3rd district, who prior to sweeping John Adler into office on Barack Obama’s coattails in 2008 had not sent a Democrat to Washington in decades, Runyan’s conservatism will probably be enough to elect him.
The Asbury Park Press’ recent editorial endorsement in the 12th Congressional District race correctly described the contest between 12-year incumbent Rep. Rush Holt and me as providing voters a stark choice between two very different candidates with different visions about the future direction of our country.
Beyond that, the editorial read more like one of Rush Holt’s negative campaign attacks against me – nasty in tone and short on facts. I thank the editorial board for allowing me the opportunity to respond and set the record straight.
First, I encourage everyone reading this to visit my website at www.supportscott2010.com and read my comprehensive “Blueprint for Renewal.” I am confident they will find it to be the most detailed and thoughtful series of position papers put forth by any congressional candidate in the country this year.
I set out to run a positive campaign of ideas and I am proud to have done just that.
Now, on to the specific issues:
The editorial board falsely accused me of opposing insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. This is a completely fabricated claim that has been promulgated by Holt. In fact, my website lays out a novel plan for large national insurance pools of “uninsureds,” grouped by medical specialty that would be subsidized by federal dollars.
The editorial board also parroted one of Holt’s misleading attacks against me regarding unemployment benefits, quoting a statement they claim was extracted from my campaign website. My campaign website has never had any reference whatsoever to unemployment benefits, another mistake that indicates a sloppy research effort by the Press or an excessive reliance on talking points distributed by Holt.
The truth is that while congressional Democrats have offered to extend benefits indefinitely and congressional Republicans have called for cutting them off immediately, I have discussed a sensible compromise that is both compassionate and fiscally responsible, while focusing on the critical task of rebuilding America’s economic engine.
The best social welfare net is a job. Holt has no plan to create private sector jobs; he is offering just more of the status quo.
The board’s most ridiculous attack against me was regarding partisan politics. The fact of the matter is Holt votes with his party nearly 99 percent of the time and believes any idea offered by a Democrat is good and any idea offered by Republican is bad. He’s part of the problem in Washington and has contributed mightily to the toxic environment there.
On the other hand, I have supported a reform Democrat for mayor in my hometown of Princeton against an entrenched political machine, and I took considerable flak during the Republican primary for my financial donations to Democrats with whom I agreed on certain issues. There is only one candidate in this race who has demonstrated a willingness to reach across the aisle to solve problems – and it is me.
Less than two weeks from today, voters will go to the polls to make a historic decision. I would like them to believe I am the candidate who can make America work again.
If you know anyone who still gets their news from the Asbury Park Press, tell them that the Health Care Forum sponsored by the Monmouth County Medical Society has been moved from Riverview Medical Center to the Oyster Point Hotel. And tell them that Falsetto Frankie has pulled out.
MoreMonmouthMusings called Pallone’s office this afternoon to find out what was so pressing that the Congressman could not meet the doctors of the Monmouth County Medical Society and members of the public, along with Mayor Little, to discuss his major acheivement, the ObamaPalloneCare health care reform bill. No one from the Congressman’s office has called back yet.
Kathleen Maher of the Ocean Township Democratic Club told MoreMonmouthMusings that Pallone’s office told her today that he is planning to attend the club’s monthly meeting tomorrow evening from 7:30-8:30, subject to an unexpected change is scheduling. The meeting is at the West Park Recreation/Senior Center on West Park Ave between Route 35 and Whale Pond Rd, about a 15 minute drive from the Oyster Point Hotel.
Pallone should do the right thing and attend both events. He can leave the Oyster Point and still get to the Ocean Township Democratic Club before that meeting ends. Or he could ask Kathleen to have the club members come to the Health Care Forum.
As for the Neptune Nudniks, they should really hire a fact checker to read MMM and NJ.com before they publish anything about politics or government in Monmouth County.
They should also publish their endorsement of Shaun Golden for Monmouth County Sheriff on their website.
In honor of the Soprano StateMoreMonmouthMusings hereby adds Falsetto Frankieto Phoney Palloney as our favorite nicknames for the congressman from New Jersey’s sixth district.
In the most telegraphed endorsement since The New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for President, the Asbury Park Press endorsed Falsetto Frankie for another term in Washington this morning. The endorsement found its way to the Nudniks’ website. Their endorsement of Shaun Golden for Monmouth County Sheriff, which appeared in yesterday’s print edition, has yet to make its way to app.com.
Not surprisingly, The Neptune Nudniks let Pallone spin the stroy
By Art Gallagher
The Asbury Park Press has finally reported Congressman Frank Pallone’s interference with the Food and Drug Administration on behalf of a campaign donor.
After receiving campaign contributions from ReGen Biologics, a Hackensack based medical device manufacturer, and its executives in 2008, Pallone, Congressman Steven Rothman and Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menedez , the four legislators pressured the FDA into approving ReGen’s Menaflex knee patch. Menaflex had previously been rejected twice. This week the FDA reversed the decision and announced it was rescinding the approval.
Pallone told the Asbury Park Press that what he did was routine, what he would do for any constituent.
ReGen is in Hackensack which is not in the 6th congressional district. ReGen CEO Gerald Bisbee, who along with his wife Linda contributed $32,000 of the over $50,000 contributed to the legislators and the Democratic party, lives in Connecticut. John Dichiara, the company’s government affairs director, wrote checks for $20,800. He lives in New York.
Pallone told the APP that he has three staffers who help residents who are having trouble with government red tape.
Patrick Donohue hasn’t given any money to Pallone either. Maybe that is why Frank won’t release H. Con Res. 198, a resolution recognizing Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury as the leading cause of death and disability in the United States for children and young adults from birth until 25 years of age and endorsing the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan, from the committee he chairs.
Pallone told the APP that the FDA has mismanaged the project from the beginning. He said that the product is approved in Europe and that, “This is a product that could have helped people. It could have saved people a lot of pain.”
That’s not what Pallone was saying in May of 2009. He, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak signed a 16 page letter to the FDA raising questions about the ReGen Menaflex approval and asking them to review it. That hardly seems routine. I guess the APP fact checkers missed that.
During his Red Bank town hall meeting in August of 2009, Pallone said “Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman are the two finest people I know in Washington.”
Let’s summarize what we know of Pallone’s involvement with ReGen and the FDA so far.
1) In 2008 Pallone received campaign contributions from ReGen executives and then he joined his NJ colleagues Rothman, Lautenberg and Menedez in applying pressue to the FDA to approve the ReGen product.
2) In 2009, Pallone reversed course. He joined Waxman, “one of the finest people he knows in Washington” in raising questions about the ReGen product’s approval and asking the FDA to review it. He did so in a 16 page letter with a signature larger than John Hancock’s.
3) In 2010, while in the midst of the tightest election he has ever faced in his career, Pallone flips again. He tells the Asbury Park Press that what he did was routine, like what he would do for anybody. He said the FDA mismanaged the process from the beginning and that the product could help a lot of people.
The Kansas City Star thinks it’s newsworthy that New Jersey Congressmen Frank Pallone and Steve Rothman, along with Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez were found to have exerted pressure on the FDA to approve a knee patch that had insufficient scientific backing to be approved for patient care, prompting the FDA to rescind its approval of the project.
Someone(s) from Gannett visited MMM 16 times today. They read my story about the lack of coverage and the Little campaign’spress releases about it. At least we know that someone at Gannett knows about it. Maybe they’ll cover it tomorrow.
They’ve been busy writing about the fact that someone started a website to draft Governor Christie to run for President, even though Christie repeatedly says he’s not running. What’s newsworthy about that? Anyone can start a website. I even did it!
They’ve also been busy writing about a few people (28 out of 40,000) who complained about getting Gerry Scharfenberger’s reverse 9-11 call too late in the evening.
I can understand how the fact that a 22 year incumbent congressman who is up for reelection was found to have inappropriately influenced the federal agency that is charge with guarding our food, and assuring the safety of our medicine and medical devices, in exchange for campaign cash, might slipped by them. Now that we know that they know, I’m sure they’ll cover it. Don’t you think?
The Gannett papers wouldn’t let their bias influence what news to report, would they? Especially after writing a scathing editorial earlier this year about Rupert Murdoch donating $1 million to conservative causes. The wrote so eloquently about how hard legitimate journalists work to be unbiased.
I’m sure they just haven’t gotten to Pallone’s graft and putting the health of thousands of Americans at risk yet. Now that they know about it, I’m sure they’ll cover it. Don’t you think?
Gov. Chris Christie’s announcement Thursday that he was pulling the plug on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that had been more than a decade in the planning stages was his latest in a line of “my way or the highway” decrees.
It is a pattern that is increasingly jeopardizing New Jersey’s ability to work collaboratively with others — its neighbors, public employee unions and members of the opposite political party — to address the short- and long-term challenges facing the state.
If New Jersey wanted a governor to work collaboratively with our neighbors, public employee unions and Democrats, the crew that got us into the fiscal mess we are in, we would have reelected Jon Corzine. Yes, even our neighbors, Pennsylvania and New York who, until Christie came along, have been fleecing New Jersey with glee.
Had the Nudniks of Neptune bothered to read their own columnist, Bob Ingle, since before former Governor Corzine broke ground on the ARC tunnel they would know that the project is an ill-concieved boondoggle that does not connect to New York’s major transportation hubs and that New Jersey taxpayers are bearing the lions share of the costs, while New York is not contributing a penny.
Christie killed the project because New Jersey taxpayers could be on the hook for between $2 and $6 billion dollars in cost overruns, in addition to the $3 billion, plus our share of the Port Authority’s contribution, that we are already on the hook for. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LeHood appealed to Christie for time to review options to reinstate the project. Christie gave him two weeks. I’m looking forward to the Neptune Nudnik’s editorial after LeHood announces that the feds will cover the cost overruns or that New York is contributing to the project.
If LeHood comes up with an acceptable solution to the financial inequities of the project, Christie should insist upon an evalution of the wisdom of building a tunnel that ends 150 feet below Macy’s, rather than a tunnel that could be built in partnership with Amtrak that would end at Penn/Moynihan Station before he commits billions of New Jersey’s dollars to the project.
If the Neptune Nudniks don’t want to be informed by one of their own, maybe they will learn from the Star Ledger which has an excellent article on the controversy.
