How N.J.’s 2.6 million unaffiliated voters can cast a ballot Tuesday

TRENTON — While registered Democrats and Republicans can only vote in their party’s primary on Tuesday, New Jersey’s 2.6 million unaffiliated voters are not left out of the process. “Voters who are unaffiliated can go in, declare a party, and then vote in that primary,” said Tori Symonds, a spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who… Read the rest of this entry »

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Geraldo Rivera Outlines Why He’s Mulling Senate Bid

By Geraldo Rivera, reprinted from FoxNewsLatino

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Mazzola Met With Bennett Before Switching Partys

Mayor Jon Hornik was present at the meeting

Carol Mazzola, right, with Selika Josiah Gore and Kim Guadagno during their 2009 campaign. facebook photo

Marlboro Councilwoman Carol Mazzola met with Monmouth County Republican Chairman John Bennett prior to announcing her to run for reelection as a Democrat this fall.  Mayor Jon Hornik was present at the meeting which took place in Freehold.

Mazzola told MoreMonmouthMusings that she met with Bennett out of respect for the chairman for whom she has great admiration.  She said that Bennett attempted to pursuade her not to switch partys, but that her mind was already made upInflatable Slide.

The councilwoman, who is seeking her second term on the Marlboro Council, said she’s been struggling with the decision for many months.  “In the end, I know I made the right decision for myself and for the citizens of Marlboro,” she said, “win lose or draw, I know I did the right thing.”

Bennett has not returned MMM’s call for comment.

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There Will Be No Bathing Suits on The Road to Serfdom (but in this case I might not mind)

By Tommy DeSeno, first posted on Ricochet.com

This story requires one to consider social mores, conservatism, government powers, libertarianism, class, classlessness, tradition, expression, subsidiarity, humility, pride and manners.  In other words, it’s practically the reason Ricochet.com was created.

My beloved little city of Asbury Park, NJ made national headlines in 2010 when a local storekeeper, while attempting to drum up business, made a push for the City by the Sea to have a nude beach.   The measure was ultimately rejected.  That it was seriously considered at all shows how liberal Bruce Springsteen’s adopted hometown has become (of the 5,418 registered voters, only 390 are Republican).

What a difference two years makes though.   Former councilwoman and Republican Committeewoman Louise Murray has found a 50 year old ordinance on the books that says people in Asbury Park may not wear bathing suits on the boardwalk.  At a recent council meeting she pleaded with the City to once again enforce it.   Her plea has been picked up as newsworthy locally, regionally, and nationally now that Drudge has given it a headline.  The City Council is considering her request.

I don’t know if there is a social conservative backlash to the Obama Administration going on in this country but this might actually be proof of it.  Here is an exchange between Ms. Murray and Asbury Park Deputy Mayor John Loffredo as reported by a local website, www. moremonmouthmusings.net:

“I’ll be darned if I want to be standing at a bar and have somebody slither up in a Speedo or bikini that shouldn’t be in a bathing suit,” Murray said. “It’s disgraceful … I implore you to enforce this, but do not amend it.”

Deputy Mayor John Loffredo responded, “I honestly don’t disagree with you.”

Why is that exchange important?  Loffredo is one of New Jersey’s first openly gay elected politicians and a Democrat.  He’s a liberal.  He supports Asbury Park’s annual Gay Pride Parade (and you know how they dress marching in that).   Yet he doesn’t disagree with Ms. Murray about this.  A shift in social mores?

A bit of history about Asbury Park for context.  It was founded as a Methodist retreat in the late 1800s.  It had been a dry town where certain sports were originally banned as they might attract bettors.  This one square mile City still has nearly 40 churches.   So full of elegance was it that when I was a boy people would dress up to walk downtown and women working at the local department store were forbidden from wearing pants.

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The Color of Justice

By Evans C. Anyanwu

If abolitionist Frederick Douglas appeared today in New Jersey and asked for political support from the African American community, he might be surprised at the fact that his political affiliation would far eclipse his accomplishments. Douglas was a Republican.

In April of 1865, shortly after the Civil War ended, and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Douglas gave a speech at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. At issue was the voting rights of Black men and to this subject Douglas remarked:

“I have had but one idea for the last three years to present to the American people, and the phraseology in which I clothe it is the old abolition phraseology. I am for the immediate, unconditional, and universal enfranchisement of the black man, in every State in the Union. Without this, his liberty is a mockery; without this, you might as well almost retain the old name of slavery for his condition; for in fact, if he is not the slave of the individual master, he is the slave of society, and holds his liberty as a privilege, not as a right. He is at the mercy of the mob, and has no means of protecting himself.”

Drawing loud applauses from the previous line, Douglas went right into the heart of his speech. He deviated from the conventional thought of most abolitionists, which at the time was that the right to vote should come last. The immediate need for African Americans, most thought, was to end slavery, organize and let voting naturally come at the end of the abolitionist movement. Douglas remarked: “It may be objected, however, that this pressing of the Negro’s right to suffrage is premature. Let us have slavery abolished, it may be said, let us have labor organized, and then, in the natural course of events, the right of suffrage will be extended to the Negro. I do not agree with this.”

Five years after his speech, the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the States and Federal government from denying African Americans the right to vote. Thereafter, Thomas Mundy Peterson, a Republican, on March 31, 1870 cast the first vote ever by a Black man, under the just-enacted Amendment, during the Perth Amboy, New Jersey, School Board Elections.

The right to vote, not only for African Americans, but for women, was very important to Douglas. So it is with this background that I write about a very important vote to ensue. There is likely to be a committee vote this month to advance the nomination of Bruce A. Harris, Esq. to the Supreme Court of the same State where Thomas Mundy Peterson cast his historic vote.

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