By Ernesto Cullari
iPad’s are great. Like most Americans who own one, I use mine to check work and personal e-mails. You probably check sports scores, update your Facebook status and send out an occasional Tweet. But you and I wouldn’t dare to think that it takes the place of human relationships and personal interaction. But did you know that President Barack Obama uses his iPad to read the Top Secret President’s Daily Brief (PDB), rather than attend these critical and time sensitive meetings with seasoned intelligence officers in person? Despite the turmoil in the Middle East and elsewhere, author and investigative journalist Bob Woodward recently reported that President Obama does not “regularly attend security briefings”.
According to
History.com, PDB’s are like a laundry list of sensitive intelligence matters, configured in order of importance. They are vital lists containing time sensitive data that are pertinent to both our imminent and long-term national security. Each morning the head of the CIA and other intelligence branches are to meet with the President, so that they can explicate in detail any development that would catch the Commander in Chief’s eye. In fact, every President since JFK has attended the President’s Daily Brief in person, with the exception of Barack Obama.
Marc Thiessen and the Government Accountability Institute report that Obama has attended only 38% of all PDB’s in the last 3 years and 9 months.
That’s right, the leader of the free world prefers what amounts to treating America’s national security like a social network, where he can simply log on and log off or change his status to “offline” when he doesn’t want to be bothered with defending the nation. Resorting to simply reading the brief rather than meet with its authors amounts to gross negligence and dereliction of duty.
On September 11th 2012, Al Qaeda operatives stormed the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Terrorists then reportedly raped and murdered US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Two former Navy Seals were also murdered in the terrorist attack. After the embassy was stormed, a black Al Qaeda flag replaced the American flag.
Posted: September 20th, 2012 | Author: admin | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races, 2012 Presidential Politics, 2012 U.S. Senate Race, Barack Obama, Bob Menendez, Ernesto Cullari, Frank Pallone, Media, Middle East, National Security | Tags: Barack Obama, Bob Mendendez, Ernesto Cullari, Frank Pallone, IPad | 2 Comments »
Anna Little’s congressional campaign account is overdrawn $11,321.08, according to the FEC Form 3 Record of Receipts and Disbursements, that her campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission yesterday.
$22,188.28 seems to have disappeared overnight, between May 16 and May 17, from Little’s meager coffers. In the pre-primary report of activity for the April 1 through May 16 period, “Friends of Anna Little” had $13,806.95 cash on hand on May 16. The next day, her campaign’s beginning balance was negative $8,381, according to the report submitted yesterday.
Monmouth County GOP Chairman John Bennett, Middlesex County GOP Chairman Sam Thomspon and the Bayshore Tea Party Group need to step in and right the Little campaign before it does damage to the rest of the party. Thompson thought his judgment was better than that of the Monmouth GOP screening committee when he awarded his county’s party line to Little when her home county leaders thought better. Bennett, while not yet chairman, supported Little in the primary against Ernesto Cullari. Bennett and Thompson headlined a fundraiser for Little.
When MMM questioned Thompson about Little’s FEC reports in May he said, “I have a hard enough time keeping my own campaign reports straight.” That flippant attitude is no longer acceptable.
Bennett relied on Little’s support to win the chairmanship by three votes. Little has been taking credit for Bennett’s victory at her weekly campaign meetings at the Keyport IHOP.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group’s leadership, despite having well earned reservations about Little, chose to support her over Cullari as an act of defiance towards the Monmouth GOP.
Thompson, Bennett and BTPG gave us this mess. They need to clean it up. Fast.
Posted: July 17th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races, Anna Little | Tags: Anna Little, Bayshore Tea Party Group, Campaign Contributions, Campaign finance laws, Ernesto Cullari, FEC, Federal Election Commission, John Bennett, missing money, overdraft, overdrawn, Sam Thompson | 17 Comments »
June was by far the most active month in MMM’s history. There have been 32,000 visits and 57,000 page views so far month. 71% of those visitors were repeats. Google analytics says that all of that traffic came from 8700 computers. Unbelievably to me, the average visit is for 11 minutes, which is longer than it takes to read an entire issue of the Asbury Park Press.
According to alexa.com, only 15,850 websites in the New York area and 125,439 in the United States get more traffic than MMM.
Special thanks go out to Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari, John Bennett, Christine Hanlon, Vin Gopal, Frank LaRocca, Barbara Gonzalez, Bob Gordon, Linda Baum Rachel Alintoff, Judge Paul Escandon, Louise Murray and everyone who wears bathing suits on the Asbury Park Boardwalk. I can’t forget Bob Menendez’s opposition research team.
I doing my monthly review, I couldn’t help but notice the success of my friends in Asbury Park.
Congratulations to Dan Jacobson and Molly Mulshine at the AsburyParkSun. In only three months they have made a significant impact in the local media market. Alexa.com says that APS is in the top 200,000 of all websites nationally and in the top 35,000 in the New York area. Mulshine was the first to report the Asbury Park Boardwalk beach attire controversy, a story that went national.
UPDATE: July 1
Wow! I haven’t had such a busy last day of the month since I was in the car business. The final numbers for June are 32,959 visitors fromm 9,194 unique IPs and 58,768 page views. Ranked 120,646 in the U.S. on Alexa.
As Lois mentioned in the comments, thank you so much to all the commenters, especially the “congregation” as Lois called the regulars. I won’t name them all because I’m sure to leave an important one out.
Posted: June 30th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: NJ Media | Tags: Anna Little, Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park Sun, Banana Hammock, Barbara Gonzalez, Beach attire, Bob Gordon, Bob Mendendez, Christine Hanlon, Dan Jacobson, Ernesto Cullari, Frank LaRocca, Joe Kyrillos, John Bennett, Linda Baum, Louise Murray, Molly Mulshine, opposition reseach, Rachel Alintoff, Vin Gopal | 8 Comments »
Before running for Congress I was like so many people who had strong opinions on the way our country was being run, but I was contented doing my part as a conservative columnist and as a philanthropist. One evening in March, I was asked to do more for my community, when friends and acquaintances approached me to run for the Republican nomination for Congress. The opportunity would not have presented itself had I not been the writer of the Justified Right column in the TriCity News. My readers earned me that opportunity.
It’s important to mention that no elected Republican official or anyone else of note wanted the role. In fact, my former opponent, who won the primary, was registered at that time, and was still registered as a Senate Candidate and not a Congressional candidate with the Federal Election Commission on Election Day. When I was recruited to run it was apparent that the Republican Party had no one to represent the party in the race for Congress and so I took up the mantle.
Since that evening I have had a crash course on the inner-workings of the Republican Party, the various Tea Party groups, as well as grass roots organizations all across the 6th Congressional District, which now covers all of coastal Monmouth (from Asbury Park) through Middlesex County, ending in South Plainfield. But what made an impression upon me most was how too few people are involved in our two party system and how that reality means that voters have less and less of a significant voice in how their country is run.
For example out of the 95,071 registered Republicans in Monmouth County only 5,829 or about 6% voted for U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 6. So not only did no one want the job, but too few felt compelled to vote for either candidate.
I have to admit that I was once part of the overwhelming majority that did not vote in primaries, but if this country is going to salvage both its liberty and its free markets then more of us who are apathetic must become more involved in deciding who our candidates are going to be.
The Republican Party gets a bad rap in the press for being an old white guy’s club, but the party as a whole was one of the most inviting and supportive organizations that I have ever been a part of.
Posted: June 20th, 2012 | Author: admin | Filed under: Congress, Ernesto Cullari | Tags: CD 6, Ernesto Cullari, NJ-6 | 20 Comments »
Charles Measley is hilarious.
The Ryder University student, Rumson County Committeeman, and founder of the FrankPalloneNotForNewJersey blog wakes up every morning thinking of ways to get Frank Pallone out of office.
Early this year when it appeared that no Republican would step up to run against Pallone, Charles set out to find a candidate. Anna Little was still running for U.S. Senate at that point.
As the self appointed Chairman of the Defeat Pallone Brigade, Charles spoke to dozens of potential candidates; elected officials, former candidates, even bloggers, all of whom had 4 million and 1 good reasons not to run against the incumbent congressman, until Ernesto Cullari said yes. Charles became a campaign manager.
Pallone doesn’t seem to mind.
Here, Pallone poses with Charles wearing a Bayshore Tea Party t-shirt during an April 2011 beach clean up in Belmar.
Over the Memorial Day weekend last month, Charles was driving down Ocean Avenue in Long Branch when he spotted Pallone gardening in his front yard. Never one to miss an opportunity, Charles stopped to ask the congressman who he preferred his opponent to be; Little or Cullari. Charles recorded the conversation. Click on the link to listen to their chat:
Frank Pallone tells Charles Measley who will win the GOP primary in CD-6
Posted: June 7th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races | Tags: Anna Little, Charles Measley, Ernesto Cullari, Frank Pallone | 8 Comments »
Former Highlands Mayor Anna Little won the GOP nomination in the 6th congressional district and another chance to take on Congressman Frank Pallone in general election.
By a margin of 70%-30% percent Little defeated newcomer Ernesto Cullari. Cullari had the Monmouth GOP endorsement yet 59% of Monmouth voters chose Little. In Middlesex County, where Little had the organizational support, she earned 83% of the votes cast.
Posted: June 6th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races | Tags: Anna Little, CD 6, Ernesto Cullari, Frank Pallone | 5 Comments »
MoreMonmouthMusings is projecting that former Highland Mayor Anna Little as the 6th congressional district primary winner.
With 76% of the districts reporting in the Monmouth County portion of the district, Little leads Ernesto Cullari 61% to 39%.
With 30% of the districts reporting in Middlesex County, Little has 85% of the vote to Cullari’s 14%.
Posted: June 5th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races, Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari | Tags: Anna Little, CD 6, Ernesto Cullari | 22 Comments »
With 76 % of the Monmouth County 6th congressional districts reporting, former Highlands Mayor Anna Little is leading Ernesto Cullari by a margin of 60.30 % to 39.47%.
Little has 2,869 votes to Cullari’s 1878.
Middlesex County has not reported any Republican results yet.
At this point, it is very very likely that Anna Little will be the 6th district Republican nominee.
Posted: June 5th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races | Tags: Anna Little, CD 6, Ernesto Cullari | 1 Comment »
MMM has learned that Anna Little is ahead of Ernesto Cullari in the Middlesex County mail-in votes by 124-32.
Posted: June 5th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races, Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari | Tags: Anna Little, CD 6, Ernesto Cullari | 2 Comments »
A 2 man DOT crew picking up Cullari and Little signs on Route 36 in Belford this afternoon. The crew said they were not members of the Bayshore Tea Party Group
By Ernesto Cullari