Lautenberg Recommends Schumer’s Brother-in-law For Federal Bench

New Jersey is “stunned”

New Jersey was stunned that U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg recommended U.S Senator Chuck Schumer’s brother-in-law to be a federal judge, according to a headline in the NYPost.

I live in New Jersey and I’m not stunned.  Are you stunned?

Lautenberg  and Senator Robert Menendez recommended Kevin McNulty of Short Hills for a federal judgeship in October.  President Obama nominated McNulty for a seat on the New Jersey District bench on December 16th.

McNulty, a Director of the Newark firm, Gibbons, PC is married to Schumer’s sister Fran.

The Post says that McNulty was a last minute choice of Lautenberg who had been actively considering other candidates and that the choice was made to keep New Jersey’s senior citizen senator in the good graces of Schumer who will help him stave off a movement within the Democratic party to challenge his nomination for reelection in 2014.

Lautenberg will be 88 years old in January.  He’ll be 90 on election day 2014.  96 at the end of another term, should he be reelected and survive.

Lautenberg’s staff denied that politics was involved with the McNulty appointment.  The senator didn’t even know McNulty was related to Schumer when his name first came up for a judicial appointment in 2009.  Maybe he forgot.

Schumer’s staff denied that he had anything to do with the nomination.

The point of the story seems to be that Lautenberg is running for another term.  Not even Frank Pallone is stunned by that news. 

The other point would be that a candidate for the bench other than McNulty was stunned. Oh well.

The good news is the McNulty appears to be qualified to be a federal judge.  The Schumer-McNulty’s do not appear to have bought political influence.  McNulty has made on $2000 in federal campaign contributionssince 2000; $500 to Jon Corzine’s senatorial election campaign and $1500 to his firms PAC.  Fran Schumer gave another $500 to Corzine in 2000.

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Measley Issues Apology To Lautenberg. Challenges The Senator To Turn His Wealth Over To U.S. Treasury

Charles Measley, the 21 year-old Brookdale grad and Rumson GOP committeeman, who created a media storm last week with his “We must eliminate the rich” graphics on a YouTube video of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg’s remarks in Belmar, issued the following statement this afternoon:

On August 14th I filmed and uploaded a video of Senator Frank Lautenberg speaking on the boardwalk in Belmar, NJ. The video, which was uploaded to YouTube, featured the Senator calling on “the rich” to pay more taxes. The Senator stated that “there’s another place to get your money, and it’s to get it from people like me.”  This argument has become an all-too-familiar refrain from the super-elite worth more than $50 million, as is Senator Lautenberg.

Towards the end of the video I misunderstood what the senator was saying. I thought the Senator at one point said “eliminate the rich.” However, after others brought up concerns regarding the video, I examined the footage more carefully and have since determined that the Senator did not say “eliminate the rich.” Rather, he muddled what sounds like a mix of the words “ways” and “waste.”

I would like to formally apologize for misunderstanding and misquoting the senator.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg is not against the presently rich; he is against people becoming rich, lest they become part of his exclusive club. Those who are super-rich, like the senator, are worth millions of dollars. The Senator can afford to live off the $50 Million he has amassed over his 50-year political career and doesn’t need any new income streams. Raising income taxes on the super-rich like Senator Lautenberg would not affect people like the Senator because they have already accumulated their wealth.

Rather, raising the income tax rate prevents individuals in the middle class from becoming rich like Senator Lautenberg. It does this by taking away their means to become rich and that is bytaxing their income.

Senator Lautenberg has been an unfailing member of the class warfare party (i.e. Democrats) for half a century and in that time he has become extremely wealthy on the backs of the middle class. Yet his policies and those of his party have resulted in nothing but the near-complete prevention of middle class Americans achieving the American Dream.

I challenge Senator Lautenberg to write a check to the U.S. Treasury for $50 million dollars. His Senate salary, together with the Social Security he collects, should be plenty off of which to live. Millions of less fortunate Americans do it every single day.

In closing, while Senator Lautenberg may not have actually said “eliminate the rich”, by his policies he has prevented untold numbers of hard-working Americans from becoming rich like him. “Preventing” and “eliminating” in this sense, are one and the same.

 

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Lautenberg Video Goes Viral Then Gets Corrected Or Pulled

By Art Gallagher

When John Shoonejongen of Gannett’s Captial Quickies listened to the video of Senator Frank Lautenberg’s  remarks in Belmar on Wednesday he heard the senator say “we need to eliminate the waste,” not, “we need to eliminate the rich.”

By the time Shoonejongen got second and third opinons and talked to the Asbury Park Press reporter who was at the Belmar event and told him  “Lautenberg definately said waste,” the video had gone viral.  In addition to MMM, Save Jersey, Real Clear Politics and FoxNews.com had picked it up.

Shoonejongen posted on Captial Quickies that the type, “We need to eliminate the rich,” was inaccurate and that Lautenberg said, “we need to eliminate the waste.”  Throughout the electronic media, websites started issuing corrections and pulling the video.  It’s my turn.

Upon a second listening, Lautenberg said “we need to eliminate the waste, we got to eliminate the fraudulent practice.  I didn’t listen closely enough the first time.

MMM has pulled the video and the post it appeared in.  We’re not doing so to hide our mistake which we freely admit to, but to prevent a future reader from going directly to the post through search and thereby not seeing this correction.

Charles Measley, the Rumson GOP Committeeman, Bayshore Tea Party activist and MMM advertiser who shot and edited the video told MMM, “I heard him (Lautenberg) say rich and that was consistent with the context of his remarks, but I’m not 100% sure now that I got it right.”

Lautenberg’s communications director Caley Gray said, “It is very clear that the Senator said waste.  Do you really think he would say ‘eliminate the rich?’  It is pathetic that someone tried to mislead the public over something so obvious.”

MMM apologises to Senator Lautenberg.

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A Case For Competitive Congressional Districts

By Art Gallagher

Giving credit where it is do, The Asbury Park Press Editorial Board got one right in their recent editorial lamenting the closure of Fort Monmouth’s commissary.  They give a quick summary of the disaster the closure of Fort Monmouth is and how the entire BRAC decision to close the fort was based on faulting economic and home security data.

Fort Monmouth’s closure and the move of its operations to Aberdeen Maryland was a huge waste of money that compromised national security.  An investigative series by Asbury Park Press reporters Bill Bowman and Keith Brown (which is no longer linkable) documented the waste and fraudulent numbers that BRAC gave Congress to justify the closure.

In their editorial, The Asbury Park Press accurately lays the blame:

The closing of the base was based on faulty economic and security research in the first place, and yet even with the facts on their side, Reps Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, along with Sens. Lautenberg and Menendez could not carry the day.

That is largely due to the fact that the faulty economic and security data was uncovered by Bowman and Brown after Congress had already voted to close the fort.  Pallone, Holt, Lautenberg and Menendez didn’t have the juice to uncover that data before or during the BRAC hearings when it might have made a difference.  Worse, the didn’t have the juice needed with their congressional colleagues to keep the fort in New Jersey.  Maryland’s delegation had the juice.

This latest insulting failure is just one in a decades, maybe centuries, long example of ineffective congressional representation from New Jersey.  Not just Pallone, Holt, Lautenberg and Menendez, but most of the delegation. Every two years during congressional elections challengers complain that New Jersey only gets a fraction of the money we send to Washington sent back, but it never changes.  Has there ever been a House Speaker from New Jersey?  Name on U.S. Senator from New Jersey who could be considered a historic figure.

As Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray indicated during his interview on the LaRossa and Gallagher Radio Show two weeks ago, New Jersey Congressmen have little incentive to represent the interests or philosophies of their constituents.  They vote how ever they want and work on, or don’t work on, whatever they want without regard for the good of their constituents because no matter what they do, their jobs are safe.  Historically, gerrymandering as assured that an incumbent member of congress will be reelected time after time except in the rarest or circumstances.

A competitive congressional district map could go a long way to improving the quality of representation New Jersey gets from the people we send to Washington.  Currently, Congressmen face no consequences for failures like the BRACing of Fort Monmouth.  Despite the rants of congressional challengers every two years about the about of money that New Jersey sends to Washington vs the amount of money that comes back, that situation never changes and our representitives have little incentive to work to change it.

If competitive congressional elections were the norm, rather than a rare exception, New Jersey would get better representation and better results.

New Jersey’s Redistricting Commission has a huge opportunity to create an environment that could lead to an major improvement in the quality of our representation in Washington over the next decade.  If past is prelude, the Democrats and Republicans on the commission will spend the process jockeying for influence with the “13th tie breaking” member.  The commission will predictably produce a winning map for one party which will be a losing map for the other party. 

For New Jersey to have a “winning map” would require at least one party to propose a competitive map based upon population and geography only without regard for the residency of incumbents or the historical voting trends of residents, and for the “13th member,” former Attorney General and Acting Governor for ninety minutes, John Farmer Jr, to do the right thing.

Otherwise, it won’t really matter much which party “wins” the redistricting battle.  New Jersey’s representation in Washington will not likely improve if the people will send there have little incentive to work for it.

By the way, Lautenberg and Pallone are scheduled to make a “surprise announcement” in Belmar tomorrow. 

Pray for rain. 

Maybe Lautenberg is announcing his retirement and endorsing Pallone to replace him.  Not likely, but one can hope.

More likely they will announce some legislation they are sponsoring that will probably never become law or some appropriation they are proposing or maybe even secured that will not have nearly postive impact on New Jersey that the negative impact that the closure of Fort Monmouth will have.

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Kyrillos Testing The U.S. Senate Waters

By Art Gallagher

State Senator Joe Kyrillos has set up an exploratory committee for a possible U.S. Senate run in 2012 against Robert Menendez or 2014 against Frank Lautenberg, an unnamed source told Politickernj.

An exploratory committee, or “testing the waters fund” may raise and spend over the $5,000 threshold that requires candidate reporting on polling, travel and other activities designed to gauge the level of support for a candidate for federal office, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Kyrillos has yet to respond to a message from MMM to comment on the Politickernj story.

A source with knowledge of Kyrillos’ plans confirmed that Monmouth County’s senior legislator will issue a statement announcing the exploratory committee today.

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Could Pallone Be A Redistricting Target?

By Art Gallagher

The Star Ledger’s Auditor  is raising the question. 

The members of the Redistricting Commission must be appointed by June 15.   The Auditor says he/she was told that Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski plans to void the appointment of Belmar resident Maggie Moran to the commission.  Moran, former Governor Corzine’s deputy chief of staff and campaign manager, was appointed to the commission by former Chairman Joe Cryan, at Pallone’s urging, as one of Cryan’s last acts before turning the chairmanship over to Wisniewski.

Moran, who is the wife of Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty, is supposed to be Pallone’s eyes and ears on the commission.   Her removal would be a blow to Pallone, according to The Auditor, this year in particular as New Jersey is losing a congressional district.  One incumbent congressman will lose his job regardless of the electoral outcome.  The Auditor implies that Democratic boss George Norcross and Republican Governor Chris Christie would like that incumbent to be Pallone.

How would that work?

Pallone’s 6th district borders the 4th, 7th, 12th and 13th districts.  He resides in Long Branch which is in the south east coastal part of the district.

While it is entirely possible in New Jersey that a gerrymandered district that includes Long Branch of Monmouth County could be combined with Clinton Township in Hunterdon County, home of 7th district Republican Congressman Leonard Lance or West New York, Hudson County, home of 13th district Democratic Congressman Albio Sires, neither scenario is likely.

Combining Pallone’s 6th with Rush Holt’s 12th would make sense based on geography as the 12th shares the largest border with the 6th.  Even though neither Pallone or Holt is particularly well liked by Democratic leaders in New Jersey or Washington, it is unlikely that the Democrats would surrender a district without a fight. 

Which would leave a match up between New Jersey’s two most senior congressmen, Pallone who has been in Congress since 1988 and 4th district Congressman Republican Chris Smith who has served since 1981.  While it would be unusual that seniority be discarded as an incumbent protection consideration during a redistricting battle, an argument could be made along the lines of “continuity of representation.”  Pallone first went to Congress as the representative of the 3rd district after the death of Congressman James Howard.  Much of the pre-1992 3rd district is now part of the 4th.

Even with his $4 million war chest, it is hard to imagine Pallone beating Smith in a combined district that includes southeast Monmouth and portions of Republican Ocean and Burlington counties.  Smith would dominate in his Mercer home turf.

Pallone vs. Smith would be a great race.  It probably won’t happen.  I’ll explain why at the end of this piece.  But first let’s have some fun speculating about the fallout of such a district.

If Long Branch and Pallone are moved south into a district combined with portions of Smith’s (of Hamilton in Mercer County) 4th district,  it would make sense that the Northern Monmouth portions of the present 6th district would be folded into the Rush Holt’s 12th district.  

That would create an interesting race for the GOP nomination in the 12th.  Diane Gooch, Mike Halfacre, Anna Little, and Scott Sipprelle could all be contenders for that nomination.

Little beat Gooch for the 6th district nomination primary by 83 votes before losing to Pallone by 11% in the 2010 general election.  She declared that a loss of only 11% was a victory and launched her 2012 race against Pallone in the weirdest election night concession speech ever.   Since election night 2010 Little has alienated herself from both her local Tea Party and establishment GOP supporters.  She’s chomping at the bit for a rematch with both Gooch and Pallone, but she’s referred to as a “coo coo bird” by former supporters.  A Pallone-Smith match up would wreck havoc on her delusions.   Only Little, her family and Larry Cirignano, her escort/handler/manager/driver/tenant, believe Anna Little will ever be nominated for congress again.

Halfacre, the Mayor of Fair Haven, has been kicking himself for bowing out of the race for the 12th district nomination since Tea Party candidate David Corsi beat Sipprelle in Monmouth County in the 2010 primary.  Sipprelle won the nomination by virtue of his margin of victory in Mercer, Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon before losing to Holt by 7% in the general. 

Halfacre was the Tea Party favorite during his contentious race against Sipprelle for the party lines in 2010. Sipprelle won all the county party lines and Halfacre correctly concluded that a primary against Sipprelle without at least the Monmouth or Middlesex lines was not winnable.  Corsi’s Monmouth victory naturally lead to “what ifs?”  Little’s narrow victory over Gooch created additional “what ifs?”

But the self funding Sipprelle did not spend any money to defeat Corsi.   Gooch took victory over Little for granted in the primary.   Given how contentious the Sipprelle-Halfacre county conventions/screenings were, it is likely that a primary between to two would have been bloody and expensive.  Halfacre couldn’t have matched Sipprelle’s money.

Halfacre would have a heavy lift to regain his Tea Party support.  If either Gooch or Sipprelle seek the nomination, he would have a heavier lift to raise the money necessary to compete.  After Little’s victory in the 2010 primary, it will be a long time before any candidate or county party organization takes a Tea Party challenge for granted.  Halfacre’s best hope for a nomination against Holt is for both Gooch and Sipprelle to conclude that 2012, a presidential year with Obama leading the ticket, is not the year to take on Holt.   

Both Gooch and Sipprelle are staying in front of the party faithful.  Gooch with Strong New Jersey and Sipprelle with the Lincoln Club of New Jersey, organizations each has founded since losing their respective races.  Gooch has been open about wanting to run for congress again, depending on how the districts are drawn.  Sipprelle has been coy about a future candidacy.

A Gooch-Sipprelle primary defies imagination.  Given the money both could spend on such a race, a deal would likely be brokered by the state and county party chairmen before it would occur.  But if ego got the better of either of them, it would be quite a race.   A more sensible sceanario would be for one of the millionaires to take on U.S . Senator Robert Menendez while the other takes on Holt.  

So while redistricting Pallone and Smith into the same district could make the Republican nomination contest in the Holt’s district more interesting, a Pallone-Smith battle is unlikely even should a district be drawn that way.  Should such a district be drawn look for Pallone to retire from the House and use his hefty war chest as a down payment for a statewide race for Governor in 2013.

Pallone’s $4 million war chest would clear the field of Democratic candidates for Governor, unless Chris Christie isn’t a candidate or has anemic poll numbers, neither of which is likely.  Christie would love to defeat Pallone, which he would but it would probably be a close race.  Pallone would then run for U.S. Senate in 2014, assuming Frank Lautenberg finally retires.

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Grading the Governor

By Art Gallagher

Tom Moran is the editorial page editor of the Star Ledger and the reporter who unwittingly made Governor Chris Christie a YouTube sensation.

Moran decided that its time to grade the Governor.  In a column published on Sunday, the pernicious pundit acknowledges that independent polls indicate that the voters are rating the Governor with A’s and B’s. He spends the rest of the column telling the voters (us) why they (we) are wrong about Christie. Moran say Christie only gets a C.

It’s a good thing that New Jersey pays little heed to Moran. If we did, Chris Daggett would be Governor and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver would be taken seriously.

Moran gives Christie high marks for courage, calling the Governor a cage fighter for his cause.  Despite this A, Moran gives Christie demerits for failing to compromise.  This has been a theme of Moran’s throughout the year. Christie came to Trenton promising to turn the place upside down.  Moran wants him to be nice while breaking the furniture.

Moran even gives the Governor a B on the budget, even though he calls Christie’s claim that he plugged an $11 billion budget hole “farcical.”

On the 2% property tax cap, Moran says Christie will earn a spot on the honor roll if it works, but so far it hasn’t. Duh. It hasn’t even gone into effect yet, and the “tool kit” negotiations with the Democratic legislative leadership are ongoing. Moran criticises Christie for not caving and accepting Oliver’s and Senate President Steve Sweeney’s first offer.

Moran takes Christie to task for calling Oliver a liar over her assertion that she tried to meet with Christie over the “tool kit.”

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver was shocked when she learned that the governor had accused her of lying.

“That has irreparably affected my ability to work with this governor,” she says. “For him to cast aspersions on my integrity and say I would lie? That did it. That showed me I really cannot have a trusting relationship with this governor. Because he will distort the truth. He will stand up and lie.

“It was a game changer for me, a total game changer.”

Will Oliver’s resignation as Speaker be forthcoming?  If she can’t or won’t work with the Governor she has no business being Speaker.   Oliver should be grateful that the Governor and most of the media gave her (and Moran) a pass when she called the Governor racist in an earlier Moran column.

Moran seems to think it is a problem for Christie that Oliver and U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg “hate his guts.” 

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg felt this sting as well. After he criticized the governor for killing the Hudson River tunnel project, the governor lashed out.

“All he knows how to do is blow hot air,” Christie said. “So I don’t really care what Frank Lautenberg has to say about much of anything.”

This is the downside of the governor’s straight talk. He has to work with Oliver and Lautenberg, like it or not. And now they both seem to hate his guts.

“Look, I worked with Tom Kean and Christie Whitman, and had no problems,” Lautenberg says. “This is really unusual. There’s been hardly any communication from his office, and I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I put my heart and soul into this, and to have someone calling me names and trying to shame me? It’s incomprehensible.”

Lautenberg is old and has been very sick for most of the year. He can be forgiven for not noticing that Christie is not Tom Kean or Christie Whitman.  Now that he’s woken up, he’ll start comprehending, if his heart and soul are really in his job.  How effective has he been for us on the Appropriations Committee anyway?

Moran is right about one thing.  Christie hasn’t delivered yet.  But that is not the measure by which to grade a Governor 11 months into his term.  Moran is a liberal ideologue masquerading as a moderate.  Like ideologues on the right who are critical of Christie because he hasn’t fixed all the inequities of New Jersey government in 11 months, he is driven only by his own narrow agenda.

The NJEA is having a news conference in Trenton today to propose education reforms including “significant reform of the tenure system.”   That is remarkable.  Even if the proposed reforms are full of loop holes, which as a Jersey cynic I suspect they will be, the fact that the NJEA has entered the reform conversation is truly remarkable.  Chris Christie made that happen.

Civil Service and binding arbitration is going to be reformed.  Mayors and councils are going to be unbound from the ties that have driven property taxes to catastrophic levels and be empowered to truly manage their communities rather than rubber stamp state mandates. That is unbelievable. Chris Christie made that happen.

The 2% property tax cap, even with its exceptions, will truly force a reduction in the size of government, especially when inflation kicks in. Share services will become a reality out of necessity, rather than something community leaders pay lip service to during elections.

Chris Christie has changed the tone and transformed the direction of government in New Jersey. “Changed has arrived” he declared in his inaugural address.  He is deliverying change.  Trenton is not quite upside down yet, but it is surely tilted.  He can’t be graded by the old score card, because he has changed the game in New Jersey and given Governors throughout the nation, and our leaders in Washington new rules.

Rather than a report card, lets judge Christie with a scorecard.

Christie is leading by a wide margin as the first quarter of his term comes to a close.  Yet, the opposition of special interests and trough swillers have been studying the films and making adjustments.  The final minutes of the quarter are critical as the effectiveness of the tool kit will be determined.  Next year, the second quarter, is when the real heavy lifitng will start. Legislative redistricting, the budget and the legislative election will dominate the agenda.  Municipal budgets drawn under the 2% cap will dominate the news.  As the economy improves, if it does, “we don’t have the money” will not work as well in forcing reforms.

Christie gets an A for his first year.  Next year will be the real test.  Mid-terms will be in November.  If the voters give Christie and A or B in the form of a Republican legislature, we’ll find out what “turning Trenton upside down” really means.

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Sad Story Continues At Fort Hancock

Pallone, Lautenberg and Menendez should put up. The Asbury Park Press should shut up

By Art Gallagher

In their editorial today, Sad chapter ends at fort, the Asbury Park Press editorial board demonstrates that their grasp of reality is insufficient for a newspaper of record for the Monmouth-Ocean region.

The press rehashes the sorry history of  Sandy Hook Partners’ failed plans to redevelop Fort Hancock. They fault the National Park Service for granting the developer nine years of extensions to obtain financing for the redevelopment plans.  They fail to mention that SHP’s ability to finance the project was thwarted by litigation and grassroots opposition to the commercialization of the park.  The litigation and opposition was supported by the APP and by Congressman Frank Pallone.

Now the APP says,

Fort Hancock must be preserved for future generations. In order for that to happen, a developer or developers with both the money and sound plans need to be found. The park service would do well to heed the suggestion by Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, both D-N.J., that the historic buildings be leased to entities one by one, rather than as a package.

Clearly, neither the Neptune Nudniks nor the Congressmen have even an elementary understanding of how development works.

Where does Pallone, Holt and the APP think the Park Service will find a developer, or developers, with an extra $60-$100 million sitting in the bank who would be willing to commit it to Fort Hancock after what Sandy Hook Partners went through? James Wassel, the head of SHP is no slouch.  His experience and personal committment to our community made him the right developer, if a public-private partnership was the best method to redevelop the fort.

Private partners were, and apparently still are, sought because federal dollars are not available to rehabilitate the park.  Said another way, Frank Pallone, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (and Jon Corzine, as U.S. Senator before Menedez) either did not have the clout or commiment to secure federal funding to rehabilitate Fort Hancock.

The Pallone/Holt/APP idea of leasing the 36 buildings of the fort one by one, to non-profits, rather than as a package, is crazy.  Even if 36 organizations “with both money and sound plans” on hand could be found, managing 36 separate projects with 36 separate project managers is not feasible.

Wassel’s plan to “commercialise” Sandy Hook would not have turned the park into Times Square or the Monmouth Mall.  He would have developed the fort into an educational and cultural campus.

As a neighbor of and frequent visitor to Sandy Hook, I never understood how Wassel’s plans would have been commercially viable or returned the investment required for the rehabilitation, given the location and climate of the site.  Yet, I supported the plan because the proposed usage would have been an enhancement of the park.  If private investors or lenders were willing to risk their capital on a project that enhanced the park while giving the National Park Service control of what could be done with the site in the event of failure, there was no downside for the public.  Yes, I read the master lease.  The public was protected from turning Fort Hancock into an amusement park or shopping mall.

Now that Wassel’s is out of the picture, it is incumbent upon our federal representitives to secure funding to preserve the fort.  Failing that, the Park Service should fence it off and install Keep Out-Hazardous signs like there has been for most of the fort’s ruins for decades. 

Alternatively, the Park Service should either level the buildings and convert the land to a recreational use like a marina and camp ground.

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Holt/Lautenberg Employment Discrimination Complaint

This beats “Twinkle Twinkle Kenneth Star”

By Art Gallagher

MoreMonmouthMusings just received a copy of the lawsuit, the complaint and answer, against Rush Holt and Frank Launtenberg for employment discrimination against African-Americans during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

You can view the document by clicking here.  The red meat starts on page seven.

Here’s a tidbit to get you started:

I’ll be going through the document and making commentary as time allows.  Please, jump right in and make comments about what you find in the meantime.

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Ex-Holt Staffer Claims He Was Fired For Hiring African-Americans

A canvass director responsible for recruiting workers to go door to door for Congressman Rush Holt and Senator Frank Lautenberg during the 2008 general election claims that he was fired for hiring African-Americans to canvass white neighborhoods in the 12th congressional district, according to a report in the Star Ledger.

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