Kiss Your Own Damn Baby! And How To Garner 11% Of The Vote

By Tommy DeSeno, also published at ricochet.com

An old friend of mine is running for state Assembly in New Jersey.   He is an independent, and has one of the more interesting campaigns you will see.

Dan Jacobson served one term in the Assembly over 20 years ago when he was in his 20s – as a Democrat.

As a more mature adult today, he has thrown off the barbed reins of the Democratic dark side.  He now sees himself as fiscally conservative as the rest of us, ranting in his weekly newspaper (disclaimer – I used to rant in columns for it) about the problems with unions and politics, among other issues Republicans would like.  

On social issues he is a Libertarian, though a bit libertine for some tastes.  The only thing left of his old Democrat ways as far as I can tell is that Dan doesn’t seem to know what a baby is or where one hangs out the first 9 months of his or her life.

Which is probably why he won’t kiss yours.

What truly makes his campaign interesting is the way he runs it:  He takes no donations.   He seeks no endorsements.   He holds no rallies.  He has no staff.  He networks with no one. 

Truly independent!    His goal seems to be a campaign that isn’t one, by a candidate who refuses to be one; thus his refusal to honor the political tradition of kissing your baby. He wants to go to Trenton not owing anyone anything.  Good luck with that, Dan.

I once ran a political experiment and found that a truly independent candidate who runs only on issues and seeks no endorsements gets 11% of the vote.  That’s important  – every campaign manager in America should know that issues will garner 11% of the vote.  I predict Dan will get 11% of the vote. 

In the meantime, check out more of his funny newspaper ads that he has run about his campaign.  They are different, and it will make you smile that this campaign is real:

http://danjacobson.net/ads.html

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DeSeno On FoxNews.com Live This Morning

Tommy DeSeno will be appearing on FoxNews.com Live this morning at about 11:15.

DeSeno will be commenting on the GOP Presidential nomination race and Congressman Paul Ryan’s looks.

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NJ 101.5 To Continue Their Tradition of Pretending To Be About New Jersey

By Tommy DeSeno

I’m sure you remember the row that took place a few years back when it was revealed that “Jersey Guys” Craig Carton and Ray Rossi weren’t exactly Jersey Guys.
 
It all blew up when that shivering pantywaist Carton ran away from the studio in fear because the state police held a presser and pictured a copy of his license plate, showing he was a “Pennsylvania” guy.  Carton actually claimed people would try to hurt him, and left the state. What a punk.  It was his second time running like a rabbit.  The first time fled the studio was when he thought Dick Codey was going to kick his ass for taking cheap shots at Mrs. Codey.  I wish Codey had.
 
Rossi is a guy who spent most of his life not from here, but moved here to take the Jersey gig.  Not exactly a Jersey Guy himself.
 
Carton left and was replaced by a new “Jersey Guy,” Californian Casey Bartholemew.
 
The only Jersey connection I could see to the show was frequent guest and Gannett writer Bob Ingle.  However I can’t tell you how Bob did because I refused to listen after the hypocrisy of a station whose tag line is “Not New York…Not Philadelphia”  was revealed to be “not New Jersey, either.”
 
Now the faux New Jersey station has fired the faux Jersey Guys and are bringing back the old team of Deminski and Doyle –  who have been DJs in Michigan for the past 12 years.
 
Still not “Jersey enough” for me to listen.

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How Do We Feel About Government Charging Money To Swim In The Ocean?

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Meeting Vin Gopal

By Tommy DeSeno

Everyone has certain ideas that they’d like to be remembered for.  When you write a weekly column, you end up with a few of them.

One of mine is this:  “Politics is 1% of who we are.  Never let that stop you from getting to know the other 99% of a person.”

Last night I went to a party in Asbury Park to honor this year’s Independence Day Parade Grand Marshal, Hazel Samuels.

As I was handshaking and hugging old friends I hadn’t seen for some time, from the other side of a large round table someone introduced me to Vin Gopal. 

Since candidates become captive audiences during campaign season to anyone who wants to talk to them, I figured I’d go over and get a sense of the 11^th District Assembly candidate for the Democrats.

I ended up meeting a very likable fellow.  Vin’s physical demeanor is comfortable.  He sat in his chair sort of laid back and to the side rather than stiffly composed.  He wasn’t trying to dominate the people around him. His conversational tone was just that.  There were no contrived candidate sound bites. No “handlers” trying keep our conversation brief.  Although I’m sure he was “working the room” as candidates do, he did so in a way that made it seem he belonged in the room – that he was one of the gang.  A real natural.

 I did want to get into some issues, so I did the right thing and let Vin know that I am a journalist and asked him if I could go on the record with him so I wouldn’t sandbag him.  That’s the right way to handle that by the way.  There is a wrong way to do that, for instance if I were a member of the Highlands Republican Club, I wouldn’t go to a meeting as a club member, secretly decide everyone was on the record without telling them, and report what I heard, like you know who did. 

Anyway, Vin made some interesting points that conservatives might like. Let me share one in particular:

Something that irks Vin Gopal is unemployment insurance in New Jersey.  Vin is a small business owner.  He thinks unemployment is too easy to get, too easy to stay on and too easy to take unfair advantage of against employers.  He wants the system revised to be friendlier to business.

Very interesting!  I would have expected an answer like that from a Republican at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

One last point:  None of the Republican candidates were at the Asbury Park dinner, nor was Dan Jacobson.  I’ll note that when Sean Kean was the assemblyman and senator here, even though Asbury Park never voted for him, Sean supported and attended every Asbury Park function.  Thanks for being there, Vin Gopal.

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Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie

By Tommy DeSeno, Originally published on ricochet

I’m a bit moved today that an issue I’ve been hammering away at by my lonesome for a decade is finally getting some attention.

New Jersey is racially segregated.   Some of it is naturally occurring or of personal economic genesis. The birth of that kind of segregation requires no immoral act by mankind, though whether something should or can be done about it I leave for another debate.

Some of New Jersey’s racial segregation is state sponsored.  State sponsored racial segregation shouldn’t be, from both moral and economic perspectives. Something must be done about it.

New Jersey has the highest incomes in America, but Camden is the poorest city in America. The only way to have the highest incomes and the poorest city is to have a segregated poor.   Some of that segregation might have to do with the way public housing is built.   That might be a real issue, but that is not my issue today.

My issue is education, where state sponsored segregation is a certainty in New Jersey.   Brown v Board of Education may as well never have happened as far as the racially segregated City of Asbury Park is concerned. That is ironic since Asbury Park has a school named in honor of Thurgood Marshall, who was lead counsel on Brown v Board of Education.  Thurgood Marshall and its sister schools in Asbury Park, the High School in particular, are some of the most racially segregated schools in the country.

Let’s talk about how that happened.  Asbury Park is home to some of the poorest people in New Jersey, and while it is racially diverse, it is majority Black.  It’s only a little bigger than a square mile.  It is surrounded by other small towns, some of which rank as the wealthiest in New Jersey.  They are super-majority White. They are all tiny towns, too small to have their own High Schools. So for about 100 years, children in all the rich surrounding towns attended Asbury Park High School.

Asbury Park High ran well as a racially and economically diverse school.

In 1996 state action occurred.  New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education ruled that 15 miles away, another public school in very wealthy and very white Little Silver, NJ had a better music program than Asbury Park. Therefore, anyone who wanted to study music could be bused past their home school in Asbury Park and go to Little Silver, at taxpayer expense.

Suddenly, an unexplained outbreak of the desire to learn the oboe developed among the White students, who were instantly so musically gifted that they all passed the required audition and were accepted into the other public high school’s music program.

Over the past 15 years, they quietly allowed the rich surrounding towns to peel away from the Asbury Park School District to join districts geographically further away.

That took from Asbury Park it’s economic, cultural and racial diversity.  It left Asbury Park with just he lowest income students in the state, who for whatever reason you may wish to ascribe, happen to be Black.  To look at the class pictures in Asbury Park, you would think that in 1996 aliens abducted all the white kids, because they just suddenly disappear.

Some may not have a problem with this, but that’s only because I have yet to tell you about the money side.   If it is activist courts, social engineering and throwing money at poor schools as a magic elixir that stirs your emotions, behold:

New Jersey had a Supreme Court case called Abbott come down.  It stands for this proposition:  Poor school districts must be funded to the same level as the richest districts in the state. 

Thirty-two of the State’s 500+ school districts are identified as poor “Abbott Districts” and they receive billions of dollars in extra money from the State, because the Supreme Court says they have a “right” to everyone else’s money for being poor.

Asbury Park is one of those “Abbott” districts. It is one of the lowest performing school districts in the state.   Its budget?  About $90 million yearly.  It’s High School graduating class?  About 90 students. 

However, if we didn’t bus all those kids past the Asbury Park district and brought them back home where they live, Asbury Park would lose it’s “Abbott Designation” and taxpayers would save about $60 million in Abbott funding yearly.

Such an easy fix!  Now brace yourself for the ugly side of politics to learn why it isn’t done:

Most of the suburban White people will complain to high heaven about the money Asbury Park gets each year.  But ask them if they are willing to send their children back to their geographic home district, and they will say, “On second thought, why don’t you just keep that $60 million.”

The urban Blacks in Asbury Park are just as guilty.  While they may claim to abhor racial segregation, ask them to desegregate their school and their answer is, “And lose $60 million? No way!”

The children are caught in the middle.  They are racially and economically segregated by state action, and they know it.

Since no one’s hands are clean here, there is no reason to waste time with allegations that this happened because the White towns acted racially or the Black school was greedy.  Just fix it for the children, and the taxpayer.

I have been calling on every politician since 1996 to change that awful “music ruling” and bring the White children back to Asbury Park, or close Asbury Park and send the children to the surrounding High Schools, where each school would have to take only 15 students per grade.

I’ve never gained any traction, because no one wants to admit that Abbott funding is “segregation hush money.”

Until today.  I’m delighted that Art Gallagher, who runs New Jersey’s most prolific center-right blog More Monmouth Musings, has taken up the cause.

Art notes today that David Sciarra, Director of the Education Law Center who was responsible for bringing those Abbott cases, gave a speech yesterday lamenting the racial segregation he suddenly sees throughout New Jersey schools.

That is huge news.  I don’t care if Mr. Sciarra sees racial segregation as his organization’s fault or not.  I’m just glad he sees it.  He, of course, is on the left.  Mr. Gallagher is on the right.  For the first time in 30 years, New Jersey’s left and right identified the same problem with education: Segregation.

Art Gallagher has gained enough gravitas through his blog that he has been granted one-on-one interviews with Governor Christie himself.

I hope Art and Mr. Sciarra can get the Governor’s attention to tackle racial segregation in New Jersey schools.

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Education Inequality Is Not About Money. Its About Racial Segregation

Want lower property taxes?  Desegregate New Jersey Schools

By Art Gallagher

Finally!  Someone other than our friend Tommy DeSeno is speaking the truth about what is the real source of New Jersey’s highest in the nation property taxes and universally failing urban school districts: State sponsored racial segregation.

That’s right.  The reason our property taxes are so high and the reason urban school districts are falling is that New Jersey spends billions of dollars per year to educate white kids while spending even more, per child, to warehouse black kids and hispanic kids.

We make racial segregation sound virtuous by using terms like “home rule,””school-aid equity,” “thorough and efficient,” and “Abbott.”  Then we go to court and argue over how much money the state should send to Newark, Camden, Asbury Park and the other 27 Abbott Districts.   We don’t talk about the racial makeup of those districts, or we use the exception, Keansburg, to argue that the segregation is not about race….its about economics.

Its about racial segregation.  Liberal Blue Jersey’s schools resemble pre-1963 Alabama schools in their racial makeup.

Tommy DeSeno has been a lone voice on this issue for years.  He has used these pages at MMM for at least three years to tell the truth about New Jersey’s dirty open secret whenever a debate over education funding breaks out.  Read Tommy’s words here and here.  Read the comments.

Here’s a sample from November of 2008 for those of you who don’t want to follow the links:

Now, let’s you and I talk about Abbott Districts.

Asbury Park gets $60 million yearly in Abbott funds. It is per capita the most expensive Abbott in the state.

The district includes rich white towns like Avon, Allenhurst, Interlaken and Deal.

In 1996 they started busing the rich white kids past Asbury up to Red Bank Regional, another public high school about 6 or 7 miles away.

That CREATED Asbury as an Abbott district by segregating just the poorest black kids in the county to one school.

Here is a typical conversation I have with people from the rich towns surrounding Asbury:

RICH WHITE GUY: You know Tom, I resent having to send Asbury $60 million in Abbott funds from my tax money each year.

ME: If you stop busing your kids away and put them back in their home district in Asbury, then Asbury will lose its Abbott designation, and you won’t have to pay it anymore.

RICH WHITE GUY: You know Tom, on second thought, why don’t you just keep that $60 million.

Listen grasshopper, I’m going to teach you a dirty little secret about Abbotts, that the liberal press won’t tell you:

Abbott money in Asbury, is “segregation hush money.” Both sides of it are guilty.

White people will complain about the money, but won’t change anything because they don’t want their kids back in Asbury.

Black people will complain about the segregation, but they won’t change it either, because wasting $60 million a year in other people’s money is just way too much fun!

Meanwhile, Asbury kids are caught in the middle, attending a racially segregated school (and they know it), created by busing white kids away from their home district, as if Brown v Board of Education never happened.

There is a government caused racially segregated school right here where you live, Eric. Just like they had in the segregated south.

Tommy’s words have fallen on deaf ears because even after 30 years of the failed Abbott experiment, we would rather keep pouring money into the failed urban/minority districts and waste generations of minority kids lives than risk the “working” white school districts by regionalizing and desegregating the school districts.  We’d rather find a way to keep our “home rule” and come up with a way to make urban schools work, like charter schools,  rather than desegregate the urban schools with the successful suburban school just next door.  Let’s spend several hundred billion dollars more and waste another generation to see if we can make separate but equal work.

Maybe that will change now. 

The most powerful man in New Jersey over the last 30 years,the man who more than any other caused New Jersey school’s racial segregation, David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center, seems to have recognised the error of his ways, even if he is not taking responsibility for what his Abbott litigation has produced over the last three decades.

According to liberal Star Ledger columnist Bob Braun Sciarra appeared in New Brunswick this week with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and James Harris, the head of New Jersey’s NAACP.  He said:

“By any measure, New Jersey has one of the most segregated school systems in the country,” said David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center, the organization that brought the school aid cases to the state’s highest court.

“We have to reopen that front,” he added. “We have to start to talk about what we need to do to break down district boundaries.”

If Sciarra is serious about making education work for everybody and wants to start talking about breaking down district boundaries he can withdraw his litigation that is keeping those boundaries in place before the State Supreme Court rules that Governor Christie and the legislature needs to flush an additional $1.7 billion into a failed system in the coming fiscal year.

If Sciarra is serious about making education work for everyone, he will stop measuring education equality by dollars spent and work with, rather against, the government to create a system that works.  

I think he would find a willing partner in Governor Chris Christie, who more than any other elected leader in my lifetime has expressed his commitment to quality education for urban children.

It is time for New Jersey to confront the painful truth about our education system.  We can no longer afford to pretend that money is what will make education work.  We can no longer pretend that we are spending billions of dollars per year on something other than racially segregated schools.

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Kyrillos: Parents And Students Shouldn’t Be Forced To Pay For Degenerate Entertainment

By Art Gallagher

Referring to “Snooki” as a “degenerate reality television star who offers neither useful advice nor any appreciable talents,” Senator Joe Kyrillos announced that he was submitting legislation that would all require New Jersey’s public universities to make student activities fees optional.

His legislation comes in response to mandatory student activities fees at Rutgers University being used to fund a $32, 000 speaking fee for Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi.
“Students ought not be forced to fund entertainment or events that they find objectionable,” said Kyrillos. “There were a great deal of Rutgers students who I am certain were uninterested or flat out outraged by Ms. Polizzi’s appearance on campus.”

Kyrillos’ announcement quickly made national news when Tommy DeSeno wrote about it on Ricochet.

Polizzi, 23, didn’t tell MoreMonmouthMusings that she was using the $32,000 she picked up for her Rutgers performance as a down payment on a house in Keansburg so that she could seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Kyrillos this fall.

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Did Senator Kean Miss An Opportunity?

 By Tommy DeSeno

Have you ever seen a news wave?  It’s a real phenomenon in journalism.  One outlet says something, then outlet after outlet says the same thing, never verifying if the first outlet was right.  And you can’t stop a wave, even if it’s wrong.
 
As soon as the new 30th district was announced, immediately the word got out that Senator Singer would have the advantage over Senator Kean.  I guess Senator Kean concurred, having agreed to move down to the Assembly.
 
I like Singer.  But his comments in the Press yesterday that Sean Kean would be primaried even if Singer retired has me angry.  It’s as if Bob is throwing down the gauntlet and declaring that the rest of us will be governed by Lakewood for the next 10 years.
 
Well, as a Howell boy, I’m pretty upset that I had to be governed by Lakewood the last 10 years.  So I’m calling bullshit on Singer, which I can do even though we are friends, because I’m a journalist first.
 
Howell and Wall combined are larger than Lakewood, so if Howell and Wall got behind Kean, that could be a fair fight against Lakewood.
 
As for the rest of the district, those little Monmouth shore towns are larger than the 2 Pt. Pleasants, and Sean has name recognition there while Singer does not.
 
I know what the road block would have been – Howell Republicans.  They rarely get along.  But John Costigan is a strong Municipal Chair.  He could have pulled the Howell Republicans together (which would be a nice thing all by itself) to back Kean.  The rallying cry would have been provincial but effective –  Monmouth needs to keep a Senator.
 
I really wish Sean decided to stay Senator.  I’m not reading next week’s triCityNews, because I don’t want to know what Dan Jacobson will call Sean now.

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Hey Trenton – Keep Your Arse Off My Bicycle!

By Tommy DeSeno
Growing up in Asbury Park, having a bicycle stolen was a fairly common event.  Sometimes you’d get it back.  The kid who stole it was just joy riding and would leave it somewhere for you to find it again.
 
But then there were those other thieves – the ones who took your bike and sold it on some sort of bicycle black market the police would always claim the knew about but could never crack.  What bothered me most about those times was the money – the money I wouldn’t get back for the bike that was stolen, and the money I would have to spend on the replacement bike I would have to buy.
 
Thanks to Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker, (D – Essex) I’m getting that “someone stole my bicycle” feeling again.
 
Tucker has introduced Bill A3657, which I hope our Governor will veto with libertarian flair should it reach his desk.
 
The bill would require bicycles to be registered with a bill of sale like cars, and have a form of license plate displayed.  Every 2 years you’d have to pay another $10 to re-register your bicycle (there are 6 in my house) and if you didn’t register your bicycle, you’d face a $100 fine and revocation of your bicycle registration privileges.
 
Good grief.
 
Bicycles, at least for enthusiasts, are symbols of freedom and self-improvement.  To Democrat Tucker, it’s a chance for the government to collect revenue.
 
Bicycles are poorer folks means of transportation for the very reason that they are poor and can’t have a car.  To tax them is to reach way down to the lowest incomes to raise money for the government.  More proof that Democrats aren’t friends of the poor that will be ignored by the lame-stream liberal media.
 
Maybe we should have known this was coming.  Climate-change bullies have been trying to get us to ditch our cars and ride more bicycles for years.  Could taxes and fees on bicycles by Democrats have been far behind? 
 
Tucker will argue that the registration will help recover stolen bicycles.  Sure – because thieves are so dumb they won’t think to remove the registration tag.
 
I’d rather go out hunting for my stolen bike after it’s gone than pay a fee for a service that’s never going to work.

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