Monday News Roundup

New Gloucester County DFA group gets front page coverage in Gloucester County Times (0.00 / 0)

I knew that the GCT would be publishing a write up of our first meeting in yesterday's Sunday paper. I didn't realize that the article would be on the front page with two pictures!

This follows on the heels of an article and an editorial last week.

We are off to a good start in South Jersey.  We will be presenting an effective municipal level ban on pay to play to the Washington Township Council in late March.  If they don't implement it, we will get the signatures necessary to put it on November's ballot.  Our members in Deptford are working on the same petition there.  If the state refuses to pass a real ban on pay to play, we will just have to do it one town at a time!

If anyone is interested in doing something similar in their town, please let me know.

josh_aronovitch@yahoo.com

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by: Josh Aronovitch @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 12:39:48 PM UTC

this is a great article! (0.00 / 0)

Frank LoBiondo Record and Jon Runyan Watch

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by: Hopeful @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 13:29:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Welcome to Atlantic City, (0.00 / 0)

"New Jersey's G-spot". There's some serious marketing potential there.

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by: Sidd Finch @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 14:41:03 PM UTC

Christmas Tree Items (0.00 / 0)

NYT -

http://www.nytimes.c...

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by: SmartyJones @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 14:55:15 PM UTC

Fort Dix, NJ (0.00 / 0)

I have been so sickened by the treatment of our soldiers at Walter Reed and know this problem is endemic to the system.  Since this is a NJ forum, how are our soldiers faring at Fort Dix?  Do we have good information how soldiers are being treated here in NJ?  I think this is a good time to make sure soldiers here are being treated well.  We have a strong anti-war movement here, is our support for wounded soldiers as strong right now?  If not, this would be a good time to raise awareness and support right here in NJ. 

One Vote.  Yours.  It really does matter.

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by: carolh @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 19:42:13 PM UTC

wapo on Fort Dix (0.00 / 0)

From yesterdays wapo:

From Fort Dix in New Jersey: "Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs."

and this

Soldiers back from Iraq worry that their psychological problems are only beginning to surface. "The hammer is just coming down, I can feel it," said retired Maj. Anthony DeStefano of New Jersey, describing his descent into post-traumatic stress and the Army's propensity to medicate rather than talk. When he returned home, Army doctors put him on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. "That way, you can screw their lights out and they won't feel a thing," he said of patients like himself. "By the time they understand what is going on, they are through the Board and stuck with an unfavorable percentage of disability" benefits.

wapo link

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by: zora01 @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 17:41:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Toll Roads (0.00 / 0)

This borrowing against future tolls sounds like smoke and morrors to me, but I like it better than the smoke and mirrors that involves the pension fund.  To me, that sounds like a) Corzine finally put some funds in to attempt to make up for the State's breach of contract for the last 7-10 years b) Another .5% is chocked out of the workers to bolster the fund c) The fund is drained again when it "buys" the Turnpike.
What happened to the "municiple consolidation" plans?

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by: deme38 @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 20:40:12 PM UTC

don't see Andrews on the comm. looking into Walter Reed (0.00 / 0)

It looks to me like the House Reform committee (Waxman's), led by a subcommittee, is running the hearings today.  I haven't see any sign of the Armed Services Oversight subcommittee that Andrews sits on being a partner in today's hearings, yet Andrews told the reporters his subcommittee would be there today.  I'd be surprised if they ran another set of hearings.  Unless I missed something...

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by: kwilkinson @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 20:43:39 PM UTC

katrina.... (0.00 / 0)

...i think the Walter Reed hearing was reschedueled.  this is second hand info.  can anyone confirm?

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 21:11:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

cspan re-broadcast, all afternoon (0.00 / 0)

I watched the subcommittee of Waxman's House Reform and Oversight comm. hearings with three victims of Walter Reed outpatient & the DOD/VA system.  Two were from the WaPo article. 

Is there a connection to the hurricane?

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by: kwilkinson @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 05:08:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

armed services did have a hearing after all (0.00 / 0)

It doesn't look like it was the new oversight subcomm. that Andrews is on, but the whole House Armed Services Comm had a hearing scheduled yesterday:

The Full Committee will meet to receive testimony on challenges and obstacles wounded and injured service members face during recovery.

  Witnesses:
  Dr. David S.C. Chu
  Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness

  Dr. William Winkenwerder
  Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs

  General Peter J. Schoomaker, USA
  Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

  Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, USA
  The Surgeon General, U.S. Army

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by: kwilkinson @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 01:46:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Dual Office Holding is The Tip of the Underwater Volcano... (0.00 / 0)

...that emerges as a new island.

The issue is so simple to grasp and patently wrong on its face that virtually anyone who hears about it (79%)is irritated at a gut level if not outright pissed off....and that number would be even higher if it was more than a cursory question that was asked.  If there was a proper case made, I dare say it would shoot up into he 90% range!

Most New Jerseyans, (this place excepted) don't want to talk about this stuff because they don't think it'll ever change; "that's the way it is" etc etc etc.  But when directly asked they clearly don't like it.

If/When the detailed reality of pay to play legalized bribery is ever truly/effectively brought to the public's consciousness (in such a way that there is hope of a cure presented at the same time) they will be positively responsive in the same numbers.

Unfortunately, if you read the following excerpt; Even Dick Codey can't get his head to surround the concept that dual office holding is categorically wrong...he tries to minimize it as if the disapproval it were a trivial quirk of public opinion.

The NJ Democratic party STILL has a chance to righteously exploit these ethical issues.  When I say exploit I mean a sincere honest all out commitment to radical change in the direction of honesty and goodness (oh my!); not cosmetic placation and bs.  The status quo is not sustainable.

You really "can't fool all the people all the time".

http://www.northjers...

Frowned on in common law, holding two elective offices is unconstitutional or illegal in many states, and simply not done in most.

"Even when it isn't banned, it doesn't occur that much," said Peggy Kerns, director of the National Conference of State Legislatures' ethics center. "Most places don't do it."

A 2004 report by the Center for Public Integrity found that one in three New Jersey legislators were collecting a second government paycheck for an elected or appointed job, far more than in any other state. The national average was one in 10.

One of the few other places where politicians commonly hold multiple elected offices is France, where they have at least come up with a nice name for it (cumul des mandats, or "accumulation of mandates"). Even there, it comes in for regular criticism as a sign of French political elites' coziness and cronyism.

'Tremendous pressure'

The New Jersey Legislature's latest effort to prohibit multiple offices stalled last month amid the usual angling to target or protect particular lawmakers.

Still, even those who proudly serve two peoples have taken on an air of resignation about the forces aligning against them.

"There is tremendous pressure on a number of levels," said Gary Schaer, a Democratic state assemblyman and the Passaic City Council president.

Schaer and others pointed out that the voters have regular opportunities to eject politicians from one or both of their offices. But state Senate President Richard J. Codey, whose Democrats have repeatedly balked at passing a one-office-per-person limit, said the practice irritates the public at large.

"I don't see it as an ethical problem, but people in general don't like it," Codey said. "Overwhelmingly, they say one person, one job."

A remarkable 79 percent of New Jersey voters said state lawmakers should not be allowed to have another government job of any kind, elected or otherwise, in a Quinnipiac University poll released last week.

"The public has come to look at this as a standard of whether we are serious about reform," the governor said. "The reality of dual office-holding is really a bug in the public's craw, and at some point you ought to be responsive to that."

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by: Nick Lento @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 13:06:08 PM UTC