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Fri Feb 10, 2012 at 07:37:28 AM EST
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Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing
Sen. Bateman proposes bill to let voters decide if N.J. should legalize same-sex marriage, which Sen. Sweeney said was not going to be considered, about 2 seconds after Bateman said it during Senate Judiciary testimony on S-1 Jan. 24.
"Fearless"? Or "Stupid"? Christie comes to Denville for "Town Hall"
At Christie's 5th "Town Hall" this year, most of the questions were education-flavored, but one woman rose to comment on his vow to veto same-sex marriage, calling him "fearless". "Or stupid," he shot back.
Christie appoints new director of NJ Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness
Edward Dickson.
Dark dreams of Chris Christie
The desire, and the scenaria-imaginings continue ... (The Hill)
Christie pining continues: Growing concern about the weakness of the GOP field, and hope for a late entrant to jump in ... (Politico)
Mitt Romney's Struggles Take Republican Angst to New Heights (Huffington Post)
Yes, it's right-wing Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin's fangirl enthusiasm for Christie going after NJEA's Giordano that inspired some of the latest wave of Christie Guv-Luv.
Life's not fair, and neither is Christie
Al Doblin provides a little context to Christie's flaming reaction to NJEA Giordano's remark.
Rothman & Pascrell & the Giants
Sigh.
Menendez takes the right side in the trumped-up response to Obama's contraceptive mandate
Good for him.
More Menendez: The Senator, Chair of the Senate Housing Committee, introduces a bill designed to keep homeowners whose mortgage debt exceeds the value of their home, in their homes.
"The Gubernatorial Bruise Brothers"
New York Times finds the political bellowing from Christie & Cuomo over Port Authority spending little rooted in reality. (NYT)
Port Authority officials answer questions on Christie-Cuomo audit, but say little. (Capital)
Additional Assorted Christie
Christie's Israel remarks: Is he thinking beyond N.J.?
Passaic is considering charging disabled residents for street parking
Really, Passaic?
Jerseynomics
Gov. Christie's plan to spend $300M less on Medicaid this year has hit a snag with the federal government that jeopardizes about $107M of the savings he anticipated in the current state budget.
New Jersey and residents damaged by the foreclosure crisis would receive an estimated $838M from a $26B national settlement among the states and 5 major lenders. But that's just pennies on the dollar.
Fraud crackdown helps NJ cut unemployment tab.
Is Atlantic City back in black?
Wired MD: NJ gets federal funding to digitize patient records.
Grievance filed, partially resolved over philly.com stories removed or altered without consulting the reporter
One of those stories was about the Ed Rendell-George Norcross investor group looking to buy the company, which includes Philadelphia Inquirer and its online philly.com.
Christie talks about the possible Inky takeover: "That would certainly be interesting," a giggling Christie said. "I would love to have Norcross be (Inquirer scribe Matt) Katz's new boss. Norcross and Katz: perfect together."
Education
New Jersey gets No Child Left Behind waiver, with 9 other states. Stan Karp, at Education Law Center called NJ's waiver "essentially a blank check, without significant funding, for Gov. Christie's 'reform agenda' of massive increases in testing and state intervention in local schools and districts."
Elizabeth BOE unleashes political combatants.
Trentonia
NJ Senate Committee Again Passes Measure to Ban Fracking.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 at 10:53:29 PM EST
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I just learned that this is actually a "term of endearment". So I hope everyone uses this opening in all Valentine's notes to your loved ones.
Sorry. I couldn't resist another snarky one.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 at 01:41:30 PM EST
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I'm reading an article in PolitickerNJ, a site that has atrophied and shriveled since it lost Wally Edge, and am once again pulling the hair out of my head.
Darryl Isherwood wrote the following insanity:
As it is currently implemented, the school funding formula is all about taking money from taxpayers to give to "certain taxpayers" to educate their kids. What Giordano objects to is using it for private schools.
Isherwood equates the state providing extra tax dollars to communities where education is more expensive with using tax dollars to pay for private education with no public oversight.
This exhibits a dramatic ignorance of what publicly funded education is about. He's swallowed the right wing idea that it's about taxpayers getting a bang for their buck, and in particular taxpaying parents.
I'll repeat myself: It's not about the taxpaying parents.
More below the fold...
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Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 06:52:58 AM EST
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promoted by Rosi So, the Giants won the Super Bowl, and I hope my friends who are Giants fans enjoyed their parade. I sure enjoyed the parade when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008.
Governor Christie wanted the parade in New Jersey, since that is where the Giants play their home games, but I say lets let New Jersey reap the tax revenues and let New York City pay for the parade, which we cannot afford.
Now, some are calling for a parade to honor the returning veterans of the war in Iraq. I respectfully disagree. While I certainly appreciate the desire to honor the sacrifices of those who gave so much, a day of jingoistic flag-waving is not the way to do it.
These veterans are coming home physically, mentally, and emotionally injured. They are coming back to a place where job prospects are weak. What they need is access to health care and job opportunities, not a parade.
As long as the war in Afghanistan continues, as long as drone attacks continue to kill innocent civilians and conduct targeted assassinations, including American citizens, as long as saber rattling replaces diplomacy with Iran, Syria and elsewhere, how about we hold off on the parades.
Let's end this state of perpetual war, and then we'll have something to celebrate.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 at 09:53:25 AM EST
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Now that "CaptainSlogan" Governor Christie ("Mission Accomplished", anyone?) and LG Guadagno are doing another round of public relation events to sell their plan to give more government handouts to the super rich in the form of unnecessary and unaffordable tax cuts that would cripple the state and middle class, more information is coming out to show just how farcical this really is. When meeting with around 100 mayors yesterday to tout more slogans about NJ and a so-called business friendly environment that just doesn't exist on their watch, the mayors generally wanted nothing to do with her comments, citing property tax relief and state aid as more important. There was also this nugget from Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, who is the senior Republican member on the budget committee: [he] said the administration would be inclined to restore some aid to towns in the budget this year, but state revenues have been sluggish.
"By now we expected to see higher rates of growth," he said. "The governor didn't arbitrarily cut these things. We had to make some tough budget decisions."
So we hear that there isn't enough money for helping towns and restoring services, and as I wrote recently, the overwhelming majority of this approximately $1 billion government subsidy would essentially be Millionaire Welfare - saving them roughly $9,000 (on the low end) per year, while a family earning $50,000 would save a whopping $80 per year. Ironically, Christie stated the following in his State of the State address:"Make no mistake - we are in a competition," he said in his speech. "In Connecticut, the governor has raised income tax rates on top earners and job creators. And New York last month enacted legislation to do the same. ... The best way to compete is to show a different direction." But if you look at what has gone on here in NJ as compared to the rest of the country, and even NY, what Christie says and reality are far apart - especially when it comes to judging the impact of his prior year Millionaire Welfare program and his track record with businesses. For starters, NJ has lagged behind other states, while Christie flat out overinflates his record on job creation. Secondly, New York has had much better success than NJ in adding jobs - and even Christie's attempts to poach businesses from NY has failed while he had killed countless jobs along with the killing of the ARC tunnel and gave a very bad signal when he killed the film credit.To continue showing how bad NJ has been for business despite Christie's bluster, New Jersey has been ranked in the BOTTOM 2 states in Gallup's Job Creation Index in both 2010 and in 2011. Assemblyman O'Scanlon's comments yesterday, whether an innocent slip or not, just confirm what most of us were already saying for a long time - no matter how many slogans Christie comes out with, his policies are the same retreads - more welfare and government handouts to the super rich and more made up nonsense at the expense of most of New Jerseyans.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 at 07:43:00 AM EST
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Christie & NJEA's Vince Giordano take feud to new level
Christie and Giordano call on each other to resign. Neither is going to happen.
Sen. Weinberg calls Christie out on his selective outrage.
Spending priorities
Christie uses his bully pulpit to talk up his income tax cut plan, while Dems say addressing property taxes is way more important.
Declan O'Scanlon, senior Republican member on the Assembly Budget committee, said the administration would be inclined to restore some aid to towns in the budget this year, but state revenues have been sluggish. But somehow there's enough money for an income tax cut?
Additional Assorted Christie
Is Christie's tough-guy act still authentic?
Christie: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made.
Little RGGI rally surprised Christie at Westfield "Town Hall">
Chris Christie is a Desperate, Desperate Man. (Philly Post editorial)
What's in the records on Phillip Kwon Christie doesn't want out?
Senate Dems want Kwon to release tax returns for the wine & liquor store owned by his family that was the subject of a federal investigation. But Christie says: "I'm not responding to their calls for anything from these nominees."
Christie: Christie: leaking his Supreme Court nominees' confidential questionnaires may have been illegal and senators who talked publicly about info in the documents violated their own chamber's ethics rules. Singles out Weinberg, Sarlo & Lesniak for "unprecedented and outrageous" actions.
Opinion: Harris and Kwon -- Get On With It: Christie's surprising Supreme Court nominees deserve a hearing -- sooner, rather than later. (Michale Aron)
Vastly altered fundraising landscape since marriage equality fight 2 years ago
Garden State Equality lost the massive financial backing of Gill Action Fund, which raised $1M for the effort in 2009, but is likely to gain other powerful backers - including one who is a strong GOP backer of Chris Christie.
We spent much of the day yesterday discussing this:
Why I Support Eliminating Sick Day Payouts
vs.
Why I Am Against the Sweeney Sick Day Plan.
Sen. Sarlo to mayors: Many of you have yourselves to blame for the high cost of sick time payouts.
Trentonia
Fracking comes up today in Senate Environmental Energy Committee.
Open government is essential; support Sen. Loretta Weinberg's two bills. (Montclair Times editorial)
NJ Catholic leaders join national outcry against Obama's new birth control policy
Can't say I remember a reaction this strong to the child sexual abuse scandals of kids who were actually, you know, born.
Education
Groundbreaking today on 'Teachers Village' in Newark - Booker & Christie & Goldman Sachs CEO will all be there.
NJ's teacher evaluation pilot has gotten off to a mixed start, but will expand - with tweaks - to 30 or fewer districts next year, not the whole state as planned.
More Andrews trips to Southern California in question
Trips, apparently paid with campaign funds, that coincided with recording sessions his aspiring pop star daughter had. Andrews camp says all spending was "fully legal and proper".
Dems want former Giant Harry Carson to run against Garrett
Yes, it's probably a good time for a former Giant to run, if he's ever going to. In other news, any former Giants live in NJ-7 to run against Leonard Lance? Just askin'.
Jerseynomics
Amazon.com plans 2 warehouses & 1,500 jobs - if they can get a 22-month sales tax break. Is that fair to local merchants?
This week's damaging audit of Port Authority spur Asw Valerie Huttle and a NY Senator to call for toll hike rollback.
Proposed minimum-wage increase stirs debate, especially in farm sector.
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Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 09:58:01 PM EST
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Governor Christie wants Vince Giordano to resign as Executive Director of NJEA for saying "Life is not fair" concerning children who attend sub-par schools. An insensitive remark, no doubt.
Now to "his" candidate, Mitt Romney. Remember that guy is running for President, and he said, "I'm not worried about poor people". No comment from Romney's #1 Jersey supporter! I'm just sayin.
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Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 03:48:43 PM EST
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Yeah, I back the idea of eliminating sick day payouts. Not for the reason Steve Sweeney or Chris Christie are, to save money, but I do think it's a good idea.
Before I go any further, I agree with Jersey Jazzman that there should be some tat for this tit. As I said the Sweeney-Christie team are looking to reduce government costs, but I don't think that should be done on the backs of workers.
But sick days are necessary to the health of the employees, the health of the various governments and the health of the state.
More below the fold.
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Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 09:30:00 AM EST
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NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney unveiled a plan today to completely do away with unused sick day payouts:
Democrats had previously wanted to cap sick leave pay for future accumulated unused days at $15,000, then offered to lower the cap to $7,500. But Christie has been steadfast to his opposition to any compromise, lambasting the Democrats' proposals telling town hall gatherings "zero means zero."
Under Sweeney's proposal, payouts for unused sick leave would be limited to what workers have already earned.
Currently, state workers' retirement take home pay for unused sick days is capped at $15,000. But some local governments have no limits, causing budget strain.
Full disclosure: I am a public school teacher. And I am against this plan; here's why:
1) It is a well-established fact that public employees with significant experience or higher education make less in salaries than private sector employees. There is a body of excellent scholarship that shows teachers are relatively underpaid, and that benefits do not make up the gap in compensation. Recent studies have confirmed public workers make less than private workers, and the gap grows greater as the level of education of the employee rises.
More below the fold.
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