Madd as Hell

by: Juan Melli

Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 09:16:32 AM EDT

In November of 2001, the chairman of New Jersey's Mothers Against Drunk Driving announced that four of the state's thirteen chapters would be closing because "they can't afford overhead" due to lagging fundraising. That would mean that of the 5,000 calls they received each year, they would "not be able to handle about 40 percent of requests for service."

Teresa Hardt, spokeswoman for MADD's national organization...said the national funding is meant only to supplement local fund-raising, which has not been strong in the chapters that closed offices.

One of those four chapters was the Camden-Gloucester office. The state chairman of MADD at the time happened to be from Gloucester County - Clayton Borough police chief Frank Winters.

Yesterday state Attorney Stuart Rabner charged Winters and his wife with stealing $150,000 from MADD - equal to the annual operating expenses for the statewide organization. According to Rabner the couple "owned a company that was paid to create promotional materials for MADD, but never did." And while he was bleeding the organization of critical funding, Winters callously used 9/11 as cover for his crimes saying "we didn't expect to get hit as severely and abruptly as we did."

His ethical accomplishments didn't end there. After leaving MADD in 2004, he went on to run as a Republican for Assembly in the 4th district in 2005. It was alleged at the time that he used taxpayer money to purchase $2,000 worth of "pens, teddy bears and other supplies" (sound familiar?) from the same shell business. Though his defeat was nearly certain anyway, the GOP apparently wasn't concerned with ethics at the time and saw no reason to pull his candidacy. He went on to lose by over 25 points.

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A Child's Stigma

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GOP opportunism knocks

by: Hank Kalet

Tue Dec 26, 2006 at 04:56:54 PM EST

( - promoted by jmelli)

Cross posted from Channel Surfing:

Why is that Republicans never concern themselves with political reform when they are the majority party?

Consider the record: The party ran in 1991, in the wake of the unpopular Jim Florio tax hike, on a platform that included recall of elected officials and initiative and referendum. They controlled the Legislature for 10 years, the governor's mansion for eight, and we still have no I&R.

And then, after the McGreevey administration came to power, the GOP started pushing for pay-to-play reforms -- something that was off the table when the Whitman administration was botching E-ZPass and lottery contracts.

I raise this question after reading an Associated Press report saying that a pair of Morris County Republicans want to create a limited version of I&R for spending measures.

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Tom Kean Jr.'s Alternate-World History

by: Steven Hart

Sat Sep 23, 2006 at 12:38:00 PM EDT

Like the man said, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Especially when it’s in the hands of Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr., who apparently just heard the name "Frank Hague" last week and used it to construct an alternate-world fantasy history of New Jersey. Here's Kean's tour of his private parallel universe, after which I'll lead the party back to sunlight and civilization:

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