Earlier this week the Latino Action Network joined with the Women's Political Caucus, Latinas United for Political Empowerment - Political Action Committee, New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, Latino Coalition of Monmouth County, and Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO to file an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief in In re Contest of November 8, 2011 General Election of Office of New Jersey General Assembly, Fourth Legislative District, the New Jersey Supreme Court case in which Gabriela Mosquera's election as 4th District Assemblywoman in November 2011 is being challenged despite her having won more votes than her opponents.
On Wednesday, January 26, 2012 we heard that the Supreme Court has accepted our amicus brief.
One of her opponents, Shelley Lovett, argues that because Ms. Mosquera moved to the 4th District 11 months prior to the election, she violated a requirement in the New Jersey Constitution that all candidates must live in their district for at least a year. However, a federal judge back in 2002 had held that provision invalid under the United States Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. As such the Secretary of State (Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno) had told Ms. Mosquera that she could run for office, without challenge, and in fact every candidate since 2002 has been told the same thing.
S-2702. Another important issue being handled in Trenton. Goofing around for month's over allowing Jersey dairy farms to sell raw milk. Health concerns holding it up? Nobody is keeling over in surrounding states from drinking RAW milk. Great example of government being somewhere it should not be, then screwing around trying to get out of the way.
NJ Assemblyman Peter Biondi was a Republican. Usually you won't see a GOP legislator eulogized on Blue Jersey, and given my former reputation as a bit of a partisan many folks wouldn't expect to see me write it.
I met Pete in 1999 when I was managing the campaign against him for my father. He and my father connected and so I got to talk to Pete. He was funny, friendly and while he tried to wheedle campaign secrets from me he was not underhanded about it. I knew he was doing it, an he knew I knew. Still he tried, and still I parried.
He always asked after my father whenever we ran into each other on a campaign trail, down in Trenton or in Somerville. It was generous of him to do so.
When I ran for Freeholder in 2003 the Somerset County Democrats' office was next door to Pete's Assembly office. The late John Guerrera owned our building, and he and Pete were friendly rivals in trying to take or keep control in Hillsborough. Many nights I would come in from a night of campaigning and John and Pete would be in the back office drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars. I joined them many times, and loved watching these two war horses jockey with each other, try to steal information from each other, and tell great stories about their battles, successes and failures.
In 2004 I ran for Freeholder again, because I lost in 2003. Pete invited me in to his office and gave me advice even though we both knew my job in 2004 was not to win, but to take a spot on the ballot and aid other candidates up and down-ticket. Or maybe he gave me advice because he knew I had no chance.
I teased him because he was a New Jersey Assemblyman and had no NJ flag outside his office. He sloughed it off like he did many things, so I bought one for him and had it shipped with a smart-ass note. He put it up, took a picture and sent a smart-ass note back to me.
Over the years Pete did me a few favors, being a reference for jobs, co-sponsoring a bill to help the Red Cross and a few other things. I never had the opportunity or ability to do him any favors other than the flag. I wish I'd had that chance.
What are you thinking, Blue Jersey? - promoted by Rosi.
"Women, you increase your odds of keeping your men by being faithful, a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom." "Tell your women they can't talk to you but they can moan." "Your new survival philosophy toward women should be pay, play, now get the F-k away."
This disgusting language comes directly from the Twitter account of Republican senate candidate Phil Mitsch. I want to apologize to you, Blue Jersey community members, for sharing such foul sentiments. I'm sharing these remarks with you because, frankly, I am outraged. And you should be, too. Not only for the remarks themselves, but because of the deafening silence of the Republican Party on Phil Mitsch's comments.
On Friday, I stood with local female elected and community leaders in my home town of Cherry Hill to condemn Mr. Mitsch's remarks:
Incomprehensibly, Mr. Mitsch has downplayed his remarks as though making such derogatory anti-women comments is acceptable because they were intended as a joke. As I explain after the jump, he couldn't be more wrong.
Don't let the time-stamp on this put you off reading it. It was written during the hurricane. But we still have towns grappling with water. This is fascinating, and I didn't know any of it. Carolh is a stormwater engineer, and here she walks us through why we flood. Thanks Carol. - promoted by Rosi.
As Hurricane Irene, now a Category 1, bears down on us, as a stormwater drainage engineer, I need to remind folks that rainfall from ANY category hurricane can be deadly. It isn't just the water from the storm surge - it's the water from the sky.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) NJ offices is holding another stewards training to educate a new group of member activists for the fight against the attack on workers rights in New Jersey.
I was invited to present Blue Jersey and discuss the power of progressive blogging and activism through sharing stories and struggles from the offices and homes of working class families under attack by people like Chris Christie, Stephen Sweeney and George Norcross, III.
The last training brought about 80 members out of the dark and into the light of social media and activism. This new training is adding to the ranks and giving more power to the voice of workers in a fight for our very way of life and careers.
The training will focus on the many different avenues of communication available on the internet through Blue Jersey, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and personal blogs.
We posted over this last night with an update about the Dem state conference changes - sorry, deciminyan - so I'm pulling it up top for a bit. - Rosi
For many years, my wife and I have been lucky enough to take a week's vacation every summer on Long Beach Island. We look forward to a time of relaxation and enjoyment of the pristine beaches. But during his first term in office, Congressman Jon Runyan is working to take that pleasure away from us.
Working in lock-step with his Republican colleagues, Runyan is actively promoting off-shore oil drilling in the Atlantic and providing the wealthy oil companies (i.e his campaign contributors) with more financial benefits - as if they need them.
To be fair, Runyan is delivering on campaign promises. I don't understand why Ocean County residents would vote for someone who will put their tourism industry in jeopardy, but they did.
Now Runyan is making it even more attractive for oil companies to drill. He voted on a bill to allow these companies to obtain new leases, even while they owe the government payments for fines from previous sins. And while he's voting to cut Medicare in the (false) name of fiscal responsibility, he also voted against elimination of taxpayer subsidies to oil companies.
Drilling off the Atlantic coast is not the way to solve our insatiable lust for energy. It's not a matter of whether an oil spill will devastate Atlantic beaches, it's just a matter of when and how badly.
Our vacations on LBI have become even more cherished over the last couple of years, as we have started a family tradition of having our grandson (and his parents!) visit us at the beach each summer. They live 300 miles from the nearest ocean, so this is a special time for our grandson as well as us. Let's hope that Runyan's pro-oil, anti-tourism approach magically avoids Murphy's Law and that we don't see a repeat of the BP disaster in our back yard. For our grandson's sake and the sake of all those kids who love the beach.
How many more years will my son and grandson be able to enjoy LBI if Oilman Runyan has his way?
As you know by now, Blue Jersey's part of a national money bomb for Jeff Gardner's Senate primary campaign against 30-year incumbent John Girgenti. It's been a 10-day lead-up. And it all happens today - ticktickBOOM. Money bomb is a concentrated effort to ramp up focus & fundraising for a priority campaign, in a one-day burst. Today. This is Jeff's first money bomb, and Blue Jersey's. And it's trending hot. Can you join us?
THANK YOU to everybody who's already contributed. Every amount powers up Jeff's campaign, and gets us closer to having a fine and tough progressive working for his District and for all of us. So, at around 3:20pm, with hours left to go, here's an update:
None of us has ever done this before, and we didn't know what to expect. Your response is off-the-charts. We breezed past our $1,000 initial goal early this morning, and we're now pushing toward a goal of $5,000 or more today. And the buzz is ramping up. Jeff just finished his 2nd live-chat of the week at BlueAmerica's page at Crooks & Liars. And today, there were two posts about Jeff on the Recommended list at Daily Kos.
NJ is a state of many many rivers which flood badly enough that during the Japan Tsunami coverage on CNN, the anchor broke away for stories of flooding in NJ. We don't usually get 4 inches of rain in a day, but when we do, you can bet it will do some serious damage.
Even after all these years - NJ has had folks building here for 300 years already. Why do we still have such a hard time dealing with those little drops that fall from the sky?
Having worked in the field of stormwater management for 11 years I think I can tell you why. The reasons are not only scientific, but political, and very much dependent on human behavior, ego, stubbornness and fear.
Let's start with the scientific. Rain falling on a virgin piece of forest causes actually very little runoff. The rain hits each leaf, each branch, coating it first. A little splashes into tiny drops that evaporate quickly. This is why a tree is looked at by a stormwater engineer as a giant sponge in the air. Then the water makes its way slowly down the tree. Have you ever stood beneath a tree during a storm? You usually get a good few minutes of dryness - because the tree has intercepted quite a bit.
Then that water makes its way down the trees leaves dripping ultimately to the forest floor, where a mound of rich vegetation slows it down even more. It slowly seeps downward and much more gets absorbed by the decaying underbrush, and then, because the ground is pervious through the action of worms and critters in the fertile earth, the water that is left - that hasn't coated the trees and bushes or been locked in leaf litter or the soil, starts to move. It moves downward under the topsoil through cracks in the bedrock to underground aquifers. And also - this is important - it also moves LATERALLY - sideways to the nearest waterway stream or brook, OR low spot. It is water after all. Gravity affects it, but so does pressure, and osmosis. It will move wherever it can - except up (without a pump of course).
On a virgin piece of forest, there is practically no runoff at all. But here in NJ, where we LOVE our new construction, we see it all the time. ANY time you destroy virgin forest, you WILL create runoff. The tree is no longer there to intercept the rain, so you increase the water that reaches the earth. When you clear natural forest brush and replace it with lawn - which can't hold as much water, you increase the water even more. The soil can only hold so much water and can only pass through so much at a time - it's percolation rate. The overwhelming of the ability of the water to slowly seep to rivers and streams and aquifers means it's got to go somewhere, and so it becomes runoff - the stormwater you see. The water starts out as what we call sheet flow. It is like a very thin layer on a lawn, flowing down a gentle hill. After a certain distance, that water teams up with more water from the sky, and pretty soon, you have a rivulet, eroding the soil and making a sort of channel. These gullys concentrate the water further and pretty soon, you have even more runoff, which if you have ever had problems with this - and if you live in NJ you have - you can't grow anything in your yard because the topsoil has soon washed away. If you live near a river that is also now taking runoff from a thousand little runoff sources, your life may actually be in danger from the force of floodwaters exceeding the banks.
Now, that's just cutting down forest and replacing it with lawn. When we calculate runoff, the coefficient for forest is .25 - meaning the forest intercepts about 75% of the stuff that just fell from the sky. The coefficient for lawn is .51 - meaning the lawn now only intercepts HALF what the forest did. You just increased flooding potential without even BUILDING anything yet.
Now, when you slap a patch of concrete, or asphalt, or a building down over soil that used to absorb water and held it temporarily and kept it near the surface available for plants to use and return to the sky in a process called evapotranspiration, you now eliminate the soil, and the plants' contribution to avoiding runoff. You have pretty much just created runoff from nearly ALL the rainwater hitting the earth. And if you calculate it often, like I do, you start to realize just HOW MUCH water that is.
The quick and dirty formula is just this: CIA
C is the coefficient I just gave you. I is the intensity in inches per hour. Engineers typically use 2 inches per hour to size something to hold stormwater off your roof - for example. A is simply the area in acres. That gives you the amount of rainfall in cubic feet per SECOND. Multiply that by duration of the storm, and you get the volume.
On a typical 8th of an acre - a 5000 sf lot - completely covered in asphalt - the amount of stormwater runoff is 0.2 cubic feet per second. That doesn't seem like a lot until you add up all those seconds in a one hour. It's over 720 cubic FEET for just a one hour storm. 720 cubic feet of stormwater from just one property - that has to go SOMEWHERE. Add up all the properties in even a suburban neighborhood and you can see why we are in this mess.
Well, where do we put it now? Good question. For many many years stormwater management consisted of just getting the water as quickly to the river as we could. Move it away from where it fell. That is where the phrase "God willin' and the creek don't rise" came from. When we sent our water away, we found out it actually killed folks living along the river because the river would reach dangerous flood heights we never realized it could.
Then we realized, we had to slow it down on its way to the river, so we came up with the idea of just putting it into a pond or underground temporary storage chamber to slow it down before it gets to the municipal stormwater system (detention) or sticking it the ground in what we call seepage pits (retention). One of the very first things they teach you in engineering school is how to calculate the rate of flow out of a pond. But in NJ space is at a huge premium so we prefer the underground tanks or seepage pits - big round manhole type things we stick in the ground that have holes in them to let the water slowly seep into the aquifers again. We were so darn proud of that achievement. Out of sight, out of mind. However, we now know of a phenomenon called "mounding". We are still dealing with MORE volume than before. When we put water into the ground quickly, it raises the groundwater level and homes that never used to flood ON HILLS yet in places like Wayne and Tenafly, now regularly see flooding in their basements. The water will seek its own way, and if that low spot is your basement - well, so be it. The water goes where it wants to and wherever it can. When we started to build on mountains and tore down heavily wooded areas, we practically invited the water into our basements.
In Englewood Cliffs, where the Palisades bedrock is just a few inches down, the mansion builders after cutting down many many trees, had to blast a hole in the rock to put the oversized basements with the home theaters in. To meet the building height requirements, they had to dig down. Now we have essentially homes sitting on top of bowls in the Palisades rock with sunken garages and places water just LOVES to collect. And we wonder why the basements in Englewood Cliffs flood even though they have seepage pits in the yard. It is also why they now are trying the newer techniques in Englewood Cliffs now because the old ones have so spectacularly failed.
Municipalities are still under the impression that a seepage pit will correct a lot of environmental abuse. It won't. Because it isn't just collecting in basements. It moves laterally, remember? If you send a bunch of water underground faster than the ground can recharge the aquifers or percolate down, it WILL pop up above ground further downhill. It just likes to do that. Like a mountain spring. Which is why we are now seeing flood damage on the TOP of the cliffs and sometimes devastating rivers of water cascading through some NJ gardens and backyards seeking a lower level. I saw MORE flood damage when I was a Councilwoman in Tenafly on the TOP of the cliffs, than I did near the Tenakill. By putting that water below the root zone in a seepage pit, you are also not using the process of evapotranspiration. Plants DRINK rainwater when they can reach it. By just putting it deep - you are putting it out of reach of plants that could get rid of some of that for you.
The flooding happens now because the older towns just don't have the infrastructure to deal with the increase in flow. The pockets of wooded open space hid a lot of sins for us. Instead of letting the streams breathe, we for some reason didn't like bridges and thought we could tame nature. So in our dam-building fervor, we also tried to squish any waterway through a corrugated metal pipe, and slap asphalt over it so we could save on building a bridge. By doing that, we limited the capacity that any waterway could handle.
In many parts of the country, the effort now is to remove dams and culverts and open up waterways so that they can expand when we need them to accommodate floodwater. But here in NJ, we have so many pipes and culverts designed for an earlier age of less pavement and more woods we regularly overwhelm our infrastructure. In some places we still have the stormwater sent through the same pipes as the raw sewage, which is why the sewage system gets overwhelmed during a storm. In some places where the stormwater and sewage lines are separate, the infrastructure is so old that stormwater seeps into broken sewage pipes anyway and increases the load on our treatment facilities - and also the cost.
The main problem as I see it is trying to do things the old way. Because that is how we always did it and the engineers (as Lionel would say) "God bless their hearts" who built all these things that no longer work are still around and doing things the way they were taught 60 years ago. This is where the ego and stubbornness come in.
The realization and the really hard work of trying to reverse the sins of the past only happened within the last 20 years, but many of the engineers who were trained long long before that refuse to be retrained. They are advising our Municipal elected officials and advising them poorly.
Around the same time we started to see the real impacts of overbuilding and environmental abuse, environmentalists realized that pollution wasn't just coming from a pipe out of some factory, and that stormwater erosion didn't just erode topsoil and cause the Dust Bowl of the 30's. Soil erosion carries POLLUTION along for the ride on each tiny grain. By trapping the stormwater where it was and treating it right there, we could protect our waterways from "non-point source pollution". There was now an even nobler reason to address runoff other than flood and erosion prevention - pollution prevention.
For all the vilifying of public employees and the NJDEP, I have to give them a lot of credit. They have discovered long ago that the old ways just don't work in the New Normal of climate change and overdevelopment. They have been struggling to correct the problems I have just recounted for you. However, they are getting very little help from the older engineers and elected NJ officials.
The NJDEP is on the right track in terms of the science. They are working closely with the folks breaking new ground in stormwater management. The new way forward is Low Impact Development, which is using nature - soil and vegetation to try to mimic nature's way of preventing runoff in the first place. The NJDEP and folks there like Sandy Blick have been working hard to bring this knowledge to engineers in the state. They regularly hold classes at Rutgers on this topic. But I RARELY see Municipal engineers there learning the new techniques when I attend these great classes. Which explains why when I design using these new techniques endorsed and encouraged by the NJDEP, I am forced to UNDESIGN them and go back to using the old pipe and concrete everywhere methods that the Municipal engineers feel comfortable with. They are afraid of doing something new once they know all the ways to calculate things the old way. That is where the Fear comes in. It is absurd and backwards, and all kinds of frustrating. And NJ gets wetter.
So, there you have the Science, the Stubbornness, the Ego and the Fear reasons. Here are the political ones:
Mayors. Mayors get to determine what gets built in a town. EVERY member of a planning board is appointed by the Mayor except ONE who is chosen by the Council. Mayors also appoint the engineering firms for a municipality. Too often they do it based on Pay to Play and how much that engineering firm - like Maser or T &M donated to the BCDO or some other Party Boss's coffers. THAT can not only cost you much more, but can result in more runoff. One ignorant Mayor can do a lot of damage. They can sway a Board with the threat of not reappointing a member or Planning Board engineer who disagrees with them. They can do a lot of damage by fast tracking large projects of major donors without a thought of how overdevelopment can cause flooding. That is only one way. The most common one and not malicious is just not understanding what causes flooding. For example - thinking that lawns are REQUIRED just 'cause they look nice. I recently worked on a project in the town where the Mayor demanded that the entire front of all properties in the subdivision had to be lawn. This tremendously large town is one of the towns that CNN broke their Tsunami story to talk about flooding in.
I was NOT allowed to use pervious paver sidewalk. I was not allowed to use pervious pavement for the road. They DEMANDED the impervious roadway be 50 wide right of way even though it only served 3 single family homes. They wanted impervious concrete sidewalk on BOTH sides of the road even though it would cause us to lose many more trees. They just passed law requiring impervious asphalt for driveways, and denying the use of pervious pavers for driveways. They refused the use of bio-infiltration for treating the roadway runoff, and the rain gardens I had there to treat roof runoff had to go bye bye too. As a final insult, I had to fill out the non-structural point system spreadsheet put out by the NJDEP to show I was using the techniques the town told me I was actually, ridiculously, FORBIDDEN to use.
What to do? Fortunately, there are some municipal engineering firms who understand LID techniques and what the NJDEP has been trying to accomplish. Some happen to have hydrology experts on staff who actually know what a rain garden is. Even homeowners are more knowledgeable about rain gardens, green building techniques, and rainwater recapture than most of our municipal engineers. I would recommend Municipalities DEMAND any municipal engineer have an expert who knows LID techniques and will actually encourage their use. Someone who will be REQUIRED to attend the yearly seminars by the NJDEP that teach the latest LID techniques. They should also require every Planning Board Member take a one day course in LID techniques as well. We need to look at stormwater as a regional issue and a "fluid" one. The science on this is coming fast and furious and we need to keep up. For too many years NJ licensed engineers were not required to earn continuing education credits to keep their licenses. Now they are. Let's hope that leads to me running into more municipal engineers at stormwater class. I've missed them.
I am encouraged that NJ has created a new Commission on Flooding. Mother Nature isn't the problem, we can withstand what she throws at us but only if we address the human and political issues first. I hope the new Commission seriously lends a hand to the NJDEP who has been trying to champion new stormwater techniques for years now to no avail.
There are many many ways of dealing with stormwater even in our crowded NJ towns. You would be amazed where we can put bio-infiltration strips. Existing parking lots can be retrofitted . Existing catch basins can be retrofitted. Flow though planter boxes around city buildings. Green roofs. We can fix the problem, what we need is the political will to do it. New municipal projects should be models for residents to see these things in action that can be done on individual properties. What we need is a regional approach and individual action. The whole think globally act locally mantra works on stormwater. A tiny rivulet is much easier to deal with than a raging river.
We all know what happened to the dinosaurs. They couldn't adapt to the changes in their environment, we don't want the same thing to happen to us.
This is an account of a confusing and dramatic few moments in the State House yesterday. The aftermath was captured in an extraordinary audio clip of Sen. Loretta Weinberg - listen all the way through. - Rosi
In a moment much smaller yet reminiscent of Madison, Wisconsin circa February 28, 2011, Chris Christie ordered the state house closed to union members and their representatives. Ironically, this wasn't a mass protest but rather a scheduled set of appointments with State Senators and representatives.
Citing an unnamed, undated and unsigned policy, the Governor ordered citizens and union members turned away from entering the state house for a series of legitimately scheduled appointments to discuss the Governors recent attacks and acts against the members rights to bargain and negotiate healthcare benefits for their next contract.
Everyone here knows Jeff's story. We know how strong of a leader he would be in the State Senate. We know his commitment to progressive ideals and local organizing. The bottom line is we need more people like him running for office. If we don't take back the Democratic Party now - when are we going to?
That is why I'm hoping everyone who is able will commit to donating this Thursday for the Jeff Gardner for Senate money bomb. Jeff doesn't have special interests or Trenton lobbyists donating to his campaign. He doesn't have employees at various state authorities filling his campaign coffers. He has normal people like you and me. People that care about who is representing us. People tired of so many failed policies coming out of Trenton. People who want to make a difference.
If you aren't financially able to donate, there are plenty of other ways you can chip in to help his campaign. Spread the word about his Facebook and Twitter pages. Post a blog. Write a letter to the editor. Reach out to the campaign and canvass on the weekend in the district. Every little bit will help.
My friendship with Jeff goes back three years. After meeting via the common link of Passaic County on this site, we had coffee and talked about the County Committee and turning red towns blue. To this day, his apt for organizing and energy for democratic ideals never ceases to amaze me. We need him fighting for us in Trenton.
Full disclosure: I'm working on Jeff's Senate campaign.
As a lapsed Catholic, it had only occurred to me yesterday that today is Ash Wednesday, a Catholic holiday (disclosure: my brother is a priest with the Diocese of Paterson).
How appropriate is it for the Governor to conduct State business on Catholic property, on a Catholic holiday? Will there be a photo-op of him receiving his ashes at St Jude's church before entering the parish hall to shill for vouchers, that will subsidize Catholic schools, like the ones his kids attend?
At worst, this is a blatant First Amendment violation, at best it is plain bad optics. I wonder if he plans future Town Hall meetings at other places of worship like a synagogue or a mosque.
If this troubles you, write to the Governor's office to object. Do not bother with the "Contact us" page on the Governor's website; you will not get a response.Go directly to Constituent Relations:
A Republican governor is elected in a traditionally "blue" state on the platform of restoring fiscal sanity. Upon taking office, he declares war on the public unions, including the teachers' union, firefighters, police. He scapegoats public sector workers and attempts to turn public opinion against the state workers, because, after all, their outrageously bloated salaries, benefits, and pensions are to blame for the state's fiscal woes.
Outraged, teachers, police, firefighters, and other public workers storm the State Capital by the tens of thousands, protesting the governor's attempts to balance the state budget on the backs of public sector workers.
The whole world is watching! Why is the Liberal Media not in Trenton covering this?
Because it's not happening in Trenton, it's happening in Madison, WI. Unlike their brothers and sisters in NJ, the state unions in Wisconsin decided not to wait. Perhaps they looked east and saw what happens when you have a governor run amok, storming the state, and now the country, ramrodding his anti middle class agenda and getting fawning coverage by the press while he's at it, and the people do nothing. The story in Wisconsin is fluid and it remains to be seen how this will play out. However, I'm certain there will be no "Scott Walker for President" movements anytime soon.
I received two responses: one from Mayor Lyons, who thanked me for my concerns and suggested that I attend the next planning meeting . The other was from Assemblyman DiCicco, the sole Republican Legislator in my District, who expressed that he shared my concerns, and included the usual Republican boilerplate about making NJ more business-friendly. I believe he was sincere. I am disappointed by the silence form the two Democrats who represent my District, especially Mr. Moriarty, who is a Township resident and former mayor. At least Mr. DiCicco had the decency to respond. Perhaps he is the only one who realizes that he is up for re-election this year, and re-election is not a given.
I also wrote to the Governors office, one sentence:
"When can we expect the Governor to unveil his 2012 budget proposal?"
Unfortunately I got the opportunity, when 23 year old Benjamin Moore of Bordentown, NJ, was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on January 12. The WBC announced they would be there. I decided I would be there too. I learned through a Facebook Group that people were planning on surrounding the area in order to shield the grieving family from the "God Hates Fags" protesters.
When I arrived in Bordentown at around 7:00am, Farnsworth Ave was relatively quiet. I asked a police officer what he knew about the possible appearance of the WBC. He told me there was a designated spot for them and "they would be dealt with accordingly".
I parked my car and joined a small gathering of people at the corner of Farnsworth and Crosswicks St, all there for the same reason. A woman walked by and passed out American flags, provided by an anonymous donor.
Later I walked over to the church where a large crowd had gathered and lined up along Farnsworth: police, firefighters, military, veterans, and civilians. By that time every road surrounding the church had been cordoned off and there was no sign of the WBC people. The people I spoke with mentioned that the WBC had tried to check into some local hotels but were turned away. I also heard that they were at the firehouse. I walked around the area to see if I could find them, but could not. By 10:00 I got back in my car and drove around the surrounding area, past the firehouse, and still saw none of them.
This time, the Westboro Baptist Church picked the wrong state to mess with. Law enforcement and firefighters from all over the state, veterans and active military, and ordinary folks like me had all played a part in keeping these monsters away. Bordentown's fallen soldier had the dignified send-off he deserved. May he rest in peace.
There were no incidents, other than the swift departure of the Westboro Baptist Church. Good riddance.
Concerned citizens will gather tomorrow to form a human wall to shield the grieving family of US Army Spc Benjamin Moore, from the Westboro Baptist Church protesters, at 08:00am at Trinity Church 300 block, Farnsworth Ave, Bordentown, NJ.
(thanks to deciminyan for tipping me off to this story)
As if it weren't bad enough that NJ lost another soldier in Afghanistan - U.S. Army Spc. Benjamin Moore, 23, of Bordentown, was one of three soldiers killed in an IED (improvised explosive device) attack in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province on Jan. 12.
Now comes the disturbing news that the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to protest Spc Moore's funeral in Bordentown, NJ tomorrow, Saturday, January 22. Regardless of your religious or political beliefs or affiliations, no person on this planet, with the possible exception of members of the Phelps family, could possibly justify the despicable actions of these monsters.
Hope I see you Saturday morning at 0800 at Trinity Church 300 block, Farnsworth Ave, Bordentown, NJ. Westboro Baptist church is planning one of their despicable protests at the funeral of Ben Moore, who passed away in Afghanistan last week. Let's join the non-violent blockade of that piece of crap who desecrates our heroes funerals and honor our brother Ben Moore and his family.
There is always the possibility that the Westboro Baptist Church is bluffing, or will change their minds and not make the trip to Bordentown.
But if they do, New Jersey will be ready and waiting.
No, it's not too soon, considering: 1.) Christie began running for re-election the day he was inaugurated (as do all incumbents) 2.) No potential Democratic candidate (as far as I know) has stepped forward 3.) We can draw important lessons from 2009 and the shoddy campaign run by Jon Corzine, as illustrated by my experience with a clueless Corzine campaign worker:
Late in 2009 gubernatorial campaign, a Corzine canvasser knocked on my door. I answered, and told him right off the bat we had five registered Democrats in my household; no need to give me a sales pitch. However, I told him three of us would be out of town on Election Day, myself on business, and two of my sons away at college, and we needed absentee ballots.
The canvasser told me about NJ's new vote-by-mail option, and had a stack of applications in his hand. I asked for three forms, and the canvasser refused to give them to me. I asked for the website so I could download my own, he said, no, he did not know the website. Just as I was telling him to get lost, as he was no use to me, he asked if I wanted a yard sign. I said, sure, put as many as you want on my lawn.
As soon as I slammed the door, I immediately fired off a nasty-gram to the campaign, informing them of the behavior of the canvasser and his refusal to help me out with absentee voting. A few days later a representative called me, apologizing, and explaining that this particular canvasser "doesn't believe in vote-by-mail" (!) and that is why he refused to give me the applications. I asked, how can you expect anyone to vote for your candidate if this is how you are running your campaign. I then asked if it was possible to vote at the County Store, and the person said no (this turned out not to be true). I also asked where's my yard sign and was promised I would get one (I never did).
County Stores, by the way, are these nifty one-stop shops for just about any government service. The service is friendly and effective. We have them in most malls in South Jersey. I am not sure if every County has one.
Infuriated, and despite my temptation to sit the election out or vote for a third party candidate, I went to the County Store at the Deptford Mall, held my nose, and voted for Corzine,
I have a feeling I was not alone in my disappointment with the way the Corzine campaign was run, and Christie did not so much win as Corzine lost. He broke the cardinal rule of any job-hunter: Act like you want the job.
More snow Up to a foot expected in some parts of the state, old hat by now. At least we know the Governor is in the State. Let’s see if he can do what he said he could have done from Orlando, but didn’t.
Upcoming Events Governor Christie Town Hall Meeting Thursday, January 13 Paramus Elks B.P.O.E. 2001 200 Route 17 North Paramus, NJ Doors open at 10:00am Public hearing on the impact of Gov Christie’s state education cuts Hosted by Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) Thursday, January 20 6:00pm - 8:30pm Edison High School Auditorium 50 Boulevard of the Eagles Edison, NJ
