Bill at “Figuring out the Future” has a post about his trip this past weekend down the shore, through Asbury Park, Spring Lake and Bradley Beach with a stop in Belmar for coffee. Sounds like a nice trip, but I bet the water is a bit rougher tonight with this nasty storm. Bill also links to some excellent photographs here and here of the ocean and beach front in Ocean Grove.
I drink a lot of coffee, so much that people are always commenting about it. I try not to get defensive about it, since that’s one of the first signs of addiction. Usually I make a joke about it, and then run off to my office and shut the door to enjoy my coffee in peace.
But whenever I need to read good news about coffee, I head over to my favorite coffee blogger, Bob Badgett and Badgett’s Coffee eJournal. He’s got links to a story about how coffee drinkers have a lower incidence of liver cancer [link] and to a report out of the UK with all the benefits of coffee drinking, like lower incidence of diabetes and even higher fertility in men [link] since caffeine apparently gets male sperm all wired up and peppy.
Badgett also links to an article about how the state of Michigan is saving a quarter million dollars by eliminating free coffee for inmates in state prisons, boot camps and correctional centers [link]. Does Richard Codey know about this??
Acting governor Richard Codey is suspending the NJ Saver property tax rebates for one year as part of the budget balancing act he’s going to unveil tomorrow in Trenton [link]. Why do I get the strange feeling that it’s gone for good?? I used my $800 rebate check from last year to buy a new refrigerator, but it looks like there will be no new appliances in the DynamoBuzz household this year.
Cutting the NJ saver plan and slashing the checks to senior citizens saves a cool $1.1 billion. Extending the sales tax to a bunch of stuff that’s currently not taxed gets another couple of hundred million. Codey will also propose video gambling terminals at NJ racetracks to gather another $150 million.
You can call this budget a lot of things, but it’s certainly not “tough choices”. Laying off workers, pay and benefit cuts or eliminating programs are “tough choices”. Other states have done that. Instead, we get workforce reduction through attrition, with an estimated savings of $50 million. This is an easy choice.
This plan is probably the least controversial choice Codey could have made and most likely the best we can expect from a liberal democrat in a liberal state. The NJ GOP needs to make a stand on the cuts in property tax rebates but the democrats and the media will throw it back on the republicans, “Where are you going to find the $1 billion to pay for it??” At least the republican candidates should pledge that they will reinstate the rebates next year, forcing Corzine to take a stand now.
Fact: Jon Corzine is stinking rich. Not Bill Gates rich, but certainly in the top hundredth of one percent rich. But how much of a big deal is it?? Does it matter to the voters?? Will it have an impact on the 2005 race for NJ governor?? Here’s two different view points.
Corzine’s handlers have decided that it would look alot better if some common folk were listed on his campaign donation roster, so he’s decided to go out and do some fundraising. Previously, Corzine’s idea of fundraising was stopping at an ATM and withdrawing a couple of hundred grand, but now he’s going to reach out for little donations (”Corzine strategy: Shed the money baggage“). Corzine’s handlers remember the 2000 senate race when Bob Franks ran a bunch of “Corzine is buying the election” ads late in the campaign that helped cut Corzine’s vote total to 51%. Some observers said if Franks had two more weeks he would have won. So now we will have the images of a multi-millionaire ex-Wall Street tycoon asking little old ladies for $50 checks.
Republican candidate and Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan tells everyone to stop whining about it, that it’s not an issue (”Some don’t care about Corzine’s cash“). Lonegan tells the other republican candidates that they sound like losers. Lonegan says what should be the issue is Corzine’s “…limousine liberal approach to the issues and our state’s future.”
I tend to agree with Lonegan on this one. I’d certainly remind the voters of Corzine’s millions and how he basically bought the Senate seat in 2000 and he’s trying to do it again. Maybe have surrogates mention how out of touch the millionaire is with working class people and their struggles. But it can’t be the central theme of the campaign. Get him to take a position on taxes, a strong position, and try to run against that. My guess is he’ll avoid being specific if he has a big lead.
A day after going into “beat up on Peter Harvey” mode, two columnists in the Sunday papers get in their whacks at the feckless New Jersey Attorney General.
Trenton bureau chief for the Gannett papers, Bob Ingle, has been fed up with Harvey for awhile, since he got caught getting comps from the Atlantic City casinos that Harvey is technically supposed to be watching as top legal officer in the state. Ingle makes the same comparison I did, that Harvey was announcing his investigation into Blockbuster Video almost at the same time the big Monmouth county contractor bid sting was going down. Ingle notes that Harvey is also part of the state oversight into the Schools Construction Corporation. That’s the body that was given almost $9 billion in money to build schools all over the state and has so far mismanaged that sum of money as only the government can. With a few years to go in the program, the SCC needs another $6 billion to finish.
The Star-Ledger weighs in with an article, “The crime-fighters and a simmering rivalry“, also making the comparison between Harvey and US Attorney Chris Christie. “In a few hours last week, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie placed more elected officials in handcuffs than New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey has in three years”. The writer tries to defend Harvey, but the democrats quoted in the article are critical of the failed attorney general.
My wife had to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leaving me an entire weekend of chasing after kids. Lots of kids stuff = very little blogging. My PC is in the basement and I can sit down for at least 30 seconds before Daniel or Allison come running down complaining that the other sibling did this or that. And when I go upstairs I find Liliana sitting on the kitchen floor with an open box of Ritz crackers.
I also spent the weekend doing computer stuff. I bought a PC to replace my wife’s computer and I spent the weekend switching her over. I’m cheap, over the years I’ve bought all my computing hardware off of eBay. I’ve only had one problem and the seller took care of it right away. My wife’s e-mail folders are almost 500 mb, not sure what she’s saving. I’m guessing it’s mostly those e-mail chain letters. I have to show here what the Delete Button does.
I’ve written many times about NJ attorney general Peter Harvey, and I don’t think anything was positive. Hey, I’ve complimented McGreevey and Codey when they do something that I agree with. But Harvey is another story. In a state full of corruption, Peter Harvey has taken a pass on arresting any politicians. I think he’s prosecuted a handful, less than five. Meanwhile, US Attorney Chris Christie has arrested close to 80, and he’s got more coming. All the high profile convictions and arrests in the Garden State (Kushner, D’Amiano, Trefinger, Janiszewski, Levinsohn and Taffet) have been federal affairs.
Meanwhile, Harvey is going after Blockbuster Video for consumer fraud. Harvey was all proud of himself when he announced the investigation into Blockbuster and their claim of “no more late fees”. Big time blogger Silfray Hraka notes that Harvey had only received one complaint about the Blockbuster policy. Instead, Harvey did his own sting operation, sending state investigators into Blockbuster video stores to gather evidence [link].. What a joke!! A sting operation to nail a video rental store!! Meanwhile, US Attorney Christie was busy busting a dozen corrupt officials.
When asked to comment on Harvey, US Attorney Christie laid it on the line. During an interview with 101.5 FM DJ Craig Carton, Christie said of Harvey, “N.J.’s attorney general is no help in corruption fight“.
If Harvey had any shame, he would resign. He cannot be fired by the governor. The only way to replace him before his term is up is for the NJ senate to impeach him. My guess is that won’t happen, the democrats in Trenton like an attorney general who doesn’t go after them.
There’s so much news coming out the Monmouth County sting investigation that the Asbury Park Press has an entire web page with links to all the stories. For lack of a better name, the APP is calling this “OPERATION BID RIG“.
US Attorney Chris Christie supposedly planned to keep the contractor bribery sting operation going for awhile longer but the investigation was apparently cut short due to interference by the Monmouth County prosecutor’s office. John Kaye and Christie had been arguing in the past, and it appears that Kaye started to ask questions and interview some of the now-arrested mayors and politicians, even sending investigators to Florida. Kaye denies he did anything inappropriate.
Acting governor Richard Codey has asked NJ State Attorney General Peter Harvey to investigate Kaye [link]. Finally, Harvey will get to investigate a politician. But please note that Kaye is a republican, and Monmouth county is one of the few republican counties in the state. And most of the politicians busted by Christie were republicans. Christie comes out good in this because he can show that he doesn’t just pick on democrats. Codey comes out good because he can act tough on corruption in a high profile case without upsetting the democrat party bosses. It’s win-win for everyone.
Very funny piece by Star-Ledger writer Paul Mulshine in yesterday’s paper, “Hi ho! It’s off to Trenton we go“. Mulshine attended one of the around the state dog and pony shows the state GOP is using to try to raise interest in the republican candidates for governor.
He handicaps the candidates pretty much the way I do. Schundler and Forrester as co-favorites, Steve Lonegan as third and the other four candidates as after thoughts.
He gives a thumbnail sketch of each candidate with strengths and weaknesses, and a little editorial humor thrown in. Forrester: “..spent a lot of dough on goofy ads attacking Dan Rather and the “conga line of corruption” in New Jersey. One of the conga dancers from Monmouth had endorsed him shortly before being arrested.” Schundler: “Too smart for his own good”. Bob Schroeder, on how he can win: “…He lends his campaign bus to the other six candidates and instructs his driver to go off a cliff.” Good stuff from Mulshine.
The kids have off today, no surprise considering the amount of snow and the fact that it’s Friday. Can’t beat a short week and a three day weekend. I have to shovel out the car and head out to work, however.
Kids look outside, see the snow and say “Yeah!! snow!!”. Stay at home moms see the snow and say, “Oh boy, all the kids will be home today!!” Parents who have to go to work say, “I hate driving in this crap!!”
Government officials see the same snow and say, “Budget crisis!”. Seems like this snowfall will give us more than 30″ of snow for the season, and the state only budgets for 27″ which is the average winter snowfall. More snow equals more plowing costs, more salt and more overtime, so the state DOT is now over budget [link]. Sounds like a case of bad budgeting because the state has been overbudget now for three consecutive years.
Acting governor Richard Codey recommended using prison labor to reupholster furniture, maybe his next cost savings will be to give the inmates shovels and send them out to the Turnpike.
Someone sent me this in one of those forwarded e-mails that we all get. It’s a brief guide to American newspapers.
You’ve all heard by now that someone hacked into Paris Hilton’s PDA-cell phone thing and got all her phone numbers, text messages and pictures. I won’t go into the sorrid details on what she had on her “Sidekick II” device.
Lots of people are assuming somebody followed the bubble headed heiress and used some electric gizmo to zap into her phone. Not so. Seems like the Sidekick synchronizes itself with a T-Mobile website where all the information is stored and updated before being downloaded onto the phone. Hilton’s account is password protected, but like a lot of password issuing sites, it has one of those “Did you forget your password??” options. That’s one of those features where you answer some question that only you should know the answer to, like your mother’s maiden name. For Miss Hilton, the secret question was “What’s the name of your favorite pet??” She has a pet chihuahua that gets more press coverage than J-Lo, so the hackers were able to answer the question and reset her password [link]. By the time Hilton figured out what was going on, the hackers had already posted onto the internet the phone numbers of celebrities and “racy” photos.
The odds looks pretty good that New Jersey will have a lieutenant governor in the next year or two. Our last two governors left office early, and the NJ constitution allows the senate president to assume the office in an acting role until the next election. That will change if we get an elected lieutenant governor who would then step in to take the office if the governor left early.
But as this article in the Bergen Record reminds us, the job really doesn’t do too much. Other states have found that the job of lieutenant governor is very ill-defined with very few roles for the position, leading to a lot of critism by government watchdog groups. In Maryland, one of the newspapers called called its lieutenant governor “The Wanderer,” after he went on a bunch of taxpayer-funded trips to France, Ghana and South Africa.
And of course, once you create a lieutenant governor job, that person will need an ever growing staff. In Illinois, the lieutenant governor has a $2 million budget and dozens of aides, even though his job description is one sentence long “perform the duties … delegated to him by the governor.” Seems like mostly the lieutenant governor serves on committees or leads some blue ribbon panel in a pet project, like literacy or domestic violence.
The NJ job will probably pay over $100,000 a year and you will get to hire a staff, probably get a state car and stuff like that. Hmm … sounds pretty good to me. I wonder where I send my resume.
After weeks of floating trial baloons about tax increases, acting New Jersey governor Richard Codey is now hinting that the upcoming state budget will actually be “frozen” meaning the total dollar amount will be the same as last year, approximately $28 billion [link]. Supposedly there is at least $800 million in increases that are mandated, so that means in order to hold the budget he’s either going to suggest real spending cuts in other areas or a tax increase in order to keep the budget in balance.
The article says republicans in Trenton are applauding the governor for the freeze. If he is truly going to propose no spending increases, it will probably take the democrat special interest groups only a few days to start holding press conferences crying about this arts program or that welfare program. If state education aid to towns is frozen, look for mayors to really complain since that will force them to either cut spending or raise property taxes. It will be a tough sell for Codey.
In addition to the overall freeze, Codey will try to reduce the size of the government payroll through attrition. Let’s see what happens next Tuesday.
If you’ve ever been to Secaucus, you’ve probably noticed that every other street and shopping center is named “Harmon”. Harmon Cove, Harmon Meadow, Harmon Plaza, Harmon Meadow Boulevard. Well, who is/was Harmon?? Was he a founding father of Secaucus?? A soldier killed in WWII?? The owner of the biggest pig farm in Secaucus??
A reporter for the Hudson Reporter went to Secaucus and asked around ["Who in the world is Harmon?"]. Nobody knew who Harmon was and why so many things in the town are named after him. Finally, he was able to solve the mystery. It’s obvious, I should have thought of it. Harmon is a short for Hartz Mountain (HARtz MOuNtain), the big real estate developer in the Secaucus area.
Wal-Mart has decided to go after the Big Apple. The hated mega-retailer is going to try to open the first Wal-Mart in New York City, rumored to be in the Rego Park section of Queens [link]. If Wal-Mart thinks it’s been getting grief from other states when they try to open a store, wait until they apply for the building permit in New York City.
I don’t have a problem with Wal-Mart as a retailer. My problem with them is what they do to their suppliers. US manufacturers are forced to drastically cut costs in order to sell to Wal-Mart, leading many to shift raw material purchases from domestic suppliers to overseas vendors or in some cases they shift the entire manufacturing operation to South America or Asia.
Frankly, paying unskilled labor $9 to $10 an hour with some benefits is fine with me. The fact that they don’t have trouble finding employees tells me the market is working. But try that in a union-friendly city like NYC and your going to have a fight. Good luck.
UPDATE: Looks like Wal-Mart gave up. Today’s NY Post has the details. Most of the opposition was from unions and their backers. Wal-Mart is famous for being non-union, and that’s one offense that will not be tolerated by the liberal left in this country.
Senator Jon Corzine gave a speech Sunday night at a meeting of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization. When asked about New Jersey property taxes, the senator came up with a solution:
Somehow, someway?? What the heck is that?? Later, when asked about raising revenue if property taxes are cut, he said “… he was “not prepared” to say where the additional revenue would come from, he said it could start with more “controlled spending.” Wow, that’s really bold and inspiring.
Sounds like Mr Corzine may need to work on his answers a little bit before he takes his show on the road.
I posted a few times about the Donald Trump - Melania Knauss wedding and how the NY Post nearly dedicated the entire Sunday edition to the nuptials. Suzette had commented about the cake, which she heard was over 200 pounds and cost more than a beach house at the Hamptons. Suzette couldn’t find any pictures, but I received this link from a DynamoBuzz reader with pictures from the wedding and the famous cake. Definitely not a cake you’d get at Costco. The link says the cake decorator took “two months creating nearly 3,000 roses from icing for the 5-ft. orange Grand Marnier chiffon cake, which weighed 200 lbs.” Wouldn’t the cake would be stale after two months?? Anyway, thanks to Alyska for the link!!
Three mayors and almost a dozen other officials were busted today in a huge sting operation here in the Garden State. Story at the APP [link]. Among those doing the perp walk were the mayors from three Monmouth County towns, Hazlet Mayor Paul A. Coughlin, Keyport Mayor John Merla and West Long Branch Mayor Paul Zambrano.
The sting involved a fake contractor who set up a dummy construction company and then started throwing around thousands in bribes to obtain NJ contracts. Rather than laudering the bribes through the county political parties as is par for the course in NJ, the cash went directly to the politicians.
They only bagged three mayors because the limit is no more than three per season. If you catch more than three, you have to throw them back.
Pat at Jerseystyle has more details with a photo gallery of the crooks … I mean “alleged” crooks. Mike from Sluggo Needs a Nap also weighs in in amazement.
The sting was a federal operation involving the FBI and US attorney Chris Christie. Christie had this line that has to have every mayor in Monmouth County checking through their donor lists, “I can assure you that we and the FBI are not done in Monmouth County”.
Almost all the corruption indictments and convictions in New Jersey over the past few years have been due to the hard work of US Attorney Christie. Just a reminder, the state of New Jersey has an attorney general, Pete Harvey, who is also allowed to arrest politicians, if he ever gets the desire or the will to do so. Instead, he spends most of his time scoring ring side seats to boxing matches in Atlantic City. Oh, I forgot, Harvey had a major coup last week, announcing that he’s going after Blockbuster Video for false advertising. Good job, Petey. Go get those video rental companies. That’s why Bob Ingle gave you the nickname Peter “See No Evil” Harvey.