• Jon Corzine kicked off his campaign with a stop at Jersey City State College, gettin’ down to the sounds of the Black Eyed Peas and “Let’s Get It Started” [link]. Bob Menendez reminded the attendees that they should ignore Corzine’s millions, that “..he’s really just a regular guy” who “.. grew up on a farm”.
• Three of the GOP seven, Bret Schundler, Paul DiGaetano and John Murphy, have called out Doug Forrester, demanding that he come clean on all his contributions to county chairman [link]. They are accusing Forrester of copying Jon Corzine’s strategy of “cash-for-votes”, the idea that he spread out the money before the county conventions in order to lock up the votes needed to “win” the convention. Forrester’s reply was that no checks have been written, implying that he did it the Jersey way with paper bags stuffed with tens and twenties, or more likely that he promised the money after the primaries.
• The infamous secret tapes of South Jersey democrat party boss George Norcross are apparently getting closer to actually being released. Acting governor Richard Codey has told NJ attorney general Peter Harvey that he wants the tapes made public, and unless Harvey decides to pursue further action, the tapes are supposed to be released at 4PM today [link]. Either the tapes are all hype and no substance or they show Norcross bragging about how he runs the state and had McGreevey and Corzine in his pocket.

Today is Eric Clapton’s birthday. He’s now 60 years old.

According to Steve at The Opinion Mill, the line “I’ll be here all week. Try the veal” is from Shrek. My kids have the movie, but I’ve never watched it. I watched some of Shrek II, but I guess I’m not up on my “Shrek” trivia. And when it comes to pop culture, I’m totally in the dark. The last adult movie I saw in a theatre was “Forrest Gump”. And John Shabe says “Try the veal” is a joke often used by comedians and lounge singers.

A bit of a debate on my previous post concerning political discussion at the upcoming Jersey blogmeet. Of course bloggers of all political persuasions are welcome, but like Kate I’m a bit hesitant into turning it into a recruiting meet for political causes. While many bloggers discuss politics, there are many that don’t, and I think that’s what makes the whole blogging experience so interesting. My experience is that people who aren’t political junkies are quickly bored by political talk. I was looking forward to the blogmeet to meet other Jersey bloggers, and politics is not a big reason for the blogmeet.

And Kate was joking. A sterotype of liberals is they don’t have a sense of humor. By the way, are we assuming only liberals support Jon Corzine??

Jersey blogger Joe Territo reports on an organized effort by the Jon Corzine for governor campaign to recruit NJ bloggers as part of a “CorzineConnection” blogging community and network.

Joe even got an e-mail from Corzine’s internet director, Matt Stoller. My e-mail address is at the bottom of the left bar, just in case you guys missed it or something.

Stoller even makes a joke in the comments section, “I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.” Is this a weak “Godfather” reference?? Doesn’t Sollozzo say “Try the veal, it’s the best in the city” at the restaurant a few minutes before Michael Corleone comes out of the bathroom with the gun?? I hope Stoller has just a little bit more sense than to make an organized crime joke in New Jersey. At the minimum, the veal reference will cause outrage in the PETA-vegan community, a key democrat constituency. I guess he feels like he’s got those votes locked up already.

Fausta at the Bad Hair Blog and Ken at Smadanek ask some important theological questions that have stumped mankind.

Is France the New Jersey of Europe?? Is Paris the twin sister of Trenton?? And is President Jacques Chirac a Gallic version of Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski??

Chirac appears to be hanging on by a thread right now, with corruption cases flying all about him. John Miller over at Our Oldest Enemy has some of the latest in the Chirac saga, including “Senior allies of Jacques Chirac, including four former government ministers, are among almost 50 people who go on trial in Paris today accused of involvement in one of the worst corruption scandals in French history.” Stuff like rigging contracts to finance the national party (hey, we call that pay to play in Jersey!)

Good luck, Jacques. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow.

The story about potential financial shenanigans going on at Stevens Tech in Hoboken is available on-line.

Mark at The PropertyTaxNJ blog has a post, “All Work And No Play…” about an upcoming meeting of the National Association of Counties. The July meeting is billed as a “very serious meeting” because the meeting is being held in Honolulu. The Philly Enquirer is reporting that freeholders from Gloucester County and Burlington County have already booked their rooms. Estimated cost at $3000 a person, Mai Tai’s not included.

The National Association of Counties has a section on its website, “Tips for Making the Most of your Conference Attendance”, including pointers to help merry conventioneers “answer questions and concerns from persons at home”. “Persons at home” appears to be convention-speak for “the suffering taxpayers” who are footing the bill for the trip while their property taxes are going up 15%.

This tip is the best one: Be prepared for some skepticism or innuendo about your “going on a junket”. Have at least one or two strong examples of what you did, saw or learned that benefits the entire county. Have fun, guys and gals, on the taxpayers dime. And take lots of pictures!

Two of New Jersey’s biggest papers, The Asbury Park Press and the Bergen Record, have very quickly weighed in on the democrats most recent campaign finance insult. Meanwhile the Star-Ledger has another editorial about stem cell research.

Acting-governor Richard Codey signed a much bally-hooed ban on pay-to-play campaign contributions last week, and within hours there was a democrat fundraiser where contractors were given instructions on how they could grease the palms of democrat politicians and still be within the letter of the law. The author of the memo was top democrat fundraising legal eagle, Angelo Genova.

The Bergen Record editorial, “Pay-to-play fraud“, basically says the deomcrats really don’t have their heart into this whole campaign reform thing, and noting “How many more black eyes, scandals and indictments will it take for Democrats to really get serious about cleaning up corrupt campaign financing practices? How could anyone in their right mind vote for these clowns?” The Record has particular contempt for democrat consigliere Genova, quoting him as saying it was his job to advise “clients” about the new law. Uhh, Mr. Genova, but advising then on loopholes even when you helped write the law?? Reminds me of the Paul Newman line from “Cool Hand Luke”, “…calling it your job don’t make it right.”

The Asbury Park Press chimes in with “Democratic hypocrisy“.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about this totally offensive episode is that Genova drafted the now famous memo in February, meaning he had the loophole already spelled out in detail while the pay-to-play ban was being formulated and before it was introduced and signed by acting governor Codey. Boy, that Genova is one real smart cookie, eh ?!?

Liberals were preaching about the virtues of defecting to Canada after the past election, moving to the great white north to avoid the upcoming Right Wing Christian Inquisition lead by the victorious President elect Bush. Well, at least six US soldiers defected to Canada due to opposition to the invasion of Iraq, and the first soldier got a hearing on his asyulum claim. Result: DENIED! The deserter, Jeremy Hinzman, formerly of the 82nd Airborne, tried to argue that he faced persecution or cruel and unusual punishment. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board ruled otherwise.

Just to show not all Canucks are Euro-French socialists, this Toronto writer observes, “You could randomly grab someone off any street in the Sudan, and be fairly certain that person would make a better refugee than Jeremy Hinzman.” Ouch!

The infamous scandal at Stevens Tech in Hoboken has bubbled up to the mainstream media. This Sunday’s Star Ledger had an article in the New Jersey section, “Growing Pains at Stevens: Annual Reports as Well as President’s Salary and Loans Raising Questions”. The article is not available on-line. Joe Territo has more.

A few weeks back, several Jersey bloggers linked to this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education which was the first real public airing of a potential financial scandal at the college. It was probably the first time anyone heard of the figure at the center of the potential scandal, Stevens President Harold Raveche. The story involves possibly faked or misleading financial reports the past few years, low interest loans to the president and a yearly audit that is now several months late. I’m sure some of these problems happen at every college, but in this story Raveche is putting on his “Problems? What Problems?” face and is denying everything.

As the article notes, Raveche has nicely rewarded himself to the point he’s in the top 10 of highest paid presidents at “private research universities during 2003″. The presidents of Johns Hopkins, U Penn and Vanderbilt are in the top three, and my alma mater is #4, Shirley Ann Jackson at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

So I guess the next big story will be when Price Waterhouse publishes the results of its yearly audit. That may determine if this story has legs, whether it’s Enron II or just a tempest in a tea pot.

After three weeks of criticism of the plan to eliminate NJ Saver rebates, this is finally said in Trenton:

“We don’t consider cuts in property tax relief to be cuts in government spending”

That quote was not from one of the GOP Seven running for governor but it came from Assembly Speaker Albio Sires, D-West New York. So now it’s nearly unanimous. Except for Richard Codey and perhaps those tax happy people over at NJPP, the plan to eliminate the property tax rebates is being shown to be exactly what it is, balancing the budget on the backs of middle class homeowners struggling to pay property taxes in this state.

The democrat plan is to fund the rebates by finding that infamous source of money, that pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, “waste and fraud” in government to be discovered by a magical audit. Good luck. I read that to partially fund the rebates you need at least $700 million in savings, and unless you’re going to lay off workers you aren’t going to find that much money by rearranging the cubicle dividers in Trenton offices.

But at least this shows that our elected officials may be listening to the public outrage. Hopefully Jersey bloggers have helped keep this issue alive.

The other issue is the recently inacted ban on pay to play and the almost instant democrat instructions to contractors on how to get around it. I’m sure the laywers were all proud of themselves until the democrats got an earful of outrage. The
Star-Ledger quotes democrat representatives Andrews and Pallone saying the memo violates the spirit of the recently signed law, and they called on state democrats to refuse the money and revise the law to close the loophole.

When questioned about the loophole, Codey came up with the answer that should be inscribed on the cover of any report about campaign finance abuses in New Jersey: “It’s all perfectly legal”. Just like finding the governor’s brother a new job at higher pay to increase is pension, that was all “perfectly legal”, too. Looks like Codey still doesn’t “get it”.

You would think we would have learned something from the McCain-Feingold attempt to “get the money” out of politics. One thing neither party is short of is lawyers, and as soon as a law is passed to regulate one aspect of campaign financing, the lawyers will find a way to keep the money flowing.

But how cynical is this?? Literally hours after acting governor Richard Codey signs into law the first ban on “pay to play” style campaign donations, the democrats circulate a memo at a New Jersey fundraiser explaining to contractors how they can still donate thousands to the democrat party and be within the limits of the law. And the author of the memo, Angelo Genova, is the Democrats’ top campaign finance lawyer and actually helped write the state law on pay to play. See details here.

This is what happens when you have a single party state. How much more of this can the democrats get away with before the voters revolt?? Unfortuantely, based on what I’ve seen so far, the voters in New Jersey are too apathetic to care.

As I’ve said before, Jon Corzine has no real incentive to lay out his plan on how to balance the New Jersey budget. He’s got double digit point leads over the nearest challenger, and any plan with numbers will tick off some important constituency, like the middle class (most likely) or government workers unions (less likely).

Well the senator gave a speech Monday night at NJIT where he laid out his plan, though I think “plan” is too strong a word. It was more of a budget vision than a budget plan. He was short on specifics but high on buzzword laden business-like sound bites such as “…a new paradigm, of invest, grow and prosper“.

When he talks about “investments” he’s talking about more government spending. Perhaps if the business and tax climate in New Jersey were a bit friendlier to higher income people, companies wouldn’t be so afraid to move here. For a guy who made his money in the private sector, Corzine has pretty abysmal ratings by business groups as shown in a very well done summary over at Enlighten-NewJersey.

Elsewhere, Corzine talks about the need for “deep” spending cuts and about how we can’t rely on just property taxes to fund education, but there are no specifics about what he would cut or if property taxes aren’t used to fund education then what tax would he choose in its place. Perhaps once the republicans settle on a candidate, there will be at least one or two public debates where they can try to pin the senator down. But then the republicans will need a plan too, and so far I haven’t heard much from the front runner, Mr. Forrester.

I wasn’t going to blog about Terri Schiavo. Actually, if you browse through the Dynamobuzz archives, there are other topics that I haven’t really touched on, such as gay marriage or abortion. But then I saw Jim at Parkway Rest Stop take a strong stand as did Enlighten-NewJersey. Mike at Sluggo Needs a Nap also laid out his position as did Patrick at Jerseystyle, so I decided to add mine.

As I said yesterday, I spoke to my mother who happens to be a nurse. I know she has seen too many cases of people truly on life support who are still getting thousands of dollars of medical tests and treatments for basically no good reason, and she has shaken her head in despair saying that it’s no way to live. I was surprised that she was only lukewarm in support of the husband in this case. She thinks he may have other motives, but the law is that the husband has the right to make this decision. But my mother was very adamant that Schiavo is not brain dead or on life support, she’s basically a severely handicapped person being fed through a tube. And my mom thinks they should at least give her water. Her death would be postponed for several more days or weeks, but it would be a better way to die than by dehydration.

I wish that Schiavo’s husband would just sign over the custodial rights of Terri to her parents and then part ways. And from what I’ve read there is more than enough to question the original diagnosis and justify a new hearing. But that’s not going to happen. Schiavo is going to be slowly killed by dehydration. Basically, there’s no happy ending to this story.

Maybe the biggest thing that bothers me is that there are people who may actually be celebrating when Schiavo dies. Peggy Noonan touched on this in today’s Wall Street Journal, “In Love With Death, The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people“. There is a pretty frightening pro-euthanisia group out there that is slowly gaining acceptability. Dr. Kevorkian was probably the poster child for this movement, this attitude that once life isn’t “worth living” you have a right to end that life. And there is one state so far, Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal.

And, please, I’m not saying everyone who supports Schiavo’s death is in this camp. I’m sure many are like my mother, torn between the choices. Just the same, it’s not just “the religious kooks” who supported the efforts to grant federal jurisdiction to this case. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin has been a supporter of handicapped rights for his entire career, and he looks at Mrs. Schiavo and sees a disabled lady about to be starved to death. NY Democrat Jose Serrano felt that when the situation is not crystal clear, you should err on the side that keeps her alive. Other liberal democrats who supported the measure in Congress included Carrie Meek, Elijah Cummings, Stephanie Herseth, Chakah Fatah, Jesse Jackson Jr and Albert Wynn. And Bob Novak commented that Ralph Nader told him it was “..illegal to starve a dog to death but it was being done to Terri Schiavo.”

The next fights will arise when this “pro-death” movement spreads to other disabilities, like children born with severe handicaps or senior citizens whose health has deteriorated to the point where they are incapacitated. And unless our lawmakers move fast to clear up the law, it will be in the hands of unaccountable, unelected judges and lawyers like the thoroughly creepy Geoffrey Feiger who will be setting the law.

I wrote a few days back about Jersey blogger Jane from Armies of Liberation who had taken up the cause of jailed Yemeni newspaper editor Abdul-Karim Al-Khaiwani. Al-Khaiwani had been sentenced to a year of hard labor after a sham trial, charged with the being editor of a paper which ran an editorial critical of the government. Jane started up an on-line petition asking for Al-Khaiwani’s freedom that got almost 700 signatures. She really put all her heart and effort into this, to the point of near exhaustion.

Well, Jane is more than happy to report that Al-Khaiwani was given amnesty today by the president of Yemen, just one day after a court upheld his original conviction. Al-Khaiwani is a free man. More stories and a picture of the free man here and here. It’s great when a story has a happy ending. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many stories like that in the news.

Wow, thanks for all the kind words!! It’s about 10:30PM on Wednesday night, and I’m basically back to normal.

I was still feeling really awful last night, so I did what I usually do when I need medical advice. I call my mother, who’s a nurse. When I got her on the phone, I said, “Mom, I’m sick as a dog”. I always remember her saying that when I was a kid, it was one of her favorite expressions. You either felt lousy or you were as sick as a dog. There was no middle ground.

She said it sounded like I had a nasty flu, but if I didn’t show any improvement in a day or two I should go to a doctor.

Around noon today I pretty much shook it off, though my voice is still a bit scratchy and deep, like a cross between Harvey Fierstein and Lurch.

One of the signs you’re getting old is that a little bit of flu bug wipes you out. That’s what’s happened to me. I thought I was just tired, but yesterday was a lost day. My wife had to work, but the kids were on their best behavior. I was in serious pain, even too sick to blog (?!?!) This morning I only feel a little better.

I haven’t taken a sick day in 10 years, but today might be just one.

I felt so rotten that I didn’t even check the NCAA basketball scores until this morning. I had Wake Forrest winning, so I’m toast.

I wrote a few days ago about how ironic it was for the New Jersey Audobon Society to come out in favor of deer hunting in order to reduce the size of the deer population in this state, currently estimated at over 200,000 and growing. The first line of my post was “You know the deer problem in New Jersey has gotten out of control when environmental groups are in favor of deer hunts to trim the size of the herds”.

Well now I know the deer are as good as dead when the bible of American liberalism, the NY Times, runs an editorial, “When Cute Deer Go Bad“. The NY Times called the deer “vermin” and “a plague”, language they normally use when describing the Bush administration. They support the Audobon Society, even in the use of hired sharp shooters.

Wow. First the Audobon Society, and now the NY Times. What’s next?? Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg in Sussex county wearing camouflage fatigues and carrying shotguns??

The Times figures out who’s at fault, “The deer did not ask human beings to create the kind of predator-free suburban landscapes in which they now thrive”. But they say we must assume the duty of managing the herd, a role normally held by the “.. mountain lion, gray wolf and bobcat.” Bye-bye deer.

There’s only one thing that can save the deer now. The Bush administation must come out stongly in favor of the deer hunt. When that happens, the liberal interest groups and enviro-nuts will automatically take the opposite view and the deer hunt will be stopped.

The Philly Inquirer sent questionaires to all seven GOP gubernatorial candidates plus Jon Corzine. This article has some of their responses on a few topics, including how they would balance the NJ budget.

Todd Caliguire, Steve Lonegan and John Murphy all called for a 10 to 15% reduction in the state workforce with layoffs if necessary. I give them credit for being specific, at least you know where they stand. Bret Schundler would just freeze the budget except for school aid and NJ Saver rebates, which I don’t think would be a balanced budget. Bob Schroeder only mentioned health care costs and “charity care”. Paul DiGaetano didn’t get into specifics, speaking in general terms about a constitutional cap on spending and putting all tax increases up for voter approval via ballot referendums. Front runner Doug Forrester gave the weakest answer, only mentioning “waste and corruption” in the School Construction Corporation.

And of course Corzine said it was “premature” for him to offer specific proposals. As long as he has a double digit lead in the polls, don’t expect him to get specific.

The Inquirer asked all seven GOP candidates, “Will you pledge not to raise any taxes or fees if elected governor?” Murphy, Schroeder, Schundler, DiGaetano and Lonegan all agreed. Caliguire and Forrester sort of agreed but with conditions.

I’m not getting a warm comfy felling about Doug Forrester. It seems to me like he read Christie Whitman’s book and is following her advice. As we get closer to the primary he may take a page out of the playbook the democrats used against Schundler in 2001 and try to label him an extremist on social issues. This NJ.com article notes he was the only one of the seven GOP candidates to come out against a constitutional amendment defining marriages, and he made it clear he was not as pro-life as the other candidates.