Comrade Stalin Got Nothin on these People

So you thought communist theater died with the Great Helmsman.  Check out this video of North Korean "Dear Leader" Kim Jung Il lying in state.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KaKAm9Q7Zg&feature=related 

Kind of touching, ain't it?

For the funeral parade click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBmOG-gSvhA

For Stalin's funeral, click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-EwVVm89og

Just When You Thought it was Safe to Go Outside

Last week sawthe end of the world-famous Trenton Toilet Paper Crisis.

Our city government proved itself to be one of the most dysfunctional municipal governing bodies on earth after the city council refused to approve a contract to buy paper products.  That was because the councilmen did not like the price for hot drink cups.

The mayor wanted the contract and stated that on the whole it was a fair agreement because the prices for most items were not bad and because the vendor offered a broader range of products so the city could get everything it needed from a single source.

Last week the agreement got approved just when it looked like the city was going to run out of loo paper.

The real problem of course is that Mayor Tony Mack can not get along with the council andd the toilet paper provided a convenient forum for a battle royal.

The issue went viral after national news outlets started reporting on the story.  To  make matters worse, the BBC picked up on it and not our problems are known to the entire English speaking world.

For more on the toilet paper crisis, click here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/trenton-toilet-paper-crisis_n_1344640.html

Now that it has become safe to take a crap in city hall, we now have another local story that makes us the laughing stock of the world, we got the naked family protesting outside a suburban Philadelphia high school,  To see the Upper Darby High naked encounter click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A61WnBwxL0

Where Can I Get One?

While driving down Rt. 129 this morning, I noticed a Crown Vic behind me.  On the windshield was a new car inspection sticker with a 2012 expiration date, which means that the car was bought in 2008.  In that model year, Crown Vics were available for fleet purchase only.  I thought, that's strange, what's up with that car.

When I pulled onto I-295, so did the Crown Victoria.  Even though I had my foot to the floor of my 2008 Grand Marquis, he flew by me like I was standing still.  Why would that be if the Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis are basically the same car?  Simple.  The Crown Vic was a police special, an unmarked car.

They put one hell of an engine in those police cars.  Why is it that all the cool stuff from bullet proof vests to hollow point bullets and automatic weapons are not made available to the general public but are only available for sale to police departments and the military.

After all, pretty much anybody would want to buy a new car with a police motor in it.

We'll Have the Last Word

So you thought Christie and Sweeney succeeded in making public employees pay more for their pensions and at the same time doing away with annual cost of living increases.  After all, the state passed a law to that effect.

As many of you probably know, at least part of that law has been blocked by the state supreme court.  They ruled that it is unconstitutional to make sitting judges pay more for their pensions because the increased contributions are effectively a pay cut, and the state constitution says judges' salaries cannot be diminished during their term of office.

Now it looks like the other shoe is about to drop.  Federal judges in New Hampshire and Arizona recently ruled that increases in pension contribution rates for ordinary public employees in those states are also unconstitutional.  This is because, like New Jersey, the changes were made by legislation, not negotiation with the unions. 

Why?  The US Constitution says that state cannot pass laws to impair contracts, and these states passed laws to break their contract with workers in those states to provide a pension at the contribution rates they paid when hired.  These rulings were made by district court judges, so they are not binding on other courts, but other judges will look to these ruling for guidance, and it is likely decisions in other courts will come down the same way.

In New Jersey, the unions are challenging the increased pension contributions and elimination of the COLA because workers served on their jobs with the understanding that the contribution rate would remain the same and that the cost of living increases will continue to be paid after retirement.

Let's hope a federal judge sticks it to Christie and forces the state to cough up the extra money for pensions.  This should bust Christie's income tax cut proposal for good.

To see more about this, check out this link.  http://www.stateline.org/live/printable/story?contentId=632205

The Real Deal

World War II took place about 70 years ago.  Most of what we know has come second or third hand through history books and Hollywood films.

Many people think that the only ones that were persecuted under the Nazis were the Jews.  That is because whenever a swastika or pro-Nazi material shows up, some newspaper starts mentioning the Jews.  True, the Jews made up the largest group of Nazi victims, but they were by no means the only ones.  That is because the Nazis took Jesus's philosophy and turned it on its head.  Rather than "Whoever is not against me is for me." they believed "Whoever is not for us is against us" and backed it up with brutal punishments right out of the middle ages.

Take a look at some US films made of Nazi facilities right after the war to see what really went on in the Nazi penal system.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz65pzbi2r4&skipcontrinter=1

In fact about 11 million were killed, of which 6 million were Jews and 5 million were non-Jewish.
Who were the non-Jews.  Well, they were prisoners of wars, underground fighters, Communists and other political anti-Nazis as well as Catholic priests and people who were simply in the way:   Slavs, those who were not liked by the Nazi cops and other undesirables like homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses and Gypsies.

Not all Jews are unobjective.  Here is a video made by a Jew which basically speaks about the Holocaust from the contemporary Jewish perspective but acknowledges that it was a universal experience and not simply a Jewish experience.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGlqn9GvOv8&skipcontrinter=1  No, I am not a denier, the killing was dominated by racism, but the truth is that the test was three-pronged.  You had to be liked by the establishment, be sufficiently enthusiastic about their politics and be of the right racial and ethnic stock and religion to be considered acceptable.  If not you were open game.  Many more than Jews qualified for death.

To see what the Nazi's Croatian brothers would do to their Orthodox Christian enemies, click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWh_QYvKjYE&skipcontrinter=1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=BkiGL4XxdpY&NR=1

Tell Me If This Video Helps Sell Our City

If you need a place to live in central New Jersey, Trenton, by far has the lowest cost housing.  But you will think that anyone living somewhere else that is thinking about buying here has to be crazy after watching this video.  Here is the Gangland Trenton video that aired several years back.  It is about the Trenton Sex, Money Murder set of the Bloods street gang.

While Sex Money Murder is currently out of business, we have other Bloods sets that are equally dangerous.  So if you like watching police drama without needing to turn on the television, perhaps Trenton is for you.  If you like it quiet, than the suburbs will be more to your liking.

Here is the Gangland Trenton about Sex Money Murder and the Gangster Killer Bloods:

http://www.boobootv.com/2010/04/17/trenton-nj-gangland-sex-money-murder-part-1-of-2/

http://www.boobootv.com/2010/04/17/trenton-nj-gangland-sex-money-murder-part-2-of-2/

For the Gangland Trenton about the Netas and the Latin Kings click here:

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhgi3DS59leM1waiRC

The Truth About Governor Christie

Now I can see it.  All the Republicans out there are going to be writing in saying that I got it all wrong, just like they always do when I criticize the governor.  But let's face it, you have to admit it was a little disingenious to spend two years cutting back on aid to municipalities and cutting wages and benefits of public employees, not only for the stated purpose of "we can't afford it", but to finance a tax cut as well.

After our governor went ahead with the cuts which have left Trenton, Newark and Camden together short over 1,000 police officers and caused a massive spike in crime in these cities, our governor now thinks we deserve a 10 percent cut in the state income tax rate.  Of course, such a tax cut is being done to boost his popularity in the suburbs because it proves he can "do something" about the high cost of government here.  He certainly believes such a move will help boost his reelection chances when he has to run for office next year.

When talk of the cuts surfaced at the start of his term, I said that they will lead to more crime, bigger fires and larger class sizes.  Well my prediction was right, and at least some of the impact is being felt in the suburbs where things like Chinese classes and varsity hockey had to be cut out.  In the cities however, the cuts have done more than cause some budgetary trimming around the edges.  Rather it has required cuts in essential services that wouldn't be tolerated in more wealthy communities.

Consider the cuts to Camden's fire department, which almost went to the breaking point after being overwhelmed by a series of factory fires.  Or how about Trenton, where the mayor proposed getting rid of the TAC squad (SWAT team) because we did not have enough patrol officers.  Here we got things like a shootout on Route 29 that caused the road to be shut down when state workers had to go to work the following morning, costing the taxpayers millions in lost workplace hours because anyone using this road was at least a hour late for work.  Those of you that don't work for government may think "so what", however it was a bid deal when a car is traveling south at a high rate of speed in the northbound lane of a divided highway and when gunfire is being exchanged between two other cars all when bystanders are using the road to go home from work.  See, its not just Trenton people that are affected, but anyone who has to pass through our city.  For a news video about the shooting, click here. http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=305877&news_type=news&position=1    

And with the Governor's two percent cap on pay raises and property taxes, you will see that over time, this is not sustainable.  A better plan would have been to tie raises to the Consumer Price Index, but that wouldn't have made as good a sound byte.  When inflation exceeds two percent (which it does now), the earning power of public employees will be eroded.  Eventually their wages will fall far enough behind the private sector that nobody will want to take jobs with the state, county, police departments or school districts.  My guess is that in 10 years, this scheme will become unworkable.

But what does the governor care anyway.  He is a fake and a fraud that isn't really solving problems.  He is just shifting the burden to the cities (where nobody votes Republican and few people bother to vote at all), and to public workers.  And eventually all this will come back to haunt all taxpayers in the state.  But Christie knows that this won't happen right away.  He will keep the illusion going just long enough to finish his second term then move on to bigger and better things.

Sounds like the true pandering political whore that Christie is.

2/6/12;  Its Monday, one day after writing the above.  Perhaps the language is a little coarse, but you have to admit that a tax cut in the face of ongoing state deficits is not a good idea from a fiscal standpoint.  It only makes sense as a political statement to convince voters he has been more successful in getting costs under control than he really has and to buy some votes for next year's reelection effort.

Even the Trentonian, which is a stoutly Republican paper, doesn't like all of Christie's program.  Click here to find out what they have to say: http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2012/02/06/news/doc4f2f4f3d36b28911411503.txt

The Money Pit

The Marriott hotel opened on Lafayette Street in downtown Trenton.  The hotel is owned by a city-owned nonprofit corporation.  So far it has consumed millions of taxpayer's dollars, yet has never made a profit.

How much would you be willing to pay to keep a hotel in your city?  For Trenton's mayor and city council, the answer of course is "plenty".  Last week the city council voted to shovel another $500,000 into the hotel to pay for operating expenses.  The hotel's board asked the city council for the additional money because it was unable to pay its vendors and probably would have gone out of business without the cash infusion.  The money is intended to keep the hotel open until the end of March when, guess what, more money may be needed.

And the half a million is just for operating expenses.  The city is required to pay $1.2 million per year for the bonds that were used to build the hotel.  So the hotel is unable to meet what amounts to its mortgage payment and is also unable to cover the day-to-day expenses for its operation.

Here, we are a place that has a high school that is falling down with garbage cans inside that are used to catch the water when it rains.  We are short 100 police officers after layoffs in July made necessary by Governor Christie's aid cuts and we are stuck with this albortos.  You would think the money would be better spent on public safety or schools, especially since last week's shootout on the Rt. 29 freeway.

Not here in fantasyland.  To truly understand the mindset of our public officials and the spineless mentality of the city's newspapers which help mold public opinion, you have to go back to the 1990s during Mayor Palmer's administration.   Palmer used to say that we were the only state capital in the country without a first class hotel and that such a hotel was needed to stimulate economic development.  He proposed that if a private company wasn't willing to come here and build one with their own money, then the city should borrow money and build the hotel on its own.  And that's just what we did.  In order to get a better interest rate on the bonds, we even signed an agreement binding the city's taxpayers for repayment of the bonds.  Which means that we can't just walk away from the $1.2 million per year, but must still pay it even if the hotel is shut down.

And where was the Trenton Times and Trentonian when our public officials came up with this stroke of genius?  Why they vigorously supported the mayor's plans.  And these are the same papers today which are loudly complaining about the city financing a bottomless pit.  They should have seen the possibility that perhaps companies wouldn't build a hotel here on their own because it wasn't profitable to do so.  Perhaps the "build it and they'll come" approach wasn't a good idea after all. 

So now we're stuck with this thing.  And it has had no impact on economic development as far as I can tell.  Even with the hotel, private companies aren't exactly breaking down the doors to open businesses here. 

Perhaps a functional school system and police department would do more than a fancy hotel to attract investment.  What do you think?  Exactly.

Let's Fight to Stop SOPA

No doubt, Perry Mason would be shocked by the grab act that Hollywood studios are trying to pull with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as they attempt to put the genie in the bottle and knock their old material off the web so they can force you to pay to watch it.



Over the last week many of you probably heard about a controversy brewing in intellectual property law.  While this dry field usually doesn't serve up much fodder to the popular press, protests by large websites such as Google and Wikipedia have helped bring the issue to the fore.  They say we should tell Congress not to censor the Internet.

So what is all the fuss about?  SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act will have a chilling effect on bloggers as well as companies like Blogger and You Tube that post links to content posted by others.  If SOPA becomes law, copyright holders can have websites shut down and their operators hauled into court if they post links to copyrighted material that was placed online without the copyright holder's consent.

So what is wrong with that.  Shouldn't Hollywood movie studios and recorded music companies have the right to control distribution of content that they own?  They will have you believe that without SOPA they are defenseless from interlopers making money off their property.  Well, they are not defenseless.  they have currently have recourse under the current online piracy law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). 

One key difference between DMCA and SOPA is that under DMCA, copyright holders have the right to write a website and demand that they remove unauthorized copyrighted material.  The holder has to describe the specific material that they have objections to.  More importantly, the website that is being asked to remove the material has the benefit of a "safe harbor" provision, which allows them to remove the material and escape legal liability.  This link from the US Copyright Office provides more information on DMCA.   http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Under SOPA legal liability attaches as soon as the offending material or links to the offending material are posted.  So basically SOPA gets rid of the safe harbor and the opportunity for websites to comply with the wishes of copyright holders without penalty.

So why is it so difficult for websites to comply with copyright law?  Basically it is not always clear that the material has an enforceable copyright.  For instance, the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie carries a copyright bug, but it is nonetheless in the public domain.  Before the current law came out, which extends copyrights for 100 years, they lasted for a relatively short time unless the holders renewed them.  And back in the old days when the only way you could see a movie was to go to the theater or through broadcast TV, material lost its commercial value quickly after it was no longer being shown.  That's because the public had no way of getting access to it, save by buying a 16 millimeter movie reel at a fairly high cost.  So the holders allowed the copyrights to lapse on things like old horror movies because they had no way of making money off them.

Secondly, even if the material has a good copyright, it is not always clear that it is online without the tacit or explicit permission of the holder.  For instance, musicians commonly make available for free a few songs on their websites to get the public interested in buying other tracks that are only available for a fee.  Another example is pornography, which is probably the most prevalent motion picture material available on the web today.  Adult movie studios routinely post abbreviated versions of their movies online in order to help sell the full-length versions.

So, whether you have a blog and want to link to an interesting You Tube movie or you are just a web surfer who wants to see an old Betty Boop cartoon from the 1930s or the original Diver Dan episode, you have an interest in stopping SOPA.

So write your congressman and tell him not to censor the web.

By the way, here is a link to a Betty Boop cartoon  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onLpqUYuMZw&feature=related'  Here is the Diver Dan promo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPa4Rci7ec.

(By the way, if this sounds like it was written by a lawyer, I let one previously unknown fact about me slip.  I am a member of the New Jersey bar and graduated in 1999 from Rutgers School of Law - Camden.

When You Expect Your Adversary to Play by Your Rules, You Loose

The US and Britain pretty much play by the same rules.  We believe in cooperation among allies.  We expect our allies to back up up during wartime.  Also, we believe in fair play.  Once an enemy surrenders, we stop attacking and begin post-war reconstruction.

Turn the clock back almost 70 years to 1945.  After Germany was defeated the US, British and Russian leaders met at Potsdam to discuss the post-war world.  The US and Britain who were still fighting Japan asked Stalin to declare war on Japan.

In the minds of Truman and Churchill, what we expected was Russia to attack the Japanese in China, which would destroy the last remaining large Japanese troop concentrations and hopefully cause the Emperor and his generals to see the reality of defeat and surrender without an invasion of Japan proper.

The Russians of course had different ideas.  They held off on attacking China until August 1945, when the war was almost over.  After the Japanese surrendered, the Russians kept on attacking the Japanese in China.  By the time the Russians stopped their offensive at the end of August, they controlled half of Korea, all of Manchuria and a good chunk of China itself.  This provided a convenient Communist bastion from which Chairman Mao was able to carry on the Chinese Civil War and eventually conquer the whole country.  It also allowed a Communist state to be set up in North Korea.


Because we were played as patsies by Stalin we are still stuck with the aftermath.  Two decades after the fall of the USSR, we still have to deal with a Communist China which is growing more powerful by the day.  We had to fight the Korean War and are still stuck with North Korea, which has nuclear weapons and is just as dangerous as ever.

The worst mistake we can make with our enemies like Iran or frendemies like China is that they think like us.  What we must do is look out for our self interests.

Where Mass isn't Boring

Our Lady of Guadaloupe is the patron saint of Mexico.  Certainly this would be an odd choice for a stained glass window in circa 1900 Trenton.  Over 100 years later, this choice has become extremely relevant at Immaculate Conception on Chestnut Ave.

After a couple years of blowing off Sunday mass, I decided to begin participating in the Catholic church again.  As anyone who isn't fanatical about Catholicism knows, mass at most places is boring.  What you usually get on Sunday is a church that is three-quarters empty and where the average age of a congregant is about 70 or 80.  Wow, you can hang out with a few people that really need the product the priest is selling - a trip to heaven.

Such is the case at St. Joachim's on Bayard Street.  They have a nice Romanesque sanctuary, which is a real rarity - most churches built before World War II were Gothic in design.  Very small and homey.  But the problem is that the parishioners have been dropping off like flies and the number of grey heads in the pews has dropped off noticeably since I stopped going a few years ago.  Also, the priests are even older than the congregants, so you got the 90 year olds preaching to the 70 year olds.  Anyone up for a senior citizen pot luck supper?  Not me.

On Christmas Day, I got up late and went to 12:00 mass instead of 11:00. In Trenton this means you have to pick your language, and that language will be something other than English.  Now let's see, do you want Polish or Spanish, or perhaps Korean.  At first I thought that hanging out with the foreigners for Sunday worship would be something akin to going for root canal therapy.

For me, the choice was fairly easy.  While the Poles look like me, I don't understand one lick of Polish, so I went with Immaculate Conception on Chestnut Ave. for Spanish mass.  When I went there I noticed a few things, the first being that the people who picked out the stained glass windows over a century ago made an appropriate choice for today which they would not have imagined at the time the windows were installed.

Yep.  There she was in the middle position on the church's North side.  Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico, which is now located in a church full of Mexicans and Guatemalans.  There was another notable thing about this congregation.  The pews were full- a packed house in a large Gothic church, and they were full of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s with children in tow.  What do you know, a live congregation.

Now, a you may know, I started a new job on in the economics and statistics section at the Labor Department.  Where my old job involved writing about the economy, my new job involves being a resource person for our statistics.  As a statistical expert, I know a few things about the Hispanic population which explains what is going on at Imaculate.  For one thing, Hispanics have an extremely high birth rate.  While non-Hispanic whites in the state now have a birth rate below that needed to replace losses due to death and outmigration, the Hispanic population is growing faster than either Blacks or Asians, and most of the growth is due to natural increase rather than immigration.  Yes it is true they breed like rabbits, or at least the Irish Americans I remember from my childhood growing up in 1960s Hamilton.  Families of 4, 5 aand 6 kids are common. 

Just as important, a greater proportiion of Hispanics attend Sunday worship services than Blacks, Whites or Asians.  While church attendance has fallen dramatically among low income whites and blacks in the last 30 years, attendance among Hispanics remains uniformly high among Hispanics regardless of educational attainment or income level.

Not only do these people take the church's prohibition against contraception and abortion seriously, they continue to remain faithful, even if they have little income or education.

If you want to see a packed Catholic church with a good cantor and choir, Immaculate Conception at 12:00 is a must-see.

It's been a while

I haven't posted anything in a while, which probably means that some people think I fell off the face of the earth.  No, I'm still here.  I just got bummed out about some things such as the election (because the voters returned all the same bums back including George Norcross's Benedict Arnold Democrats and the turncoat Sheila Moore from Newark).  I have also been having problems with my knees, teeth and VA benefits.

We even lost Buono and Cryan from leadership positions.  They were replaced by Sweeney's lackeys.
If public employees want to see real change in Trenton, they have to do something besides slavishly voting for the same ol' faces, because if you keep voting for people who stab you in the back you'll keep getting stabbed.

There is another election coming up, and ordinary people have the opportunity to take control of their county Democratic Party machinery if they have the nerve to stand up and run for county committeeman positions.  It only takes 2 or 3 signatures to get your name on the ballot for the June primary.  County committee people get to vote in their county Democratic convention.  They have the power to pick the candidates and pick their county party's leadership.  Normally, the political hacks get the conventions to vote to suspend the rules and then submit a slate of same ol' same ol' candidates for county and state office as well as a slate of the same old tired faces for the county party officers.

If we get enough public employees on the county committees we can thwart these strategies and force a full-blown convention where the committeemen themselves choose the party's candidates and officers.  Then we can dump the Donald Norcrosses of the world and replace them with authentic rank-and-file public employees.  Put the party machinery in the hands of ordinary cops, teachers, office workers, etc. and you will see a real change on who gets on the ballot in November.

Go to your city hall and pick up a petition for county committeeman in your district.  Make a real difference!!! 

From Out of the Horse's Mouth

Want to find out what CWA 1038 has to say about Christie's health insurance reform package.  Want to learn the details of the plan.  Then read the following memo issued by the union.  Hope to keep things fair and balanced and post the state's response to it soon.

While some of the "what to do" as far as choosing a plan is a matter of opinion, the rate charts shown and thegeneral structure of the plans including deductables and copays are true.  Take a look at the big jump in rates between year 2 and year 3 when deciding to vote on Christie's Democratic allies in the legislature this November including Sheila Oliver and Stephen Sweeney.  I think you will agree with me having real Republicans (who everybody knows don't like us) is better than having fake Democrats such as that Ironworkers president from West Deptford that gave us a royal screwing.

Mike Mulligan for Senate in District 3.

(Just click on the following document.  If you are running Microsoft products it will open in a photo viewer and you will be able to see each whole page and resize them so you can read them.)

Hope You Are Enjoying Your Pay Cut

Right now I am looking at my pay stub for the period ending September 30th.  On the stub is a message to encourage workers to participate in something called TaxSave, which allows health insurance premiums to come out of pre-tax money.  While workers won't pay federal income tax in the premiums, they still have to pay state income tax on this money.  One other very big problem, no Social Security tax will be taken out either, which reduces your eventual Social Security retirement benefit.

In the past, this wouldn't have made much of a difference, because we only had to pay 1.5 percent of salary for our health coverage (plus about $20 more for dental), but when the premiums start ramping up next year, look out, people who participate in TaxSave will find themselves saving themselves out of Social Security.

By the way, how about that new lighter check with the increase in pension cost.  That's Pension Reform.
And with  elections coming up this November, we no doubt will remember who made that plan happen.  Why Sheila Oliver in the assembly and those notorious South Jersey Norcross Democrats.  So be sure to vote for real Republicans if you are now represented by Oliver, Sweeney, Norcross, Whellan or any of the other Benedict Arnold Democrats.  We can always dump the Republicans the next election cycle, but we must put them in to let Sweeney and Co. know that their actions have consequences, and in their case the consequence is having to loose reelection. 

By the way, what do I shell out for pension.   About $200 per pay.

Trenton, a Modern-Day Dodge City, Courtesy of Governor Christie's Municipal Aid Cuts

The Baldassari Regency, located at 140 Morris Ave in Trenton, in better days was known for its fine food and great banquets.  Now the property is up for sale.  Gee whiz, another lightning bolt moment.  Why sell such a wonderful business!  Perhaps because they have had a series of burglaries there in recent months and last Thursday night, four people were shot outside the establishment at closing time.  This is a copy of the photo on an ad for the property that I found online.

It used to be, that if you wanted to go to Dodge City and you lived around Trenton, you probably were in the market for a new car and were planning on traveling to a certain Chrysler products dealership in Willingboro.  Nowadays, if you are a Trenton city resident, you wouldn't have to travel any farther than your front porch because you are sitting right in the middle of it.

I believe it has been about two or three weeks since the mayor laid off 105 cops, which amounts to about a third of the city's police force.  And yesterday, one of the headlines on the front page of the Trenton Times read "Six are Shot in 12 Hours in Trenton".  Four of those shootings took place after Dance Night ended last Thursday at the Baldassari Regency on the corner of Morris and Division streets in the Burg.  The business owner, who held a well publicised anti-crime meeting at his establishment in the middle of last month to protest the layoff of a third of the police department and deteriorating conditions in the once-safe Chambersburg section of the city, says he believes the shootings occurred because the extra police which normally show up at closing time were not available because of the layoffs.  He also says his staff takes precautions when holding dance night, such as frisking guests for weapons, however the shooting started outside, and the guests who returned fire probably retrieved their guns from their cars.

To make matters worse, the bar sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood across from an elementary school.  The shootout spilled over into the school's parking lot and a few rounds hit the school.  Check out this link to video from Channel 6 News which shows interviews with the owner, Eddie Baldassari as well as neighborhood residents.  http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/crime&id=8373712

The Baldassari's shootout was no freak occurrence.  Multiple shootings have been happening on a daily basis since the police layoffs.  The Trentonian blames Mayor Tony Mack for the layoffs.  However, the record will speak otherwise.  Mack was under pressure by the governor to get rid of the cops back in July of 2010, when other major cities in the state such as Newark and Camden laid off their police, but Mack refused to do so.  He tried to get federal money to keep the police on.  This year, when the governor slashed state municipal aid to almost nothing, the mayor tried to pass a massive tax hike to save the police, but city council refused to go along.  As far as I am concerned, no mayor could have saved the police jobs.  Rather the blame falls square on the shoulders of Governor Christie because he refused to pony up the money which he believes is better spent on property tax rebates for suburbanites and tax cuts for companies and the rich.

This is not to say that Tony Mack is not a pretty sad case.  He has a penchant for hiring the incompetent and criminals for top positions in his administration and allowed his brother to run a criminal enterprise from the city water works, while trying to cover it up by harassing the employees who blew the whistle on "Muscles" and his private plumbing business which kept its costs down by using city employees and city equipment to do the work. He should be recalled and replaced.

However, Governor Christie is no saint either.  His aid cuts have contributed to hundred of shootings and dozens of murders across the state because the police can no longer protect the public in New Jersey's cities.  Perhaps the national media should take their rose colored glasses off and expose this charlatan for the fraud he is rather than trying to build him up to become the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

There Ain't No Bugs On Me! (Or In My House Either)

Cute, isn't he.  The common bedbug can really make your life hell.  Anybody who has the unfortunate experience of sleeping in a bed full of these bloodsucking pests surely wants them dead.

In yesterday's post I let the world know that I worke up to find bedbugs eating my wife and I alive in bed.  It was obvious that something had to be done, like then and there.  So I took action.

I threw out the mattress cover.  The inside of the mattress cover was filled with this gross-looking grayish mass which included egg casings, bug droppings and bedbugs at all stages of development.  (They start off as little dots and grow up to be oblong creatures about 1/10th an inch long.  The bugs I had were brownish red.  As far as the sheets went, they were thrown in the wash by themselves which seemed to work to remove the few stragglers they contained.

Next I took some 58% pure Malathion an organophosphate like DDT, recommended for outside use only, mixed it 50/50 and put it into a spray tank like exterminators use.  I sprayed it around the perimeter of all rooms in the house and misted it over the outside of my mattress and box spring after I removed them from the bed.  (I would not recommend using Malathion indoors, but I was desperate.   Get Onslaught or some other modern broad-spectrum insecticide that is effective on bedbugs and rated for indoor use.)

Next, I set off 12 BioSpot flea bombs that I purchased at Petsmart.  They are a little pricey, it cost $100 for 12 bombs.  I put 3 in the bedroom and spread the rest out throughout the rest of the house.   Then I went out, had a nice meal, got a haircut and visited friends.  It takes about four hours for the stuff to dissipate from a sealed house.

After I went home, I opened up all the windows, brought the pets back inside and made my bed with new linen that I just bought at the store.  I can promise you that there are a lot of bug carcasses in here, but no live insects.  I got to sleep in peace.

The BioSpot flea bomb has a nice feature.  It contains an insect growth feature and keeps killing for for up to seven months after application according to the label.

Just to insure I don't have any more surprises in this house waiting to hatch, I plan to go online to my state agricultural extension service website and read up on the life cycle of the bed bug.  When the next brood is due to hatch (probably a week from now, I will bomb again.

This procedure works, but the bug bombs leave an oily residue on everything that evaporated overnight.  (I mean walls, floors, ceilings, everything).  Don't worry, it went away with no apparent harm to my property.  The other thing is that you are dealing with poison, so I would wash your dishes before using them again and clean off your food counters.  (Don't want to consume any bug killer you know).  Also, the gas in bug bombs is poisonous.  Seal the house by closing all doors and windows THEN LEAVE FOR FOUR HOURS. (Like they say on 1000 Ways to Die, if you stay inside YOU WILL DIE)  Also, don't forget fluffy and Fido.  Remove all pets.

This will work.  Just do the whole house and repeat about two weeks after in order to break the egg cycle.  Then you won't see this batch of bedbugs again!

What's Inside Your Mattress?

For me, the answer was, "Better not ask".  I noticed for the last few weeks an itch sensation when I laid down in bed and my wife said things were biting her.  This morning I did a little investigation and found what looked like large flea carcasses on the sheets, so I tore the mattress cover off.  The inside of the cover was filled with the bane of Trenton...bedbugs!!!

Yuck, human bloodsuckers.  The recommendation from the city is to throw away all clothing, carpets an upholstered furniture, including mattresses.  I don't think my homeowners insurance company would like that, so I am trying an intermediate step.

W eill spray my bedroom especially the mattress with a good old school oganophosphate insecticide (of the DDT class, though not full-blown DDT), then bomb the place real good with store-bought flea bombs.  I will also be treating the yard with lawn insecticide. (I have a stockpike of chlorodane purchased in the 1970s).  I also ordered some heavy duty bug killer from Georgia which should show up later in the week.  I'll let everybody know how it all works out.

Let's get on our politicians about repealing the "Silent Spring" bug killer laws.  Rather take a small chance on getting cancer later in life than a 100% chance of getting eatten alive now.

The Faces May Change, Everything Else Remains the Same

Here is a picture of Dolores Del Rio, a famous Mexican actress from the 1920s to 1970s.  As you can ses, celeberties always presented themselves to the public in the best possible light.

I remember that about 20 years ago or so I read "The Way of Perfection" by Saint Teresa of Avila and she went into great detail talking how horrible it is living in a convent with a bunch of chatty nuns always gossiping abot each other.  Sound familiar.  My experience is if you put three or more women together for a long enough period of time they will be takling about each other and stiring up trouble.  Problem is Teresa lived in Spain in the 1500s.  Some things never change.

So perhaps you would rather hear about something else besides nuns from 500 years ago or the beginings of the Discalced Carmelite order.  Sometimes moving away from people and living with nobody but myself and God sounds appealing, but I don't think the monastic life will ever become part of my life.  Anyway that's not what I here to write about.

I was just surfing the web in one of my semi-drunk trances (Obviously not worrying about what future employers will find out about me on a deep web search, am I?)  I was looking at videos of turn-of-the-20th century recording and theater stars in South America, like Dolores Del Rio (just as sexy as Vanessa Del Rio I promise).  Of course I got to listen to Charlo (Madonna was not the first recording star to go by one name, you know).  What did I find?  The music was not very appealing.  While I like tango, the flamanco-type stuff that was in vogue in the 1900s and 1910s doesn't do anything for my ears.  What I did find impressive was the quality of the plublicity shots and the coreography in the short videos that appear on the computer.  Fantistico !  And even harder to make in the day when they did not have the equipment (I dare not say technology) we got today.  I mean these posters are good enough to appear on album covers today.

Not everyone in South America was Juan Valdez working on his coffee plantation, even in 1900.  There was a lot of wealth and talent down there as well.  And I was supprised that Latin America had just a vibrant film and recording industry as we did from the very begining, with just as many stars as we had, producing hundreds of records and films, yet none of us up north got to see them until recently.

Thank God for the Internet.  It helped save our history, contrary to what people were saying a decade or so.  (Back then they believed that contemporary culture would be inaccessible to future generations, because they wouldn't have the equipment to view it.)  Who said the stuff couldn't be migrated over to contemporary media just like happened to dolores delrio.

This Cat Always Lands on His Feet

The modern workplace is a jungle.  In order to survive there, you must be like this guy and be able to land on your feer after you get tossed around.

From my previous posts you may remember that I was getting transferred from my long-time position in the Bureau of Labor Market Analysis to a very different job in the State Data Center.  To bring everyone up to speed, my old job originally was working as a "field analyst" or somebody who was supposed to be an expert on the economy in a certain part of the state.  In my case, it was Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties.  I got to read newspapers so I could take notes on the comings and goings of companies and other trends in business in the area.  I got to go out and cruise around on the state's dime to monitor the progress of these events and to promote the Division of Workforce Development so they could get job listings and help our state's unemployed transition to new work.

Last November, Christie's boys decided to upset the apple cart and roust me from my happy home.  I stayed at the same desk under the same supervisor and received the same pay, but my new job was covering the construction and transportation&distribution industries.  This meant writing new publications from scratch.  We at the state almost never get to create anything new from scratch, but we did and I saw it through for 10 months.  My industry report (over 60 pages long) on the transportation, logistics & distribution industry will soon be published on line.  For a guy with 20 credits or so in economics (my bachelor's degree is in agriculture), I consider that an outstanding achievement.

The man responsible for uploading and downloading stuff to the web, in addition to writing databases and making maps took a new job as an administrator in our IT department.  So my director came to me and "asked" me to take over his position.   I said "asked" because it was implied he would very much like me to say yes.  I was skeptical like, "what did I do wrong?" but I took it.   I thought it might be a setup to get me out the door or something, but felt it was best to go along, even though my qualifications in IT are nill.

Well, they kept me on my old job until last friday so I could finish my report.  On tuesday, my old boss and new boss called me into the back room.  It seem my old boss wanted me back to present my paper at the annual analyst's meeting.  I turned him down, but it still felt good that I was worth enough to bring back for one last performance.  I agreed to show up at the meeting to answer questions about my findings.

So how is this webmaster thing going.  So far swimmingly.  I get on well with my new boss who is pleasant to work for.  So far there hasn't been much to do because I don't know much yet, but I believe that will change soon.  The new supervisor noticed I have been picking up rather quickly and even figured out how to assemble a bunch of .pdf pages into a single .pdf file without any help on his part.
(It's amazing what you can do with the Help menu, especially after what I have been through since the begining of the year.

It seems that when they hire someone from off they street, they ask the world in what they want in a new employee.  Almost nobody meets the standard, so very few get hired.  However, since Christie has allowed the state only to backfill a few positions, the qualifications to move from one job to another can be sumed up in one phrses:  "Are you breathing?"  If yes, then they will retrain you.

That's why I stressed in an earlier article that what counts in the workplace is adaptability, not route knowledge of particular tasks.  Ovet time, the route knowledge becomes obsolete, but the ability to learn new things always remains in style. 

The best preparation I got was a good liberal arts education and that is what I woruld recommend to anybody coming up today.  Because I am adaptable, nobody can kill me off, I will always be in demand.

Keynes Was Right

Majorska Vodka, a nasty distilate one notch above radiator fluid, is the liquor of choice among the welfare and food stamp crowd.  Read on to find out why even welfare clients who spend all their money on cheap booze help stimulate the economy and create jobs for the rest of us.

I was reading an editorial in the Trentonian a few weeks ago that I thought was interesting.  It said that it was their opinion that the government can't create jobs by spending money (although many economists would disagree).

Well, they're right about one thing.  Many economists, including this one would disagree with the above statement.  But before I go ahead and attack it, I think it is important to explain first what I think the Trentonian is trying to say.

According to the paper (and many conservative Republicans), jobs are created by businesses, and businesses can do this best if the rich (who own the businesses) are allowed to keep as much of their money as possible.  Therefore they advocate minimal taxation of the rich because they are America's job creators.

They claim that once the government takes in money through taxation and spends it, it is gone in much the same way your paycheck is gone if lets say you spent it on a trip to Paris.  The spending is only productive to the extent it goes toward purchasing capital goods such as machinery which can be used to produce future wealth.  And for the most part, the type of spending that the government does (such as welfare benefits, Social Security or unemployment compensation) is pure consumption and the money is destroyed just as soon as it is spent without any further benefit coming from it.

What's wrong with this picture?  For one thing, when money is spent, so long as it is spent here in America, it creates a "multiplier effect".  What this means is that even money spent on welfare benefits creates jobs.  Why?  The poor spend every dime they get their hands on because they are poor and need stuff.  Let's say Joe Welfare Recipient goes to the liquor store and spends his whole check on Majorska Vodka (an American product).  The liquor store gets to keep the difference between the wholesale cost of the vodka and what they sell it for.  Some of this money is used to pay the liquor store clerk, some of it is used to pay for upkeep of the building and property taxes (or for rent if the store is rented). And the rest of the money goes to the liquor distributor which uses it to pay its staff, pay for equipment and buildings and provide a profit to the distributorship.  Finally, the distributor doesn't get his liquor for free either, so some of the money goes to the distillery which uses it to pay for materials, wages, equipment and business profits.  So even a frivolously spent welfare check helps create good private-sector jobs and provides additional business to private sector companies.

And what about the part that only private businesses are capable of producing productive wealth.  Consider the case of Josef Stalin.  This Soviet dictator was a ruthless, uncompromising Communist who opposed private ownership of even the tiniest businesses.  He also didn't give a darn for individual rights or individual happiness.  He'd lock up common people for the slightest infraction (such as being late to work by 5 minutes) so he could get a steady supply of free labor at his prison camps, which produced a variety of products ranging from roads and canals to cameras.  And Stalin was responsible for bringing a medieval nation into the 20th century and turning it into a world power in three short decades.  So much for the theory that the government can't create wealth.

The GOP likes to claim that Keynes was wrong because the New Deal programs did not bring the nation out of the depression.  All this meant was that the New Deal stimulus was not big enough.  For when World War II started and government spending accelerated, the nation was propelled into several decades of unprecedented prosperity.  And the social utility of war is probably even less than Keynes's famous example of hiring men to dig holes in the desert and filling them in.  Even destructive spending can provide economic stimulus if the money is used to pay wages to workers who would otherwise not be employed.

In Memory of the Fallen. (No, not the World Trade Center Cops, But the Trenton Cops That Were Just Laid Off)

Police process the scene of the shooting that occurred on Mercer Street in Trenton on September 15, 2011.

So much has happened this week, so its hard to figure out what to write about.  Let's see, we had a series of shootings such as the car that got shot up on Mercer Street at about 4:00 in the afternoon on Thursday.

I found out about this....sort of anyway in real time.  I was coming home down Market Street around 5:00 P.M. with my wife and she said, "What are all the police doing on Mercer Street."  I said in jest that it probably has something to do with some tripple homicide or something.  I knew something at least as serious as a big car accident or a nonfatal shooting occured, too many cops for anything else, but I didn't know what. 

It turned out somebody got killed after their car got shot up down there.  Probably (or let's say likely) some kind of a hit on a street gangster.  Another criminal taken out for offending some other criminals, it appears.  Thank God, it didn't occur about an hour later and a little closer to Market Street.  Then I just might have had to dodge bullets to get home.

We had more than one shooting last week.  Most of them were non-fatals and none of the others directly affected me, but another one stands out as memorable, more for the name of the place where it occurred, and why it happened, rather than anything else.  On the corner of Southard and Ingham (also the location of the now-closed but long-time landmark Romeo & Juliet bar), a bodega opened about two weeks prior to the shooting.  It is called D&A Deli.  I saw the picture of it and I thought, DOA Deli, what an appropriate name for the scene of a shooting.  Just think, the locals probably say "Dear, I got to go down to Dodge City to go to the DOA to pick up a pack of smokes."  She replys, "Make sure you make it home alive, now put on your bullet-proof vest, you'll probably be needing it."

At the time of the shooting, the DOA was just opened for two weeks.  It had already been robbed twice and some other criminals were trying for time number three.  I big Spanish guy was there waiting.  He was the owner, armed with a pistol.  He grabbed the bandits and turned them over to the police when they arrived without incident.  A silver pickup rode by and the occupant stopped and got out.  He was an off duty cop.  The store owner, thinking he was part of the robbery pulled his weapon and fired,  The cop returned fire.  Nobody was hit.  The store owner was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer.

Now let's see what a jury would think.  This guy was robbed twice in the two weeks he was opened and a third robbery was just attempted.  Someone in a civilian vehicle and civilian clothes comes up and tries to interfere just after he turned the bobbers over to the cops.  Another robber, right?  That's just about what anybody would think, even if he identified himself verbally as a police officer.  Just remember criminals are not above a little deception, jike saying they are police, just to be able to get in there and carry out their crime.

The  store owner did nothing wrong as far as I am concerned.  We should all have the right to defend ourselves, particularly in a proven high crime area and a proven high crime situation (like operating a bodega in the ghetto.)

Another fly in the ointment.

Just when we all thought it was too dangerous to go outside, the Mayor lays off 106 police officers.  That's right, yesterday was the last day for a third of Trenton's police force.

There were let go because Governor Christie could not find enough money in his budget (or should I say brains in his head) to give the city sufficient funds to keep them on.  We are in the middle of a perpetual crime wave and the governor wants to save money for a few rich bastards by getting rid of a third of our police.

Now, this will really make businesses WANT to expand in the capital of the Garden State, won't it.  T
he city fathers can use this fact in literature promoting our city.  "With a crime rate rivaling East Saint Louis, Detroit and Compton, can you think of a better place for opening your business."  Well yeah, unless your business is a funeral home, car bullet-proofing shop or something like that.

Not that there isn't money to be made in a now relatively cop-free high crime environment,  Look at what the Bloods can make if they could kidnap some high-ranking state official and collect the ransom.

A little update

I haven't posted anything in the last couple months.  Right now, I want to bring my readers up to date and share some information.

Monday is my wedding anniversary.  I been married 24 years, and I took my wife out today to Malaga, which is a nice Spanish restaurant on Lalor Street.  It is Spanish as in Europe, not Mexican or anything like that.  It is fairly formal, with a Terra cotta floor and white tablecloths.  A big chandler hangs in the front dining room.  We had something fairly simple and very un-Spanish.  Pork Chops.  They give you three nice sized pork chops for $20.  You get with them string beans and carrots , Spanish rice with saffron and homemade potato chips.

The place is owned by a woman in her 50s who works as the hostess.  I don't know if she still does it, but she used to put on flamenco dancing shows.   Well our dinner conversation turned to flamenco dancing and the the name Carmen Amaya came up.  So  you haven't heard of Carmen Amaya.  She was only probably the best flamenco dancer of all time.  Here is a clip of her in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCca6d2ceI0

I came home and looked at a few clips of her dancing and also listened to Ada Falcon, another late great star from south of the border.  She had an interesting life.  Her first lover was a politician and he was assassinated by a hit squad sent out by the president of Argentina.  Her second lover was her bandleader.  He cheated on her.  She then fell in love with a homosexual and caught him in bed with a man.  So in 1942 she did the only thing you could expect from somebody with that much bad luck.  She joined the convent and became a nun.  When she died a few years ago, she was in her 90s.  She once owned a diamond that was a gift from the majaraja of India that was worth millions (another Liz Taylor special).  She was rich back in the day and was noted for buzzing around Buenos Aires in her bigh car showing off her flashy clothes and furs.  Yet when she died she was penniless and only 3 people came to her funeral.

Here is one of her songs, Besos de Miel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbkOyJxrUM   Her stuff sounds old as dirt because the bandleader Francisco Canaro was very conservative musically and still used a small chamber orchestra at a time when most bandleaders went to big bands.  But she probably has the best voice of the old time tango singers.

So much for the dead "girlfriends".

At work, the job is real hectic.  Cristie brought in a gentleman from the Heldrich Center to be our director and he basically tried turning us into real research economists rather than the half-ass hacks we used to be.  So far I wrote something called an Industry report, the one on Trade, Logistics & Distribution is nearly finished and comes in at over 50 pages long.  I also wrote another 20 pages on the construction industry.  That took about 2 months.  The project was complicated by getting a new computer with Office 2010 on it.  My old one had Office 2003.  Nothing like fighting Power Point to make graphs and charts.  That on top of researching a whole bunch of crap.

Well the man who used to work in the state data center and handled our web stuff got promoted and left the floor at the End of July.  Walter was the third webmaster we had that got promoted.  Since Christie doesn't believe in hiring anybody to replace the people that left, I got drafted and will become the new webmaster on  September 12.  No it wasn't my idea.  The director offered me the job, said he wouldn't force me to take it but made it very clear he wanted me to take it.  I know zip about making webpages or uploading material with Interwoven or writing SAS programs or doing work in Foxpro and Fortran.  Sounds like the job from hell, doesn't it.  (By the way, do you know any other place on God's green earth that uses Interwoven instead of Dreamweaver or that still uses Foxpro or Fortran.  I don't.  So I'll learn antique software and become a computer guy for my last 15 months on the job. 

Target date for retirement is December 31, 2012.  That's when I plan to hand up the spikes.

Hey it could be worse.  Lots of people in the real world get laid off and don't have jobs.  Instead, I got an ex-bar manager turned director of a floor that does economics and statistics who butters me up and convinces me (a farm operation and Agronomy double-major) to take a job as an IT guy.  My qualification is supposed to be that I am a quick learner.  I know I didn't get picked because of my education or work background.  The worst that could happen is I get bounced out of that job and sent back to the Bureau of Labor Market Information.

In District 3, It's Mike Mulligan for State Senate

Mike Mulligan will be our next state senator from District 3, if public employees have anything to say about it.  He represents our best alternative to Stephen Sweeney,

If you believe State Senate President Stephen Sweeney is a self-serving scoundrel, you aren't the only one that believes this.  Of course, you know I have been saying this for some time.  But who am I anyway?  Don't take my word for it and you don't have to.  It appears that Brian Donohue from the Star Ledger says the same thing too.  (Click here for the Star Ledger article.)
http://www.nj.com/ledgerlive/index.ssf/2011/06/george_norcross_and_pension_re.html

Also, check out this video from the Star Ledger. 
http://video-embed.nj.com/services/player/bcpid619329501001?bctid=1021686536001  After watching this video, I'm pretty certain George Norcross suffers from one of the worst cases of potty mouth I ever have seen in either an insurance salesman or a public official.


Basically it appears that Sweeney and the rest of the South Jersey Democrat legislators that went along with the pension bill are in the hip pocket of George Norcross III, who had the bill larded with provisions to line his pockets and enrich his hospital and health insurance company.

No, Sweeney doesn't have to go just because he has the morals of a 19th century Chicago alderman.  He's also a bad negotiator.  Remember how I said in the last posting that a politician's positions are more about respect than his personal beliefs.  Well Christie had no respect for Sweeney.  He gutted the Democratic budget and cut programs that were near and dear to the senate president such as aid to the state;s cities (Witness our recent 12 cent per $100 property tax increase made necessary by the aid cuts.), family planning and Medicaid.  If these programs were so important to the Democrats, shouldn't Sweeney have worked out a quid pro quo with the governor that the Dems would back his plan to screw over public workers if Christie would go easy on aid to the cities and the state's lower income residents.  No, Sweeney chose instead to trust Christie.  Why on God's green earth would anybody trust a former prosecutor?

The end result was Christie got everything he wanted and the working people and poor people of this state got screwed over double.

There is an alternative to sending this jerk back to the senate this fall.  It's called Mike Mulligan.  Voting for Mulligan would more about getting rid of Sweeney than standing for anything Mulligan is for.  He is an attorney from Pilesgrove Township in Salem County and is your basic cookie-cutter Republican.  He would back up the governor on just about anything he wants.

OK, then what's the difference between Sweeney and Mulligan?  Well, Mulligan will be a freshman senator with little power.  Sweeney is the senate president.  Mulligan won't have the ability to push through legislation like Sweeney does.  And besides by getting rid of Sweeney, we are sending a powerful message to the rest of the Democratic legislators.  That message is that attacks against unions will not be tolerated.  Anyone who attacks unions will get thrown out of office.

Here is a video where you can see and hear Mike Mulligan in action.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk_h1GC_ZT8

Why not vote for a third party candidate with views more in line with ours.  The answer is because Mulligan has a chance and third party candidates do not.  When was the last time that someone other than a Democrat or Republican got elected to the legislature anyway.  Besides, we can simply remove Mulligan during the next election and replace him with a REAL Democrat, someone other than Stephen Sweeney.

By the way, if you are interested in learning more about George Norcross, here is his Wiki article.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Norcross_III

Just Hanging Around (At Least Until January 2012)

In April 1945, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini thought he'd play it safe and hightail it for Germany in a German military convoy.  The vehicle he traveled in was captured by Italian partisans.  He was caught because he was wearing a private's overcoat with general's pants (which have a red stripe going down each leg).  His mistress was picked up a few days later along with about two dozen other high ranking fascists.  The communist-dominated partisan council decided on public executions.  After the dictator was killed, he was hung upside-down next to his mistress from the Esso gasoline station on a square in downtown Milan.

One of the benefits of living in the USA is that we get to elect our leaders.  What this means is that when we want to get rid of a politician we can just vote them out of office, which is a lot less messy than what the Italians did to change their government around in1945.

Of course don't actually hang anybody, but our politicians still get to "hang around" a while anyway.  After we vote out Sweeney and his crew in November, they will still be around stinking up the statehouse until the middle of January.

By the way, here are the names of the state senators who voted for the Sweeney/Oliver/Christie pension bill.  All Republican senators voted "Yes".  In adition to the Republicans, the followers of Democratic bosses DiVenenzo of Essex County and Norcross of Camden County voted for it.

This included Van Drew (D-01), Whelan (D-02), Sweeney (D-03), Madden (D-04), Norcross (D-05), Beach (D-06), Ruiz (D-29) and Stack (D-33).  In the Assembly, the Democratic traitors were Milam (D-01), Burzichelli (D-03), Riley (D-03), Moriarity (D-04), Fuentes (D-05), Wilson (D-05), Greenwald (D-06), Lampit (D-06), Conaway (D-07), Angelini (-11), Rible (D-11), Spencer (D-29), Coutinho (D-29), Oliver (D-34) and Ryan (D-36).

All the other Democrats in the Senate and Assembly voted against the bill.

Since all seats in the Senate and Assembly are up for grabs this November, this is how I would vote.  If you are currently represented by a Republican, vote to replace him with a Democrat. (All Republicans voted for the bill).  If you are currently represented by one of the Democrats listed above, vote to replace them with Republicans.  Otherwise, vote Democratic.

See, its not just about party.  It's also about respect.  The Christiecrats that voted for this bill do not respect the rights of public employees or the power of their unions.  You see the Democrats trying time and time again to put funding for Planned Parenthood back in the budget.  That is because they both respect and fear the pro-choice vote.  The same for environmental or anti-discrimination legislation.  Democrats Never want to be seen as anti-environmentalist or anti civil rights.  That is because they fear the wrath of the voters from these constitutanties.

Yet for some reason, some of these same Democrats were willing to accept public employee union money and helpers when they ran for office last time, but nonetheless were willing to vote against us.  They need to be taught the hard way that the union vote must be earned.  It can not be taken for granted just because you are running as a Democrat.

Even if we just succeed in removing Sweeney and Oliver, we would have succeeded in decapitating the Democratic legislative leadership.  That should get the rest of the Democrats to wake up and smell the coffee and get to work on the repeal of this bad law.

Repeal the pension law.

Restore the cost of living adjustment and restore collective bargaining.

Who Gave to Stephen Sweeney's Campaign

As you already heard, the South Jersey Democratic Machine, led by George Norcross III, provided the muscle to push the bill which will drastically raise health insurance and pension contributions for the state's half million public employees.  This includes everybody, including state troopers and judges.  The bill also eliminated cost of living increases on pensions.

As with every thing else, Mr. Sweeney and his boys voted the way they did because it was good for Mr. Sweeney and his friends.  To hell with the constitutants, let alone loyalty to organized labor.  Remember, Mr. Sweeney is the Ironworkers president.

The bill originally contained a provision which would have required public employees to get all their health care in New Jersey, because with few exceptions like emergencies on vacation out of state, the policy would not pay to out of state providers.

Who pointed out this provision?  Why, the Republicans.  It wasn't until then that Democrats from soutside the thrall of Mr. Norcross agreed to remove the provision.  Mr. Sweeney and his friends defended the provision because they said it would keep New Jersey insurance money in the state.  In fact Sweeney inserted the provision on behalf of his friend, George Norcross who is CEO of the Cooper Health hospital system and also owns a health insurance company.

Guess who would have benefited from keeping you fron going to let's say Sloan Kettering in New York for cancer treatment?  Why, Mr. Norcross and his insurance company and hospitals.  Nothing like having a captive audience to buy your product, even if something else that's better is available out of state.

Here is the list of Sweeney's contributors:


http://www.elec.state.nj.us/ELECReport/ContribByContributorsActiveXViewer.aspx?Page=A&Year=2011&Party=DEMOCRAT&Loc=3&Report=NonPAC&EType=P&Office=1

(Click on the link.  I tried to put the whole file up, but to no avail.)

I did the advanced search and this is what they gave me for the 2011 primary.  It looks like a list of 2007, 2008 and 2009 contributions.

Here is a list of all the individual reports filed by mr Sweeney, including some from 2011.  Here is the link to the state website.

http://www.elec.state.nj.us/ELECReport/MultipleSearchView.aspx?Page=1&Office=1&Location=3&Party=1&LastName=sweeney&FirstName=stephen


Happy hunting!

Sorry, But you know the drill

Sorry about the wrong number published in the last two posts.  I just fixed it and it should work now.

Yes, your thieving state senators voted to steal the cost of living increases away for all retired New Jersey public employees.  That part is a dead serious fact.

I also intend to publish the names of all senators who voted for this so-called pension reform bill on Monday and all assemblymen who vote for the same bill on Thursday under a picture of a hanged Mousilini along with the names, addresses and phone numbers of their major party opponents in November's election.

Yes, things are going bad for us.  Without massive public support It looks bad now.  Unless lots of people call their assemblymen between now and Thursday to let them know to vote no on pension reform, everybody who put in their 25 years with state, county , local government or a school board in New Jersey can kiss their annual cost of living increases goodbye for the next 30 years.

So call 888-875-6558 and tell your assemblyman how you feel about getting screwed out of your cost of living increases..

Com'on.  Help me out on this one, because I am nothing  without your support.  Let your assemblyman know if he votes yes, his name will appear under a picture of a hanged Mousilini and the text that follows will accuse him of being a thief and scumbag worse than Mousillini and that seniors everywhere should contribute time, talent and treasure to his major party opponent's November campaign.

Yes, Steven Sweeney, Mulligans ane not just for golf.  You have to deal with your Republican opponent Mr. Mulligan this fall.  With union time, talent and treasure from across the state, nation and world, (yes contributions from my friends in Abu Dhaubi are welcome) maybe I can just accomplish the impossible and take out the state senate president with absymetrical force.

Remember, it took just a few muslim terrorists with little boxcutters to send two Boeing 747s into the twin towers and shock the shit out of USA, the most powerful nation on earth.  It also took just a handful of Nazi commandos to rescue Mousilini from imprisonment by the allies and put him back in power for another three years.

Yes, I at Trenton-star.blogspot intend to be a terrorist and a commando.  I want to take down the New Jersey Senae President who voted for this stupid piece of shit.

Let's show Stephen Sweeney that Mulligans exist in other places besides golf and that all Mulligans are not jokes.

I'm sure Mr Mulligan is just as conservative and hostile to state workers as Mr Sweeney, but he won't have Sweeney's leadership abilities and won't be Senate president.  By getting rid of Sweeney, regardless of who he is replaced with, we would have succeeded in chopping off the head of the snake.

Just that action alone will send fear down the spines of any state legislator who thinks once about going along with Christie's union-busting schemes.

Help me, let's get Mr. Mulligan elected a state senator from District 3 (Salem, Cumberland and Gloucester counties) this November.

Kill off theTrenton Irish Gangster.

No Westies in Trenton!!!  Send the filthy mick back to Hell's Kitchen where he belongs (Along with his filthy mick buddy George Norcoss III).  If Hell's Kitchen (in Manhattan) is not to his liking, perhaps the South Jersey equivalent, Gloucester City will do as a retirement home for this creep.  He can then play with the other Irish Crip dope-pushing redneck creeps that live there.  (For more on gang activity in the working-class Irish American garden spot of South Jersey, click here.  http://njgangsurvey.civicimpulse.com/muni/0414.  To confirm its Irish-American ethnic makeup, click here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_City,_New_Jersey ).
I actually an 1/8 Irish and don't hate Irish people.  I am calling this scumbag a mick because that's what he is, a filthy Irish gangster.  The expression is kind of like what John McCain said about Vietamese.  He called them gooks and when asked to clarify, he said his captors would always be gooks to him.

Harm us, and you made an enemy for life.
\
Remember that Mr. Sweeney in your dottage when you watch the value of your state pension dindle down to nothing.  (I'm shure you are really "concerned" (notice the sarcism).  You always got your Ironworkers pension, which is indexed to inflation to fall back on.  Most of us are not as fortunate as you to be getting multiple pensions.

You can't force us to eat cat food without escaping our wrath.

Remember the Windsor Thunder from the cell phone commercial.  They're pretty hopeless too, but the cell phone company is asking us to root for them.

Let's send Sweeney to the dustbin of history where he belongs!

This is in Italics, because I am  going off on a tangent here.  I just want to write about my good"friends" the Westies.  They are an Irish gang out of New York.  They also have a presence in New Jersey.  Contrary to what most people think (Hell's Kitchen has gone upscale and is not a down-and-out Irish enclave anymore), my personal sources tell.me the Westies still exist and are alive and well in New Jersey.  They are supposed to be involved in several businesses (including a famous restaurant in Atlantic City that curiously has never been organized by the Italian mob-dominated Local 54 and a well-known New Jersey-based fertilizer and grass seed company that's based in Monmouth County)  No specifics here, even butcher boy doesn't mess with the Westies.  For more on the "good old days and Local 54, click here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemo_Scarfo and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Scarfo_Jr.   ).
How does an Irish gang survive in the Land of the 5 Families?  They persisted when similar Irish gangs were knock`ed out of existence because they were more ruthless than the Italian Mafia.  The Mafia is afraid of the Westies.  Take this for example.  When the Columbian mob wants to get rid of you, they make sure your appropriately "dressed".  They give you a Columbian Necktie.  Well, the micks also know how to "dress up" their victims.  It gives them an "Irish Tux".  What's an Irish Tux, you ask?  Well after they kill you (hopefully you are already dead before this happens), they cut your gut open, puncture both your lungs, then attach cinder blocks to your ankles.  Then it's off to the East River, never to be heard from again.  (Don't worry, the catfish will consume your mortal remains before they ever resurface.  Since your gut has been cut open and your lungs have been pierces, there is no body cavity to accumulate gasses, so your body will never come to the surface and float on top of the water.

For more about the Westies, click here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westies