Thank you Rich!

Earlier this evening the Mrs. and I met a nice couple from Long Valley in the bar of a nearby restaurant. While waiting for our respective tables, we struck up a conversation about the staying power of certain celebrities, including Sarah Palin. At that point the husband said the most profound thing I have heard in some time:

"Stupid never goes away"

Brilliant!

We ended up having dinner together.

GOP Fiscal Responsibility?

Last evening, while attending a social event, my good friend Rich Reilly commented on how Republicans are the party of "fiscal responsibility". While this is no doubt a Republican talking point the GOP has successfully burned into the psyche of the American public, the facts, when it comes to our national debt, tell a completely different story. This table clearly shows since 1980 at least 61% of our national debt was accumulated under Republican presidents. At least 27% has been accumulated under Democrat presidents.

The next time you hear a Republican boast about fiscal responsibility, asked them to back it up with some facts.

Let's go to the video tape...

Here is a testy exchange between the President and John McCain during yesterday's health care summit where McCain is painfully reminded why he is a guest at the summit and not the host!

John Sette's disappointing response

John Sette's latest response has to read to be believed.  Notice how John again completely avoids the ethics of soliciting township vendors using township letterhead:

Kevin….Enough…If an OPRA request is used the information is PUBLIC. If John choses to solicit contributions from these people it is not against the LAW… Ethics has nothing to do with it. He can solicit anyone. Maybe you should send him some $. As long as he follows all ELEC laws I have no problem with what he is doing….THE END I will not continue this so that you can keep it going on your Blog….I have answered. Have a nice day!!!

Here is my reply back to John.  I hope he clears this up, because as it now stands his position is not good.

John,

Thanks for your reply. Your defense of Krickus’ actions, while disappointing, is not unexpected. While approaching township vendors may seem acceptable to you, what makes this troublesome for Krickus is that he has been highly critical of other candidates who have approached township vendors for financial assistance in the past.

In addition, I find it interesting you have not commented on whether or not you think it is unethical to solicit anyone using township letterhead. Is this acceptable to you? I realize it’s not something covered under ELEC.

GOP's John Sette takes a pass on Krickus

Earlier today, I had the following blog exchange with Morris County Republican Committee Chairman John Sette:

John,

Nice to see you join this discussion. While we have your attention can you please address this question about John Krickus, one of your candidates for Freeholder this year?

Will one of his campaign practices include requiring a Washington Township employee to provide him with a list of vendors with whom the township spent $10K or more so he can send each a letter on township letterhead asking for a donation to your campaign? This is what the current township administrator and a former GOP township committeeman says he did when he was Mayor of Washington Township. Did you approve of this John? If you don’t, why should the voters of Morris County trust John Krickus? Especially with pay-to-play being such a big issue nowadays.

Mr. Sette provided the following response:

Kevin, I just got home….Let me address your concerns: First John Krickus is not “MY CANDIDATE” We have an open primary where anyone can run ..unlike the Democratic Party which has a “Party Line”. The Morris County Republican Committee does not pay for or endorse candidates in our Open Primary. Therefore any money that the candidates raise is for their use…Not the County Organization. As to getting a list of the vendors: I would assume that he put in an OPRA request. This is information that any citizen can request. Again, MCRC has no power to tell any candidate how to raise money for his or her own use. The Democratic Chairman has the ability to throw a candidate off the County Line if he or she does something wrong. I do not have that power.

Here is my response back to Mr. Sette, as he seems to have avoided the key points of my question:

John:

While I appreciate your attempt to respond, your answer seems to have avoided the most important part of my question. Unless you think it is OK for a sitting Mayor to direct a municipal employee to provide him a list of vendors with whom a township spends $10K or more so one can send them a letter on township letterhead asking for a campaign donation? Do you not see anything ethically wrong with this John? And by the way, based on what I have been told, John Krickus did not do this via an OPRA request.

Also, I realize Krickus is not your candidate, but he is a Morris County Republican, is he not?

Jeff Emery's OT Response

Editor:

The response to my recent (OT) letter, as submitted by Thomas Lotito, only serves to illustrate the question, "Who is running Washington Township"? Rather than our elected officials, it appears to be a few "political operatives". Why is it that legitimate questions to elected officials are answered by an individual who has never run for office and does not represent anyone?

When we question the past conduct of our township committeemen, we deserve more than just a personal attack filled with untruths. Rehashing the details of an "ethics complaint" which was dismissed out of hand reflects a personal vendetta, not a recitation of facts. And while I would expect to see these falsehoods continue ad nauseam for weeks to come, they only serve as a smokescreen for people who don't want to explain their actions.

The questions I posed earlier remain unanswered. Why do some of our committeemen have two standards of conduct, one for themselves and one for everyone else? How do they justify this hypocrisy? And how can we trust the decisions of individuals whose political aspirations for themselves and their friends outweigh what is best for their community?

Jeff Emery

Still no GOP plan...

Thirty plus million Americans don't have access to affordable health care...the GOP has no plan to address the issue...and the best the GOP can do is bitch about the configuration of the seating at tomorrow's health care summit?  Is this Vietnam?

GOP....where is your plan?

GOP Health Care Plan: MIA?

The White House plan for reforming our broken health care system has been posted for 24 hours.  Where is the Republican plan?

Where is the GOP Health Care Plan?

As promised, the White House has released the President's proposal for health care reform ahead of Thursday's health care summit, to be broadcast live on CSPAN.  According to "First Read", here are the key changes from the existing House and Senate bills:

• Eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional Federal financing to all States for the expansion of Medicaid;
• Closing the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap;
• Strengthening the Senate bill’s provisions that make insurance affordable for individuals and families;
• Strengthening the provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid;
• Increasing the threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500 and starting it in 2018 for all plans;
• Improving insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to provide Federal assistance and oversight to States in conducting reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.

Where is the GOP's health care plan?

Still No Budget Update?

According to Washington Township's award winning official website, the last 2010 municipal budget update was posted on January 12, 2010 or 41 days ago!  This begs the question, what has the committee been doing for the past 41 days?  Why are they withholding details on how our tax dollars are being spent? Are more backroom deals being cooked up like the one that has WT taxpayers picking up a $50,000 tab for a Township Administrator who only works 15 hours per week?

Where is the transparancy Howard Popper promised on his website? The website he took it down as a result of one of my postings?

Powell dismisses Cheney!

Below is a Washington Post synopsis of a "Face the Nation" interview General Colin Powell gave this morning. As you read Powell's comments please keep in mind he voluntarily served our country as an Army officer for over 30 years. Dick Cheney on the other hand never served in the military, having received no less than five (5) draft deferments.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said former Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that President Obama's policies are putting the nation at risk have no basis, especially since most of the programs and procedures the Bush administration enacted have been continued or heightened under the Obama tenure.

Powell pointed to the ending of waterboarding as an interrogation tool and the success of criminal courts to try terror suspects, both during the Bush administration, as examples of why Cheney's claims of less safety are not "born out by the facts." Powell supported the Obama administration's preference of criminal courts over military commissions for suspects, including 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Christmas day attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who, Powell pointed out, would get a lawyer in a military commission as well as in a civilian court.

Asked about progress in Iraq, Powell, who championed the invasion as secretary of state, said history will be the ultimate judge of events there. He said mistakes were made after the initial fall of Baghdad, but he said he hopes the Iraqi government will seize control of the opportunity they've been given by the United States.

He cautioned fellow conservatives who call President Obama a socialist, saying rough-and-tumble politics is nothing new, but to constantly criticize without attempting to offer new ideas is not productive.

"Have we so lost our faith in this country that we think one person, one man, can suddenly change our entire system?" Powell asked. "That's kind of absurd."

Political Joke of the Day!

A friend of mine sent me this joke:

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am,"replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

You can't make this stuff up!

All week long CPAC Republicans have been blasting Democrats for earmark spending. Here's a little tidbit they might want to ponder.

Where to begin?

It's been a little over a year since I left office, so last Monday I thought I would torture myself and sit through a full Township Committee regular meeting. It was beyond painful. I haven't seen so much incompetence since Katrina. It is quite clear you could put the brains of Ken Short, Howard Popper, James Harmon, and Jim LiaBraaten in a thimble and still have room to pack a snack! The only thing missing from this month's meeting was Bill Roehrich's typical “deer in the headlights” stare.

On the issue of the flea market, the committee has taken an idea that should have been fully investigated BEFORE being presented to the public and turned it into something that is now clearly dividing our township. Now Ken Short wants to form an ad-hoc committee to study the pros and cons and make a recommendation. If this sounds like Short "passing the buck", you are not hearing things, because that's just what it is. Funny how something Howard Popper was hoping to claim as a major talking point for his upcoming re-election campaign has turned into nothing less than a total "Charlie-Foxtrot"!

In a typical display of cowardice, the committee also passed on a opportunity to discuss a badly needed "pay-to-play" ordinance, because Harlin Parker (who has been pushing the committee to act on one) wasn't at the meeting. Talk about a lack of leadership. I guess the fact former Mayor John Krickus may have asked a township employee to provide him with a list of venders who the township had spent $10K or more so he could solicit them for campaign contributions on township letterhead isn't enough to warrant the committee to have a discussion on their own?

By the way, does Jim LiaBraaten have any plans to pay back any of the $7,104 taxpayers put up in defense of his bogus school ethics charge against former WMRHSD board member Jeff Emery? Because while Jim loves to call himself a "fiscal conservative, he doesn't mind blowing taxpayer dollars on costly election recounts and bogus ethics complaints.

Lastly, a local GOP operative recently suggested Jeff Emery should "get busy saving money for the district". I have a better idea. Seeing how Morris County tax records indicate this same GOP operative pays less than $7K in property taxes and has two kids in our public schools (at a cost to taxpayers exceeding $25K), how about this GOP operative focus his attention on improving his own standard of living with hopes of someday becoming a net contributor to our township as opposed to sucking Washington Township taxpayers dry for the additional $18K it's taking to educate his kids. Not to mention the municipal and county services he may be consuming, but clearly not paying for, as well.

In full disclosure, my property taxes are more than double the $7K paid by this GOP operative and I have no kids in our public schools. And yet you don't hear me complaining.

Game Change

In this month's edition of the Black River News, a publication preventing the extinction of outhouses in some parts of Appalachia, a local GOP operative pays homage to Sara Palin by declaring “she is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama.”

Perhaps this operative should take a look at page 397 of the bestselling book, GAME CHANGE, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

 Here is an excerpt:

"Then there was the matter of Palin's substantive deficiencies. On September 10 (2008), she was preparing to fly back to Alaska to see her son Track ship off to Iraq and to tape her first network interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson. Before the flight to Anchorage, Schmidt, Wallace, and other members of her traveling party met Palin at the Ritz-Carlton near Reagan airport, in Pentagon City, Virginia - and found that, although she's made some progress with her memorization and studies, her grasp of rudimentary facts and concepts was minimal. Palin couldn't explain why North and South Korea were separate nations. She didn't know what the Fed did. Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank."

I am quite sure our current President could answer these questions in his sleep.

Setting the Record Straight

In his recent OT letter, Washington Township Republican Committee spokesperson Mr. Tom Lotito states the following:

"You will recall that after I endorsed Mr. Emery’s opponent for the BOE in 2008, Mr. Emery, in the last week before his re-election bid, promptly ran back to the BOE and rushed out an unprecedented press release from the subcommittee he chaired refuting some of the facts in my letter. Mr. Emery neither asked for permission nor informed the full BOE of this action; he used his BOE role to get out his personal campaign message. If that isn’t a breach of ethics to influence an election and an abuse of power I don’t know what is, no matter what the Trenton bureaucrats eventually decided on the case."

The NJ School Ethics Commission had this to say on the matter:

"Although the Commission believes that the respondent was acting in his official capacity as the Chair of the Facilities Committee (Berlin Certification at page 2) when issuing the press release, the Commission can find no direct or indirect financial involvement that might reasonably be expected to impair the respondent’s objectivity or independence of judgment. To the extent that the complainant asserts there was a benefit to the respondent inasmuch as he won the election, the Commission is persuaded by the credible testimony offered by the respondent and his witnesses that the action in issuing the press release was authorized by the Board President and intended to benefit the Board as well as the District, not the respondent. Any incidental benefit to the respondent is purely speculative and insufficient for the Commission to base a finding of probable cause."

Bottom Line: While Mr. Lotito is entitiled to his opinion, he isn't entitled to his own set of facts, which clearly differ from the offical findings of the NJ School Ethics Commission.

Washington Township Budget Updates?

According to the Washington Township website, the most recent 2010 Budget Update was published on January 12, 2010. There have been at least two public budget meetings since this date, yet no update have been published? So much for transparancy!

On a positive note, this week’s meeting contained no Ken Short references to the "schools" as a way of deflecting attention from his past and current double-digit tax increases. Go Ken!

Residents - 1, Flea Market - 0

Despite $8.90 worth of pathetic pandering from Washington Township Republican Club President Chris Westrick, Howard Popper's dream of a Long Valley flea market in 2010 appears to be fading fast!

Tom's Off Target Rant

Based on his letter, which appears in today's Observer Tribune, Washington Township Republican Committee spokesman Tom Lotito completely missed the point of Jeff Emery's prior letter objecting to the appointment of Committeeman James LiaBraaten to the Township Committee. Here is a quote:

"Jeff Emery managed to write several hundred words critisizing an ethics complaint without revealing that he was the defendant in the case and it was his actions that precipitates it!"

A simple reading of Mr. Emery's letter shows he didn't "criticize" the ethics complaint, as the School Ethics Commission's prompt dismissal of the case rendered any further discussion of the complaint itself irrelevant.

What Mr. Emery so rightly criticized was Committeeman LiaBraaten’s appointment to the Township Committee, due to Committeeman LiaBraaten's blatant HYPOCRACY in refusing to hold himself to a standard he set by seconding a WTBOE motion (offered by Bill Roehrich) requesting Ruth McCurdy pay for legal cost incurred by the sole defendant, James Harmon, in her ethics complaint. A complaint similarly dismissed by the school ethics commission.

So with this understanding, the only remaining question is when will Committeeman LiaBraaten live up to his standard and repay $7,104 owed to Washinton Township taxpayers?

Another "Double-Digit" Krickunomics Tax Plan?

Within today's Observer Tribune article announcing his candidacy for Freeholder, John "Kricunomics" Krickus states the following:

"Enacting my platform would result in a double-digit cut in property taxes, which is unherad of in New Jersey."

As much as I would like to believe Krickus' boast, it would have far more credibility if it wasn't completely opposite of what happen the last time he was in charge of my tax dollars.  Because as noted in Township Administrator Dianne Gallet's February 2005 memo, it was Krickus' "economic policies" during his 2001-2003 rein as Mayor that significantly contributed to the 11.1% double digit tax INCREASE imposed on Washington Township taxpayers in 2005.