Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

A temporary — but necessary — fix

Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts has been making the case for clean-elections reform (which the Assembly, in its infinite wisdom, tabled on second reading today) and I think we all need to listen.

Clean Elections are investments in democracy. By providing public financing to candidates, special-interest money is taken out of the political process so legislators will not feel beholden to large contributors and their agendas.

Under Clean Elections, qualified candidates who agree to forgo large private contributions and follow strict spending limits receive public financing for their campaigns. This frees candidates from having to chase campaign donations from big-money special interests and lobbyists. It enables candidates ample opportunity to
conduct their campaigns with the interest of their constituents as their top priority.

The legislation, unfortunately, is just a Band-Aid. It’s not nearly comprehensive enough, as The Asbury Park Press, has pointed out — though the Shore-area paper is wrong to call for it’s defeat.

Allowing the flawed program to die off would not lead to a better, fuller experiment in two years, but would signal the end of the experiment, leaving the current system of legalized bribery in place for the foreseeable future. And while pay-to-play bans and other ethics reforms will undoubtedly help some, they only restrict and redirect the flow of money; candidates would still be beholden to the private interests who pay for their campaigns.

The Legislature needs to approve A-100 and then move immediately to improve it — if not for the 2007 election cycle, then for 2009.

To do anything less would be irresponsible.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

A lie is still a lie

I am going to run, verbatim, an e-mail from a friend and my response, because I think they sum up both of our reactions to the Libby verdict and subsequent hand-wringing and spin. Bill e-mailed me Friday, but I was away for a few days (which is why I haven’t posted anything since Thursday). My response is from today.

Bill writes:

So when did I become a Law and Order Republican ??????

OK, so I know that I’m one of those few people that live in the ‘fact based world’, but where does Krauthammer, Novak, etc live ????? I mean, not even to try to make a bigger meaning out of the Libby trial, but to boil it down to its simplicities. During an FBI investigation, and testimony before a grand jury, and it appears that he lied, so he was charged with lying and obstruction of justice. There was a trial, and people deliberated for a long time, and they decided that he didn’t ‘mis-remember’ or forgot, he lied with a specific purpose. Now you have pundits and Washington-insider reporters (if you can call them that) trying to spin this into something that it’s not. I think Fitzgerald put it best in his closing in saying that Libby’s lying is important because it did not allow the criminal justice proceeding to proceed. Yes, Libby’s lying doesn’t directly go to the reason for the original point of the investigation, but that investigation was impaired directly because of his lying. The way these pundits carry on is that this is some big miscarriage of justice, but the only thing I heard from the jurors was that they felt frustrated that Rove or Cheney wasn’t being charged, which then sends us back to Libby lying (and of course the jail sentence or threat of doesn’t have the normal effect that is does, as you now have members of the media calling for a pardon).

My response:

Isn’t it interesting that the same people calling for Clinton’s head because he lied under oath over a sex act are now downplaying Libby’s lying under oath tied to an intelligence coverup? Forget the issue of degree (Clinton’s lie had nothing to do with war or the death of thousands of American soldiers). You can argue that he didn’t lie, that his memory was faulty — a stretch — but to argue that it is a miscarriage shows how completely distorted by partisan politics Washington’s institutional memory and code of ethics have become.

Here is a question: If you are Bush and Rove, do you pardon Libby now hoping that time will soften its impact? Or do you allow him to serve some jail time and pardon him after the 2008 election?

Anyone who thinks that Rove isn’t considering this knows nothing about Washington.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

A doomed mall?

The list is getting too long to follow, the changes having made only moderate difference, leaving us with a still-failing shopping center.

The South Brunswick Mall is losing another anchor store — Bob’s, which had become a favorite of mine.

Consider the history of closings: Channel, Rickel, Jamesway, Grand Union, Rumbleseats, Ground Round, Bloomingdale Discount Furniture, Pizza Hut, Macy’s — and these are just the major players. We’ve also witnessed a long and unfortunate list of smaller stores bite the dust, including The Little Professor Book Store (where I had worked occasionally while in grad school and when I started out as a reporter).

The closings are a reminder that population growth does not, in and of itself, guarantee business. In this case, the mall has been weighed down by a poor design (it can’t be seen from the highway, for instance, and has a dopey traffic circulation plan) and failed mix of merchants. The hope when Bob’s and Home Depot opened was that they’d bring the shoppers in; the reality is that they have not been the kinds of draws needed.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.