This is unfortunate, but at least Russ Feingold will continue to keep fighting in the Senate. We need someone in a major position with his critical vision and progressive principles.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
This comes courtesy of Brilliant at Breakfast (I generally avoid The New Republic) and makes you wonder just how long it will take before the Democrats implode.
James Carville, that rowdy loudmouth that Jon Stewart destroyed a while back on CNN, is shooting off his mouth again. Here is Ryan Lizza’s report from The New Republic:
A PUTSCH AT THE DNC?:
Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the 50-state strategy and his stinginess with funds for House races cost the Democrats several pickup opportunities.
The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.
Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, “Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager.”
If I’m not mistaken, the Democrats managed to take back both houses of Congress, including seats in the South and others considered by party hacks to be untouchable — some of those 50 states the party’s supposedly mainstream leaders wanted to abandon.
And so it goes in the Democratic Party, a party that seems incapable of getting out of its own way. Doesn’t seem to bode as well for 2008 as some might think.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The state — i.e., the leaders of both legislative houses and the governor — appear ready to unveil a property tax cut of 20 percent as the first of what should be a series of reforms designed to fix the state’s broken tax system.
Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts and Senate President Richard Codey described it as a down payment with more to come. My sense is that the down payment is necessary, but that it has to be part of a larger package of reforms that must include a greater use of income taxes, some other alternative taxes, streamlined government and a reduction in the number of municipalities and school districts, an elected state comptroller, among others.
Some of this is expected to be a part of the Legislative package but, as they say, the devil is in the details and we are without those details at the moment.
Another major piece, however, is out of the Legislature’s hands — increased federal aid to urban schools and urban housing, aid that could allow the state to shift its resources elsewhere.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
City Belt has published my poem, “After the First Death, There is No Other.”
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Star-Ledger is reporting that new subpoenas have been issued as part of an investigation into a rental deal between Sen. Bob Menendez and a nonprofit group that that the senator helped receive federal funding.
The senator has continued to say he has done nothing wrong (though it is difficult to see how this does not qualify as a conflict of interest, if nothing else) and the truth will remain an illusive entity until the alleged investigation concludes. (It is also nothing compared to the shenanigans of the Abramoff Republicans.)
But it is a troubling piece of news and a reminder that the new House and Senate leadership need to impose harsh ethics rules to ensure that the Democratic majority is not tempted into the kind of bad behavior (I’m being polite) we’ve been witnessing in Congress for too long.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 