Hank Kalet

The eerie calm of consensus — it is disturbing to say the least. The president wants to send more troops into Iraq, the leading Republican candidate for 2008, John McCain is touting an increase as well, and many Democrats — a party elected to the majority because America is tired of the slow upward tick of the body count in Iraq — either follow along or remain silent.

I mean, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid is on board and the leading Democratic contenders for 2008 — Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — seem willing to keep their yaps shut.

As Daniel Froomkin says on his Washington Post White House Briefing blog, “Where’s the outrage over escalation?“

Keith Olbermann, of course, offers outrage. Thankfully someone is.

Steve Gilliard’s News Blog also offers outrage.

The strategy smacks of a mix of bravado, stubbornness and ego. Robert Parry calls it a last-ditch effort by the president to salvage his crumbling legacy — and if it is, how does he jibe his willingness to send more American soldiers into harms’ way so that he might be viewed positively by some unborn historian in a future century?

How does he sleep at night? I couldn’t if I were him.

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

The findings are in and now it will be up to the state Legislature. The special commission empaneled to review the state’s capital punishment statute will recommend abolition of the death penalty.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, found no compelling evidence that New Jersey’s death penalty, which has not been used in more than four decades, serves any purpose. It also found the death penalty costs taxpayers more than paying for prisoners to serve life terms without parole.

“There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency,” the report states.

A second story, filed by the Ledger staff, offered this:

With one dissenting vote, the 13-member commission found capital punishment serves no legitimate penological interest, is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency, is not worth the risk of “an irreversible mistake” and costs more than incarcerating murderers for life.

The commission said the savings from replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment without parole could not be quantified, but recommended they be used to provide services and benefits to survivors of murder victims.

This is pretty much what I and other opponents of the death penalty have been saying for years.

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

City Belt, which has ceased its print publication for now, is running its year-end wrap up. Go here to read my picks for the five most significant political stories in the state in 2006.

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

As we get ready to put together the South Brunswick Post’s first issue of 2007, it seemed as good a time as any to look back at the stories that kept us busy here last year.

What follows is a baker’s dozen (sorry, most of the links are paid):

1. Route 92 bites the dust.

2. Democrats elected in landslide as GOP disappears into the ether — while a former mayor mounts an unexpectedly robust write-in challenge.

3. Former state Senate President John Lynch, a major player in state politics and the unofficial boss of the Middlesex County Democrats for years, pleads guilty to bribery charges tied to a late-1990s plan by a South Brunswick sand mine to expand. He’s sentenced to 39 months in jail.

4. Police shooting case is settled after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the officer, then-Sgt. Raymond Hayducka — the current police chief.

5. Planning Board overturns its own denial of a warehouse complex after the developer adds a $100,000 contribution to pay for a study of flooding in the area near the N.J. Turnpike.

6. Renovations begin and are completed at Deans Apartments after a nationwide nonprofit buys the complex. At the same time, the Township Council — with prodding from the South Brunswick Post — creates a rental inspection program.

7. Boris Boretsky, convicted for killing his wife in their Kingston home, is sentenced.

8. The Township Council takes the advice of a local middle school student and bans smoking at two township parks.

9. County gets involved in the pursuit of the Van Dyke Farm.

10. Community Center to be renovated and expanded.

11. Bank robber nabbed.

12. District completes expansion and renovation at elementary schools.

13. Bomb threats close high school.

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

This is how the South Brunswick Township Council says happy new year, with a reorganization meeting and the swearing in of the sitting mayor for another four-year term.

Mayor Frank Gambatese (left, photo by Dennis Symons from today’s meeting), as he told us last week, has a somewhat modest agenda that includes the completion — finally — of Route 522 and a township-bus commuter system that will bring commuters to the train and bus.

Both are worthy goals.

Here are a couple of others we are hoping he and the Township Council can make happen:

1. Preserve the Van Dyke Farm
2. Begin renovation work at the Community Center
3. Find a stable source of funding for the township Food Pantry and Human Intervention Trust Fund

And a couple of others that will require help from the state

1. Widen Route 1 to three lanes in each direction
2. Kill the MOM line

Happy new year from the Post.

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