Month: September 2011

>Celebrating Constitution Day

As Chairman of the Congressional Constitution Caucus, I am proud to celebrate Constitution Day this Saturday, September 17.  On this day in 1787, after years of painstaking debate, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed the greatest protection of life, liberty and property the world has ever seen.

Many often forget that the ideas of liberty and freedom our Founding Fathers committed to in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 took eleven years to manifest.  Victories on battlefields during the Revolutionary War paved the way for freedom, but a great deal of work was yet to be done.

As I wrote in my op-ed in today’s Washington Times, understanding that the natural tendency of government is the perpetual growth of power at the expense of personal freedom, the Founding Fathers sought to provide our republic with a set of laws expressly written “to secure the blessings of liberty.”

We are now faced with the same question that has been asked of every American before us: How will you protect it?  We cannot simply enjoy the liberties and freedoms the Constitution provides; it is every American’s duty to protect and secure those liberties and freedoms for future generations.

When Benjamin Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention, he was approached by a woman who asked, “Well, Doctor, what we have got – a republic or a monarchy?”  To which Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
And keep it we must.

God bless the Constitution and God bless the United States of America.
Sincerely,

Scott Garrett

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Ridgewood Train Station becomes fully accessible on Monday

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2011
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

The center island platform and two passenger elevators at the Ridgewood Train Station will be in operation beginning Monday, officially making the station fully handicapped accessible, according to the village’s website.

Track number 3, the existing low-level outbound platform, will now be permanently closed, according to the statement, and a black fence will be erected along the track.

Signage will be placed throughout the facility informing commuters of the stations’ configuration and pedestrian paths of travel, the website stated.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/129973473_Ridgewood_Station_becomes_fully_accessible_on_Monday.html

>Social Security A Ponzi Scheme?
Ronald DuBois    Bogota, NJ

Dear Mr. Krauthammer, I love reading your articles and watching you on FOX, but I’m curious about todays article on Social Security being a Ponzi scheme. I thought a program (or an investment vehicle, etc) had to be incapable of being sustained in the long run, to be a Ponzi scheme.


When Social Security started, it was self-sustaining, and was capable of staying that way – in fact, over the years it amassed quite a reserve fund. Invested properly, the Social Security Trust Fund would still be solvent, and there would be no problems paying our seniors, including me. However, to have accrued the interest necessary to remain solvent, money had to be in the Trust. The Government “borrowed” the money, replacing it with Government bonds (IOUs) that paid little interest. Because of this, not only was the people’s money gone, but when the Government had to pay the retirees, it had to redeem its own bonds – with taxpayer money – to make the payments, further reducing the treasury. (I believe issuing bonds to ourselves, and then redeeming them with our own, taxpayer, money, is called monetizing debt, a real no-no.)  So Social Security is not, and never was, a Ponzi scheme; it was simply theft by our own Government. I think it is important that the people understand that it was the Government stealing the money to use for other things, that made Social Security insolvent, and not because it was a Ponzi scheme, as some politicians are claiming.

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The Stetson Ball:  From Denim to Diamonds
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Cocktails, Dinner, Dancing
7:00 pm – 11:00 pm
at the Ridgewood Public Library
125 North Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Attire:  Western Chic
Jeans or Cocktail Dresses
Cowboy boots and Stetsons encouraged

>Fight brews over New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing overhaul by Christie
By Matt Katz
Inquirer Trenton Bureau

The Christie administration, providing details Thursday of its decision to eliminate the state’s controversial affordable-housing agency, said the move would end a regulatory nightmare, but advocates called it an illegal giveaway to political allies.
In late June, while Trenton was focused on approving a new budget, Gov. Christie announced several state-government reorganization plans. Those included the elimination of the independent Council on Affordable Housing and the transfer of its functions to the Department of Community Affairs.

The changes would allow Christie to give towns more control over the construction of affordable housing, long a heated issue in a densely populated state where housing costs are high and poverty is concentrated.

New Jersey courts have ruled that towns are obligated to permit the construction of housing for low-income residents. The housing council was the independent agency that determined each town’s obligation

https://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110916_Fight_brews_over_New_Jersey_Council_on_Affordable_Housing_overhaul_by_Christie.html

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>AAA asks fed to stop bridge, tunnel toll hike
By CHRIS HAWLEY

NEW YORK — AAA is urging the U.S. Department of Transportation to block a plan to increase tolls by as much as 50 percent on the bridges and tunnels between New York City and New Jersey beginning Sunday, saying the hikes violate federal law.

Besides the sticker shock to commuters, the motorists group said Thursday that it objects to using toll revenues for building the new World Trade Center at the site owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“One of our primary missions is to make sure that any tolls and revenue and any user fees go back into transportation,” said Marta Genovese, vice president of legal affairs for AAA. “But in this case it’s going into a speculative office development.”

https://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=resources/traffic&id=8355716

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>Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming 
Published September 14, 2011
FoxNews.com

Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society in disgust over its officially stated policy that “global warming is occurring.”

The official position of the American Physical Society (APS) supports the theory that man’s actions have inexorably led to the warming of the planet, through increased emissions of carbon dioxide.

Giaever does not agree — and put it bluntly and succinctly in the subject line of his email, reprinted at Climate Depot, a website devoted to debunking the theory of man-made climate change.

“I resign from APS,” Giaever wrote.

Giaever was cooled to the statement on warming theory by a line claiming that “the evidence is incontrovertible.”

“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?” he wrote in an email to Kate Kirby, executive officer of the physics society.

“The claim … is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period,” his email message said.

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/14/nobel-prize-winning-physicist-resigns-from-top-physics-group-over-global/#ixzz1Y3RkmizG

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