Reader says Ridgewood residents, consider this your mission. Deny the mayor the victory he seeks in censoring and squelching public criticism of his radical agenda.
“We know how to…move…public opinion.”
Of course, we also know that this mission includes moving public opinion in Ridgewood toward agreeing with the Mayor Aronsohn and the two others of the three amigos, and toward round condemnation of their detractors, whatever the issue, and in whatever way their political goals may diverge from the best interests of the village.
Consider this, however: If the Mayor fails to accomplish this goal in a quiet municipality of less than 30,000 in the increasingly ‘blue’ northeast region of the U.S., he won’t ultimately be taken seriously by his co-religionists in the Church of Alinsky.
So this puts us in the enviable position of potentially snuffing out the political career of a would-be demagogue before it achieves critical mass, or, so to speak, ‘escape velocity’.
Ridgewood residents, consider this your mission. Deny the mayor the victory he seeks in censoring and squelching public criticism of his radical agenda.
Ridgewood police investigating bullet holes at historic church
DECEMBER 28, 2014, 8:22 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2014, 9:05 PM
BY TODD SOUTH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Ridgewood Police are investigating an estimated 30 or more shots fired at the Old Paramus Reformed Church sometime before the Sunday morning service.
The Rev. Rob Miller told WNBC on Sunday that bullet holes, some in a stained glass window, were reported to police after the church service. No injuries were reported.
Detectives with the Ridgewood Police Department told WNBC that the motive for the vandalism was unknown. No threats against the church or its pastor have been reported.
AirAsia plane carrying 162 lost in stormy weather; 3rd Malaysia airline shock
DECEMBER 27, 2014, 11:04 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2014, 4:10 PM
BY ALI KOTARUMALOS AND MARGIE MASON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia turned worse Sunday when an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people disappeared over stormy Indonesian waters, with no word on its fate despite several hours of searching by air and sea.
AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Searchers had to fight against heavy rain.
The Malaysia-based carrier’s loss comes on top of the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine.
At the Surabaya airport, passengers’ relatives pored over the plane’s manifest, crying and embracing. Nias Adityas, a housewife from Surabaya, was overcome with grief when she found the name of her husband, Nanang Priowidodo, on the list.
Christie and Cuomo offer their own Port Authority reforms, block legislators’ efforts
DECEMBER 27, 2014, 1:34 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2014, 9:39 AM
BY SHAWN BOBURG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocked the efforts of lawmakers in both states to reform the Port Authority and instead endorsed their own sweeping proposal on Saturday, nearly a year after the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal brought the agency under unprecedented scrutiny and criticism.
The governors agreed to no longer appoint the agency’s two top executives. They encouraged it to shed its real-estate holdings, including the World Trade Center. And they endorsed redirecting money previously set aside for the governors’ pet projects toward a new Manhattan bus terminal and other initiatives that will benefit commuters moving between New Jersey and New York, they said in a joint statement that accompanied a 103-page report of reform recommendations.
Ridgewood Faculty and Professional Musical theater to opera, jazz, and rock music!
The Ridgewood Friends of Music Concert is Friday, January 9, 2015 at 8:00 pm at George Washington Middle School. This annual concert, which raises money to support music programs in our public schools, will feature Ridgewood school music faculty, as well as local professionals, in genres ranging from musical theater to opera, jazz, and rock. Children are welcome. Tickets are $20, $15 for students and seniors, and are available at Bookends, Daily Treat, Mango Jam, From the Top Music Studio (Midland Park) and at the door. For more information, call 201-857-4434.
Hackers could control your car by attacking safety features
Safety and security features can be exploited by hackers to steal information, extort money or even control vehicles, motoring experts have warned.
Modern cars are being fitted with internet connections and wireless networks to allow for music streaming, internet searches and news updates.
Through these, hackers can access and control a vehicle’s systems, including steering, braking and acceleration, according to experts.
Edmund King, president of the AA, told The Times: “You’re getting cars that are connected to the internet 24 hours a day. If cybercriminals targeted automobiles like they’re targeting other things we’d be in for a hard and fast ride.
Why Is The Most Trending Man In America Michael Brown Lying In An Unmarked Grave?
It looks like deja vu, folks. We’re here again. The nation was shocked months after Michael Brown’s death when they found out that his body was lying in an unmarked grave, because his family was too busy touring the country with the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, profiting from their son’s death at the hands of the all mighty money making machine that is race baiting. Heck, they even attacked and assaulted Michael’s grandmother, the woman that was raising him, we all found out later, for profiting from selling tee shirts.
Well, it appears that the Garner family, that of Eric Garner, are a little too busy profiting from race baiting right now as well, to put even a headstone on their father’s grave. I guess Mrs. Garner was so concerned with who was doing to be her Santa Claus this year that she forgot to stop by with flowers, because as you can see in the picture above, there are no flowers, either .
Emerson String Quartet at West Side Presbyterian January 4th
Parlance Chamber Concert
The Emerson String Quartet stands apart with an unparalleled list of achievements over more than three decades: more than 30 acclaimed recordings, nine Grammys, Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year,” and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our times. January 4, 2015 at 3PM – West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 South Monroe St., Ridgewood. Tickets at the door – Adults $40; Seniors $30; Young Adults $20 Students $10 .
Six Reasons Why Vermont’s Single-Payer Health Plan Was Doomed From The Start
Avik Roy , Forbes Staff
Last week, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D.) announced that he was pulling the plug on his four-year quest to impose single-payer, government-run health care on the residents of his state. “In my judgment,” said Shumlin at a press conference, “the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families, and the state’s economy.” The key reasons for Shumlin’s reversal are important to understand. They explain why the dream of single-payer health care in the U.S. is dead for the foreseeable future—but also why Obamacare will be difficult to repeal.
Leading left-wing economists worked on Vermont plan
Shumlin’s predecessor in Montpelier was a Republican, Jim Douglas. In 2009, Douglas announced that he would not be seeking a fifth two-year term; five Democrats joined the contest to replace him. Progressive activists demanded that each candidate promise to enact single-payer health care if nominated; all five complied. Shumlin got the nod, and assumed office in January 2011.
Shumlin got right to work. In Feburary 2011, a trio of health economists, including Harvard’s William Hsiao and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber, sent Vermont a 203-page report describing the feasibility, and the alleged virtues, of single-payer in the state. Gruber signed a $400,000 contract to work with Vermont on the project.
Hsiao has spent a good chunk of his career helping governments install single-payer systems; for example, he helped the Taiwanese government install “Medicare for all” in 1995. He’s also responsible for Medicare’s Byzantine price-control scheme known as the Resource-Based Relative Value System, or RBRVS.
Gruber you know; at a hearing to discuss the Vermont report, the Obamacare architect was confronted by a letter from a former state senator, who argued that “any Hsiao-Gruber type health care mega-system will inevitably lead to coercive mandates, ballooning costs, increased taxes, bureaucratic outrages, shabby facilities, disgruntled providers, long waiting lines, lower quality care, special interest nest-feathering, and destructive wage and price controls.” In response, Gruber wisecracked: “Was this written by my adolescent children by any chance?”
Civility Roundtable – January 20th – All are Welcome!
Mayor Paul Aronsohn will be holding a Roundtable meeting to discuss related to more civility in our public discourse. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 20th at 7:30pm in the Senior Lounge at Village Hall.
Rev. Jan Phillips will lead the discussion. We will drill down on ways to take the civility conversation forward.
Reader says While we are at it Let’s bring civility back to the Planning board meetings
Let’s bring civility back to the Planning board meetings by replacing the current attorney and by enforcing rules of order that protect the rights of Villagers. Has anyone noticed that the planning board attorney sits in the middle of the table and effectively runs the meeting? I would like our fellow Villagers to be in control of and responsible for the meetings — for good or for bad — and not a lawyer who seems to make up the rules as she goes along.
I thought Charles Nalbatian controlled the meeting. I thought Gail Price was there to answer legal issues and questions that came up and to ensure that legal protocol was followed along with Nalbatian.
Readers Thank White Horse Strategies for the ” new normal”
White Horse Strategies is a cutting-edge communications firm that specializes in connecting you with those who matter.
We have a proven record of effectively cultivating and promoting an effective message – from rapid response, speechwriting and debate prep to raising public awareness and grassroots support.
We’ve served on the “inside” by working in government, and we’ve crashed the gates as reformers and activists. We’ve brought that experience to campaigns on the federal, state and local levels, as well as to our work on behalf of both progressive advocacy groups and those in the private sector.
At White Horse Strategies, we know what it takes to motivate and move people and public opinion.
Reader says Mr Mayor We are not so gullible as to fall for your rhetoric. Nor are we so meek as to be cowed into silence by threats of being deemed outside your “new normal”.
“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
Get over yourself, Mr. Mayor. The playbook is Saul Alinsky’s, and the major practitioner of Alinsky’s techniques is the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The above is from his speech given at the United Nations in NYC while he was still trying to blame the murder of four Americans in Benghazi on a two-bit director and his crummy movie. Sure, he set up and knocked down other straw men to whom ownership of the future should ostensibly be denied, but everyone knew the passage quoted above was his “money” quote…the real message.
Every trick you’re trying to pull, Mr. Mayor, has long since been attempted (and revealed as a naked political tactic) on the national stage in full view of your Ridgewood neighbors. We are not so gullible as to fall for your rhetoric. Nor are we so meek as to be cowed into silence by threats of being deemed outside your “new normal”.
It won’t be long now before we’re treated to a reprise of Charlie (nicknamed ‘Charlianna’) whose sole purpose in life was seemingly to troll this blog and accuse people with whom he disagreed of occupying “the lunatic fringe”. See the similarity? Freeze your opponent, isolate them, then freely pour on their head all the ridicule, scorn, and disdain you can generate.
Get a new schtick, mayor Aronsohn. We’ve had it with your self-righteous nonsense and wish that you and your two amigos would simply cut out the condescension and do the jobs you were elected to do. Show some humility and leave the moralizing to people who still have at least a shred of credibility on the topic. And stop basing your political life on tactics from a book dedicated by Alinsky to the father of all lies.
Annual Social Service drive fills holiday needs, wishes
December 24, 2014 Last updated: Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 10:54 AM
By Jodi Weinberger
This month, dozens of children will receive toys and other gifts during their holiday celebrations thanks to the Social Service Association of Ridgewood and Vicinity (SSA).
The non-profit organization recently wrapped up its annual donation collection, just one of the many ways it has been serving northwest Bergen County since 1913.
On Dec. 10 in the basement of the Upper Ridgewood Community Church, volunteers sorted through piles of clothes and toys that will be delivered to more than 130 children from the village, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Midland Park, Waldwick and Wyckoff.
Beginning in September, SSA reaches out to families who have children high school age and younger and asks them to fill out a list of needs and wishes from the children, said Denise Vollkommer, the organization’s exective director.
Needs include shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, jackets, tights and socks, and wishes can be items like toys, games or gift cards.
SSA then gives the lists to schools, businesses and other private sponsors who fulfill the purchasing.
As Medicaid Rolls Swell, Cuts in Payments to Doctors Threaten Access to Care
WASHINGTON — Just as millions of people are gaining insurance through Medicaid, the program is poised to make deep cuts in payments to many doctors, prompting some physicians and consumer advocates to warn that the reductions could make it more difficult for Medicaid patients to obtain care.
The Affordable Care Act provided a big increase in Medicaid payments for primary care in 2013 and 2014. But the increase expires on Thursday — just weeks after the Obama administration told the Supreme Court that doctors and other providers had no legal right to challenge the adequacy of payments they received from Medicaid.
The impact will vary by state, but a study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that doctors who have been receiving the enhanced payments will see their fees for primary care cut by 43 percent, on average.
Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist at the Urban Institute and co-author of the report, said Medicaid payments for primary care services could drop by 50 percent or more in California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, among other states.
In his budget request in March, President Obama proposed a one-year extension of the higher Medicaid payments. Several Democratic members of Congress backed the idea, but the proposals languished, and such legislation would appear to face long odds in the new Congress, with Republicans controlling both houses.
