Plot Thickens in Monmouth as Ousted Republican Goes on the Attack
Early signs that Monmouth County will be one of the crucial proving grounds for a badly wounded Republican party in 2017 emerged Friday, as former Republican Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini called for her Democratic successors to acknowledge their ties to the NJEA. Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) called for state and federal investigations of the group this week after the state’s largest teachers’ union threatened to withhold campaign cash from state Democrats. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more https://politickernj.com/2016/08/plot-thickens-in-monmouth-as-ousted-republican-goes-on-the-attack/
The union representing New Jersey teachers has told Democratic Party leaders that it will not make any campaign contributions this year until the Senate votes on a constitutional amendment requiring that the state make quarterly payments to the public employee pension fund, a top Democratic official confirmed Tuesday. John C. Ensslin, The Record Read more
When the transparency fetishist site Wikileaks released some 20,000 emails that were either hacked or leaked from the DNC on Friday July 22, most focused on identifying the source and punishing Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for blatant favoritism of Hillary Clinton at the expense of Bernie Sanders. Ken Kurson, PolitickerNJ Read more
PHILADELPHIA — Democrats are worried about Hillary Clinton’s inability to separate herself fromDonald Trump in the polls, even after what they believe was a largely successful convention that represented a real step toward party unity.
Clinton is hoping for a big post-convention boost, but the reality right now is that she in behind Trump in the polls, and has been in a relatively tight race for weeks.
While the Electoral College may give her an advantage, party leaders and strategists say they remain concerned that Clinton is a tough sell when a majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track and want to shake up Washington.
“The most important thing is there is a bias for change and there’s an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll where people express that bias even when they don’t know what the change is going to be,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and now advises Priorities USA, a pro-Clinton super PAC.
That July survey showed a majority of voters, 56 percent, prefer someone who will bring major changes to government even if they don’t know what those changes will be. Only 46 percent wanted a candidate who would bring a steady approach to government.
It helps explain Trump’s success, and the strong challenge to Clinton in the Democratic primary from Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Away from the hoopla of the Wells Fargo, Democratic officials and strategists say it’s a major concern.
Ridgewood NJ, The Democratic National Convention has been the talk of the week and has dominated the news cycle. Top Democrats from around the nation have assembled to fall in line with their party and unite behind their nominee.
But where is Mr. Gottheimer?
For someone so active on social media, you would think that he would post something about the convention. Why is it such a mystery if he is there or not? He has never shied away from a good photo opportunity with Democrat officials. People deserve to know his reasoning for either being there or not.
The Convention has been the center of a great deal of controversy – from protests to the recent emails that show that the Democrat Party made sure that Hillary Clinton was chosen as their nominee. Perhaps Mr. Gottheimer does not want to be associated with that or maybe he does not want to speak out against his friend Hillary.
Trying to distance himself from his relations to the Clintons could be the driving force in this. Warren and Sussex Counties were the only places in the entire state that Hillary did not win in the New Jersey Primary. He could be using his relationship only when it benefits him, like at fundraisers, and avoid them when it hurts.
Mr. Gottheimer needs to address whether he is in Philadelphia or not. It is important for the people of the 5th District to know where he stands. Is he a part of a convention that has gravitated to the far left in adopting socialist policies, has failed to address the issue of Radical Islamic Terror, or has protested the very existence of Israel?
If Mr. Gottheimer is not currently in Philadelphia, or if he is not planning on attending at all, then he should clarify that point. Is it that he does not want to support his mentors Bill and Hillary? Are there parts of his own party that he is avoiding?
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – The head of the Democratic Party resigned on Sunday amid a furor over embarrassing leaked emails, hoping to head off a growing rebellion by Bernie Sanders supporters on the eve of the convention to nominate Hillary Clinton for the White House.
Lingering bitterness from the heated primary campaign between Clinton and Sanders erupted after more than 19,000 Democratic National Committee emails, leaked on Friday, confirmed Sanders’ frequent charge that the party played favorites in the race.
In a statement, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the best way for the party to accomplish its goal of putting Clinton in the White House was for her to step aside. Sanders had demanded earlier in the day that Wasserman Schultz resign.
The furor was a blow to a party keen on projecting stability in contrast to the volatility of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was formally nominated at a raucous convention in Cleveland last week.
It also overshadowed preparations in Philadelphia for Clinton’s coronation as the nominee to face Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. She will be the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party.
The four-day Democratic convention will open on Monday. In some good news for Clinton, The New York Times reported that businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will endorse her in a prime-time speech on Monday, saying she will be the best choice for moderate voters in 2016.
The cache of emails leaked on Friday by the WikiLeaks website disclosed that DNC officials explored ways to undermine Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign, including raising questions about whether Sanders, who is Jewish, was really an atheist.
Sanders said Wasserman Schultz, a U.S. representative from Florida, had made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party. “The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race,” he said.
By Theodore Schleifer, Eugene Scott and Jeff Zeleny, CNN
(CNN)The head of the Democratic National Committee will not speak at the party’s convention next week, a decision reached by party officials Saturday after emails surfaced that raised questions about the committee’s impartiality during the Democratic primary.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose stewardship of the DNC has been under fire through most of the presidential primary process, will not have a major speaking role in an effort “to keep the peace” in the party, a Democrat familiar with the decision said. The revelation comes following the release of nearly 20,000 emails
One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Bernie Sanders’ faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Hillary Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement.
Wasserman Schultz is expected to gavel the convention in and out, but not speak in the wake of the controversy surrounding the leaked emails, a top Democrat said.
“She’s been quarantined,” another top Democrat said, following a meeting Saturday night.
EXCLUSIVE: Democratic National Committeewoman says her party is ‘clearing a path’ for Hillary because ‘the women in charge’ want it that way
Female member of the Democratic Party’s controlling body spoke to Daily Mail Online in Las Vegas following Tuesday’s primary debate She rattled off a list of women at the top of the party hierarchy and said two vice chairs helped craft a decision this summer to favor Clinton The committeewoman warned her party could promote Hillary ‘because she’s a woman, and risk having her implode after she’s nominated’ The Democratic National Committee insisted that it ‘runs an impartial primary process, period’ But it has sanctioned just six debates this time around; Democratic presidential candidates had to survive 27 of them in 2007-08 DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz campaigned for Hillary in 2008 when she last ran for the presidency See our full coverage of Hillary Clinton and her presidential bid
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM IN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
PUBLISHED: 11:20 EST, 15 October 2015 | UPDATED: 09:57 EST, 16 October 2015
The Democratic National Committee is ‘clearing a path’ for Hillary Clinton to be its presidential nominee because its upper power echelons are populated with women, according to a female committee member who was in Las Vegas for Tuesday’s primary debate.
Speaking on the condition that she isn’t identified, she told Daily Mail Online that the party is in the tank for Clinton, and the women who run the organization decided it ‘early on.’
The committeewoman is supporting one of Hillary’s rivals for the Democratic nomination, and said she spoke freely because she believes the former Secretary of State is benefiting from unfair favoritism inside the party.
Clinton aims to be the first female to occupy the Oval Office, and ‘the party’s female leaders really want to make a woman the next president,’ the committeewoman said, rattling off a list of the women who she said are the ‘real power’ in the organization.
‘I haven’t heard anyone say we should make Hillary undergo a trial by fire,’ she added. ‘To the contrary, the women in charge seem eager, more and more, to have her skate into the general [election].’
‘I have nothing against women in politics,’ she underscored. ‘But it’s not healthy for the party if we get behind a woman because she’s a woman, and risk having her implode after she’s nominated because she isn’t tested enough now.’
A top staffer at the Democratic National Committee has apologized after suggesting that the organization use Bernie Sanders’ religious beliefs against him in the Democratic primary.
One email among the thousands of internal DNC messages released this week by Wikileaks showed DNC CFO Brad Marshall questioning Sanders’ Jewish faith, and suggested that painting the candidate as an atheist “could make several points difference” in several late primary contests.
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“It might may (sic) no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist,” Marshall wrote in a message to several DNC communications directors.
The message does not mention Sanders by name, but he was the only Jewish candidate, and the email came shortly before the Kentucky and West Virginia Democratic primaries.
A compromise forged between Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic legislative leaders several years ago let undocumented immigrant students living in New Jersey qualify for in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities. But many haven’t been able to take advantage of the lower rates since they continue to be locked out of state-administered financial-aid programs. John Reitmeyer, NJSpotlight Read more
President Obama is calling on Congress to add a “public option” to ObamaCare to improve his signature health law.
The pitch from Obama comes after he abandoned pursuit of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers during the long legislative battle over healthcare because of opposition from some Democrats in Congress.
“Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost-effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers,” Obama writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The public plan did not make it into the final legislation. Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” writes the president.
The new embrace from the president also comes amid what appears to be a concerted push by the Democratic Party to rally around the public option.
It’s a shift that reflects how the party has tilted leftward during the Obama years.
Ridgewood NJ, State lawmakers passed a 23-cent gas tax hike overnight that Gov. Chris Christie is set to sign by Friday saving the Transportation Trust Fund of TTF from running out of money.
There was no mention of auditing the TTF ?
The Christie backed plan is a 23-cent gas tax hike that Gov. Chris Christie is set to sign in to law by Friday.
The vote came early Tuesday came after a day of backroom talks between Christie and legislative leaders such as Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto. In the brokered deal the Democrat-led Assembly passed legislation to hike the state’s gasoline tax by 23 cents per gallon, while cutting the sales tax from 7 to 6 percent.
Motorists could see the hikes take effect by Friday. The state’s gas tax would increase from 14.5 cents per gallon to 37.5 cents per gallon under the plan.
Today the average price of a gallon of gas in New Jersey is $2.10 according to AAA Mid-Atlantic, down a penny overnight and down a penny in the last week.
Christie, in a statement, highlighted the sales-tax-cut portion of the proposal, saying he was “pleased that the Assembly has heeded my suggestion for tax fairness, which I have been calling for for a long time.”
Clinton should not underestimate the anti-establishment mood that makes Trump attractive to voters
After Britain voted to leave the EU, Hillary Clinton issued a statement declaring that America’s “first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America”.
While she leads Mr Trump in the polls and has an advantage due to support from demographic groups such as Hispanics and women, the comments underscored that she cannot underestimate the populist mood that has overturned conventional wisdom at every twist and turn of the 2016 White House race.
“As a Democrat you don’t have to be paranoid to be concerned about the similarities between the Brexit vote and our own election,” says Jim Manley, a former Senate aide. “Trump is playing to the same kind of anger that the Leave folks did. [It] doesn’t mean he is going to win — he won’t — but what happened took an awful lot of people by surprise.”
Democratic Audubon Park mayor Larry Pennock and city councilman John Carpinelli changed parties this week, with Camden County Republican chairman Tom Booth welcoming the two to the GOP. The move marks two rare defections from the deep-blue county’s powerful Democratic organization, which rose to dominate South Jersey politics under insurance executive George Norcross III’s leadership. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
Chronic imposter California has long tried to front itself as relevant to the political process as it routinely occupies New Jersey’s primary day air space, which this year falls on June 7th, tomorrow. PolitickerNJ Editor, PolitickerNJ Read more
