1st Annual KEC Golf Outing On Monday October 27th, 2014 the Kelly Creegan Memorial Fund will host its inaugural golf outing at Apple Ridge Country Club in Mahwah, NJ. Founded in 2012, the Kelly Elisabeth Creegan Memorial Fund was founded to share the memory, life and spirit of Kelly Creegan. Created by her family and friends to scatter kindness throughout the community and honor her memory, the foundation helps many experience the joy that Kelly brought to our lives.
She lived her short life with a smile and positive attitude that will never be forgotten. Registration is at 10:30 with shotgun start at noon. Golfers will enjoy a lunch and dinner with auction along with their round of golf. Price is $250 per golfer or $900 per foursome. For further information and sponsorship opportunities please visit our Facebook page, Kelly Creegan Memorial Fund, or email kellycreeganfund@gmail.com.
The Mark Gross Jazz Quintet will play Society Cafe on Sunday, October 26th at 4:00
Society Cafe Concert Series
The Society Café Concert Series offers a series of acoustic singer/songwriter concerts at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. Dessert and beverages, all provided by local vendors, are available before the shows and during intermission. The Mark Gross Jazz Quintet will play Society Cafe on Sunday, October 26th at 4:00. Mark Gross – alto saxophone, Freddie Hendrix – trumpet, Benito Gonzalez – piano, John Lee – bass, Corey Rawls – drums. Music starts at 4:00.
We start serving coffee and refreshments at 3:00 when doors open. Advance tickets are $20 and can be purchased via PayPal on the Society Café website, www.societycafeconcertseries.com. Tickets are $25 the day of the concert. The Unitarian Society of Ridgewood is located at 113 Cottage Place, Ridgewood, NJ 07450, www.uuridgewood.org. Office: 201-444-6225.
How Asset Forfeiture Allows Cops to Steal from Citizens A Virginia lawmaker takes on policing for profit. A. Barton Hinkle | October 22, 2014
In September Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Chairman of the Congressional Constitution Caucus, and Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Co-Chairman of the bipartisan Crime Prevention and Youth Development Caucus, today introduced H.R. 5502, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, to protect Americans from having their property seized without the due process of law. The FAIR Act makes a number of changes to civil asset forfeiture laws to restore the constitutional protections guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
The FAIR Act would ensure that Americans are innocent until proven guilty by requiring the government to meet a higher legal standard before seizing an individual’s property. This legislation would raise the standard to seize assets from a preponderance of evidence to a higher standard of clear and convincing evidence. In addition, the FAIR Act would eliminate the practice of equitable sharing and eliminate all profit incentives by requiring that all funds seized by the federal government go into the general treasury fund.
It probably seemed like a bright idea at the time: Let the police seize the ill-gotten gains of alleged drug dealers and other suspected criminals and sell it, using the proceeds to buy much-needed crime-fighting gear.
Unfortunately, the process—civil asset forfeiture—did not require convicting anybody of a crime. In fact, it didn’t even require charging anybody with a crime. Not surprisingly, this led to rampant abuse, which has been abundantly documented for many years. Various reform efforts, including a 2000 federal law, have been unable to stop what’s become known as policing for profit.
But Virginia lawmaker Mark Cole is going to give it another shot. That’s as good a sign as any that civil asset forfeiture has jumped the shark.
You can’t get much more conservative than Cole, a Republican who represents Spotsylvania in the General Assembly, without falling off the edge of the political spectrum. Cole supports “traditional family values” — so much so that he voted against appointing a Richmond prosecutor and former Navy pilot to a judgeship because he was gay. Cole has sponsored legislation to deny government benefits to illegal immigrants. And to strip state funding for abortions even in cases where the fetus has “gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency.” And to rewrite a state prohibition against guns in schools so private schools could set their own rules. Four years ago, he sponsored a bill to protect people from having microchips implanted in their bodies, in part because such microchips might be used as the “mark of the beast” described in Revelations.
On his website, Cole boasts of supporting law enforcement. “Public safety and emergency services are Mark Cole’s top priorities,” reads a quote from Stafford County Sheriff Charlie Jett. “He helped ensure that funding was available for pay raises for deputies and state troopers. He has been a strong voice for us in Richmond.”
But policing for profit has gone too far, even for Cole. In anticipation of the 2015 legislative session, he already has filed a bill (HB 1287) that would forbid asset forfeiture without a conviction—and even then only after all appeals have been exhausted.
71% of Obamacare Signups Traced to Government’s Expansion of Medicaid
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 / October 22, 2014
The vast majority of Americans gaining health coverage under Obamacare actually qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility —and that’s what boosted enrollment among those previously uninsured, a new report from The Heritage Foundation.
The Obama administration has boasted that the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, would allow those previously uninsured to purchase quality, affordable health care.
“The inescapable conclusion is that, when it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare so far is an expansion of Medicaid,” Heritage Foundation health policy experts Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write in a research paper scheduled for release today.
Officials announced in May that more than 8 million Americans had picked a health plan on the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov.
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Haislmaier and Gonshorowski conclude that 8.5 million Americans gained coverage through Obamacare from January to July.
Commentary: The Real Story on How Much Obamacare Increased Coverage
However, their paper says, more than 70 percent of those signups can be traced to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in 24 states:
Of the 8.5 million total individuals who gained health insurance coverage, 71 percent of that net coverage gain was attributable to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults.
In the states that adopted and implemented Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, enrollment skyrocketed as an additional 5.7 million Americans signed up for coverage.
In 21 states opting out of Medicaid expansion, however, enrollment was strikingly lower. The Heritage report finds that 355,674 Americans signed up for Medicaid in those states.
In all, Medicaid enrollment increased by 6 million individuals for the first half of 2014.
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.
The Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, loosened eligibility requirements for Medicaid, traditionally the government’s health program for the poor. The changes made it easier for individuals with an income of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line (roughly $16,000) to qualify for the taxpayer-funded health coverage.
As the Heritage experts note, many Medicaid-eligible Americans under the new requirements also don’t have dependent children.
States got an incentive–federal dollars–to adopt the requirements.
Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia opted to expand Medicaid. By July, however, 24 states had implemented the program.
The Affordable Care Act went into effect in October. Its implementation included the rollout of HealthCare.gov, the online marketplace where consumers can peruse and purchase insurance plans.
HealthCare.gov’s advent was accompanied by well-publicized malfunctions, glitches and failures. White House officials scrambled to fix the website as consumers experienced long delays. As a result, the Obama administration extended the close of open enrollment from March 30 until April 15.
Despite the rocky rollout of HealthCare.gov, President Obama and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius touted that enrollment in Obamacare insurance plans topped the original goal of 7 million.
According to reports from the Department of Health and Human Services, enrollment likely hovered around 7.3 million, as original estimates took into account those who selected a plan, but did not pay their first month’s premiums.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who in June replaced Sebelius as HHS secretary, said in a speech last month at the Brookings Institute:
Four years after President Obama signed the law, middle class families have more security, and many who already had insurance have better coverage. Fewer Americans are uninsured, and at the same time, we’re spending our health care dollars more wisely, and we’re starting to receive higher quality care.
Research shows marriage is responsible for the creation of wealth – so why aren’t millennials interested?
Generation Screwed By Naomi Schaefer Riley October 20, 2014 | 7:47pm
The attitudes of millennials toward marriage are getting harder and harder to understand.
This is a demographic whose economic prospects have never looked good.
They are coming of age at a time when college tuition is at record levels, student debt has surpassed a trillion dollars, houses (even after the bubble popping) are unaffordable, unemployment remains stubbornly high and wages have stagnated in recent years.
It’s no wonder they’ve been nicknamed “The Screwed Generation.”
So you’d think that if research shows there is something that could be a surefire way of improving their economic lot, they would grab hold of it like a life preserver. Well, you’d be wrong.
In fact, research has shown marriage to be responsible for the significant creation of wealth — yet millennials don’t seem interested. The average age of a first marriage for men is 29 and for women it’s 27. Many are simply not marrying at all.
Almost half of children born to women under 30 are out-of-wedlock births now, according to a recent study by Child Trends, a Washington-based research group.
Bergen County Sheriff’s department highest-paid sheriff’s department in the country?
Bergen executive candidates debate policing merger issue, fate of medical center
OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:01 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:05 PM BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and Democratic challenger James Tedesco clashed over law enforcement, lawsuits and the future of Bergen Regional Medical Center in their final debate just two weeks before Election Day.
Before a capacity crowd of 150 people packed into the freeholder chambers in Hackensack, Tedesco, a Democratic freeholder, criticized Donovan for opposing a freeholder plan to combine the Sheriff’s Office and the County Police into one mega-department under the command of the sheriff.
“If the County Executive is so bent on shared services, why aren’t we realigning the County Police and the Sheriff’s Department?” he asked. “She wants it her way or no way. She wants Donovan’s army.”
Donovan, a Rutherford Republican seeking a second four-year term, argued that it makes no sense to put an elected sheriff in charge of a police department.
“Never put a politician in charge of a police department,” she said, drawing a murmur from a large group of sheriff’s officers in the crowd. “The sheriff, no disrespect, but he’s a politician, as am I, as is Freeholder Tedesco.”
Tedesco claims that the Democrats’ plan to meld the forces would save taxpayers $90 million to $200 million during the next 25 years through attrition as higher-paid County Police officers retired and were not replaced.
Reader says Booker is running purely on celebrity because he has little else positive to show for his time in office.
Instead of seizing the bully pulpit (pun intended) and appoint a member of his own party as a replacement senator for the unexpired Lautenberg term (as any noble Democrat would have done), Christie swallows the poison pill and calls for the special election. He knew Booker would take the bait and Christie would be insulated from a moderate Democrat with a high name recognition value. Booker is running purely on celebrity because he has little else positive to show for his time in office. There is a reason NJ is the punchline for so many jokes (and setting for HBO series shows on corruption) – it’s the politics.
Reader says Valley should focus on being a Community Hospital and stop the race to nowhere
by Thed
I’ve seen a lot of comments on this blog that people should stop going to Valley, stop using doctors that go to Valley, etc. to try to send the hospital a message.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they would receive that message. The truth of the matter is that most people are not going to stop going to Valley due to this issue. Most will continue using Valley as they always do, but maybe not be happy doing it.
I have no problem with most of the doctors, staff, etc. that work at Valley. I have a serious problem with the administration. They are tone deaf, their embarrassment of attorney Drill should actually be named Tool based on his immature and annoying behavior during the previous legal proceedings, and unless you have a financial interest in Valley, I would think that most residents that were indifferent to Valley’s expansion are now seriously opposing it.
The truth of the matter is, based on my observations about convenience etc., Valley’s arguments that it needs to double its size etc. to compete and to serve the community are irrational. Most people will go to the local medical establishments in their communities. Valley does not need to increase their draw to compete with the megahospitals in the region. If they continue on the path they have followed for the past half a century and focus on the local community and stop the race to nowhere, they could modestly improve over time and still be successful.
Cho campaign continues to fumble Voter Registration and “Carpetbagger” Claims October 22,2014 the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Rep Garrett continued to question Roy Cho’s ties to the district . Garret told the Record “Most people don’t know who he is or what he stands for, and that’s because he just moved here,”, pointing to the 63 percent of voters who said they had no opinion of Cho.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Cho’s campaign has be mostly been made up of the typical Democrat endorsements , and his pro Obama, pro continuation of the presidents policies . Readers have even dubbed him an”Obamabot”. Most of his website is used to attack Scott Garrett and misrepresent Garrett’s record ,with little to no substantive discussion on issues .This Amounts to the same old ,the government knows whats best and is going to save you. Policies let call it Obamnomics,that after 6 years of President Obama resulted in a failing economy, loss of healthcare , weakness in foreign policy , enormous government debt directly impacting the Millennial’s ,who Cho claims to be helping with higher taxes, a weak job market , massive debt , no healthcare and a bleak future .
Roy Cho said that after he graduated from law school in 2009, he considered his parents’ home in Manalapan his primary residence even as he lived in an apartment in New York City and then rented an apartment in Hackensack. Cho used the Manalapan address for voting and taxes, and it was on his driver’s license, he said. https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Derek Roseman, Cho’s campaign spokesman, told the Bergen Record Cho decided in April 2013 that he wanted to settle in Hackensack and that he changed his license and other documents to that address. Cho also filed his statement of candidacy in April 2013.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
“I’m not a carpetbagger, despite the fact that these claims are coming from Congressman Garrett,” Cho said in Paramus. “The reality is I failed to change my voter registration in a timely enough fashion, like millions of other Americans have failed to do.”https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Garrett Spokeswomen Maggie Seidel countered that by saying he failed to change his registration in a timely fashion, Cho was admitting he broke the law. she continued “Also, millions of Americans who make this mistake aren’t corporate lawyers who are running for Congress,” she said.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Passenger at Newark airport taken to hospital for Ebola evaluation
OCTOBER 21, 2014, 8:30 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:32 PM BY MARY JO LAYTON STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
As the Obama administration announced steps to tighten screening of travelers from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, an airline passenger who landed in Newark on Tuesday afternoon after spending time in Liberia was brought to University Hospital for evaluation for possible symptoms and exposure to the disease.
“During the enhanced screening process for individuals arriving to the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, an individual was identified as reporting symptoms or having a potential exposure to Ebola,” a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday night.
The passenger arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on a flight from Liberia via Brussels at 12:55 p.m.
The Liberian national, who was held briefly in the customs area at Terminal C and separated from other travelers on the flight, was singled out for screening by agents because of his recent travel to Liberia, and he was found to have a fever, NBC 4 New York reported.
The passenger was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Newark for further evaluation. If officials decide they need to test the passenger for Ebola, the results could take some time.
As for the other travelers, “CDC or state/local public health officials will contact other passengers on the aircraft should it be determined that there was any risk to the other passengers of exposure to communicable disease,” Carol Crawford, the CDC spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Chris Christie Previews 2016 Campaign: ‘It’s Time to Start Offending People’
“I don’t care if I’m loved. I want to be respected.”
BY TIM ALBERTA
October 21, 2014 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched a preemptive strike Tuesday against some potential Republican rivals for the White House, saying the “experiment” of promoting a lawmaker to president has failed—and arguing that Republicans must nominate a governor in 2016.
Christie, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, began his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington by lauding his counterparts across the country. Then he turned on a dime, pivoting in apparently premeditated fashion from 2014 to 2016. He urged attendees to support GOP governors this fall—not only to help them win reelection, he said, but to build a roster of credible presidential contenders.
“To have any chance of electing a Republican president, there’s a bunch of things we need to do. But the first is to have a good bench of Republican candidates,” Christie said. “And I am convinced that the next president of the United States is going to be a governor—and needs to be.”
Christie continued: “We have had an experiment of a legislator who has never run anything getting on-the-job training in the White House. It has not been pretty. And so we need to have a big and broad bench of good, experienced Republican governors to select from in 2016.”
The remarks may well represent Christie’s most forceful intra-party offensive to date, a preemptive and unprompted attack against unnamed “legislators”—including Sens. Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz—who almost certainly will be competing with him in 2016.
In a brief interview with National Journal after his speech, Christie was unapologetic about his remarks — and acknowledged they wouldn’t be well-received by certain presidential aspirants.
“Listen, I just say what I believe, and whoever is offended is offended,” Christie said.
Mysterious forces were trying their best, but they couldn’t keep the stock market from swooning Wednesday.
They failed in the morning, despite massive purchases of stock index futures contracts. Within minutes of the market’s opening, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 350 points. Later in the day — after a lot of shocking ebb and flow — the Dow bottomed out with a decline of 460 points.
It was only in the last hour of trading that the market saviors managed to trim the Dow loss to just 173 points. And they succeeded only after Janet Yellen’s private, upbeat remarks about the economy were leaked.
Welcome to a new kind of stock market — one that the average investor should refuse to be invested in.
Anyone whose investments tightly track the major indices is now losing money since the beginning of 2014. The Dow is down 1.1 percent on the year, with the S&P and Nasdaq up 3 percent for 2014.
Empowerment, Not Entitlement Oct. 21 ,2014 By Brian Goldberg | The Save Jersey Blog
As a middle-class, Jewish Republican from heavily Democrat Essex County (and, no, I’m not the only one…), I’ve seen firsthand the number of “closet conservatives” who won’t join our Party because of popular myths characterizing us as, well, take your pick: prejudiced, having a war on women, or out of touch with young voters.
During the course of my recent U.S. Senate campaign, I talked about the need for outreach to these communities that have been traditionally underrepresented in the Republican Party. There, we can find lots of conservatives who just need to know that we’re welcoming and the myths aren’t true. But, it is a two-part process to grow our Party.
Before we can even seek out potential converts, it is helpful to have a plan to bring them on board. For too long, our Party has done a poor job of fighting off the label our opponents gave us, the “Party of No”, the party who always says, “We don’t want this,” “We are against that.” Instead, we need to embrace a positive message, one that our friends, neighbors and families can feel proud to get behind.
Well, how about turning that “Party of No” nonsense right on its head? The conservative message and platform isn’t negative, it is actually as optimistic and positive as can be. We believe that if you give individuals a chance to succeed, they will find that Success. We believe that small, limited government should mostly stay out of the lives of its citizens, but when it does get involved, the job of government should be to help the governed to succeed, not simply help the governed. We don’t believe you are destined for a life of failure and therefore need the government to protect you from your own actions.
Knocked out of private insurance, they are forced to settle for longer waits and worse care
Rep. Scott Garrett Take a minute to read this eyeopening article about ObamaCare written by Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a general surgeon in Phoenix, Ariz.
His take: “Even if my patients save money by no longer paying premiums, they suffer in the long run by being trapped in a subpar health-care system [Medicaid]… ObamaCare has shifted—and will continue to shift—people into substandard and often-delayed care, all in the name of increasing health-care “coverage.” That is the saddest irony of all.”
By JEFFREY A. SINGER
Oct. 20, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET
90 COMMENTS
Thirty years of experience in private medical practice uncovers many ironies. For example, recently several of my patients who had been paying for their own individual health insurance informed me that they were forced off private insurance and placed into Medicaid when they signed up for health care at Healthcare.gov. This unwanted change—built into ObamaCare with the intention of helping patients—has harmed them by taking away their freedom to choose a health-care plan that works best for them.
This is not an unusual phenomenon. A recent Boston University/Harvard Medical School study suggests that up to 80% of people participating in ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion have been shifted off their private insurance. These patients’ plans—that they liked, and were told they could keep—did not meet Affordable Care Act requirements, and were wiped out. Healthcare.gov offered them Medicaid.
But the irony doesn’t stop there. Even if my patients save money by no longer paying premiums, they suffer in the long run by being trapped in a subpar health-care system. A Medicaid card does not translate into quality medical care. In some cases, it does not translate into medical care at all.
