In the rarefied world of New York moguls, Rupert Murdoch never thought much of Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s divorces and marriages sold newspapers, but beyond that, Mr. Murdoch had no time for his bombastic business style and ostentatious demeanor. “Phony” was how Mr. Murdoch often described him to friends.
There was the time Mr. Trump screamed that he would sue for libel after Mr. Murdoch’s New York Post reported that the exclusiveMaidstone golf club in East Hampton planned to deny Mr. Trump a membership.
Then there was the awkward aftermath of Mr. Murdoch’s own high-profile divorce from Wendi Deng Murdoch, when Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, unlike many New York society figures, remained loyal to Ms. Deng Murdoch, a close friend.
Now, as Mr. Trump holds on to a first-place position in the polls while being roundly denounced across the political spectrum for harsh statements about Mexican immigrants and for belittling Senator John McCain’s war record, he has already lost the man who controls many of the nation’s most important media organizations.
The classified emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained information from five U.S. intelligence agencies and included material related to the fatal 2012 Benghazi attacks, McClatchy has learned.
Of the five classified emails, the one known to be connected to Benghazi was among 296 emails made public in May by the State Department. Intelligence community officials have determined it was improperly released.
Revelations about the emails have put Clinton in the crosshairs of a broadening inquiry into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information when she used a private server set up at her New York home to conduct official State Department business.
While campaigning for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton has repeatedly denied she ever sent or received classified information. Two inspectors general have indicated that five emails they have reviewed were not marked classified at the time they were stored on her private server but that the contents were in fact “secret.”
The email issue, however, has distracted from Clinton’s campaign for days and already has hurt her in public opinion polls. Besieged with questions, she has found herself caught in a murky dispute between State Department and intelligence officials over whether emails on her server were classified.
Republicans seize on Planned Parenthood video
July 14, 2015, 03:10 pm
By Jesse Byrnes
“This latest news is tragic and outrageous,” GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said in a Facebook post linking to the video.
“This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment,” Fiorina said.
“This video is beyond disturbing,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted.
The undercover video, which surfaced Tuesday morning, shows a woman identified as Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s senior director of medical services, describing in detail procedures to retrieve body parts.
“A lot of people want intact hearts these days, because they’re looking for specific nodes,” the woman says in the video released by The Center for Medical Progress, a self-described group of citizen journalists monitoring medical ethics. The video was reportedly recorded in July, 2014 by people posing as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company.
“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs,” the woman continues. “Some people want lower extremities too, which, that’s simple. I mean that’s easy.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing with it. I guess they want muscle,” the woman adds. “[W]e’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that.”
In a statement, Planned Parenthood described the video as “heavily edited” and said it “falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research.”
“Today’s Trade Promotion Authority bill doesn’t do enough to ensure proper congressional oversight of future trade deals, strengthen middle class New Jersey families, or protect American jobs; and therefore I could not support it. Trade requires trust, and many New Jerseyans find it difficult to trust a White House that gave us unconstitutional amnesty, maintained the broken tax code, and implemented a massive government takeover of our health care system. While I believe there is a path to trade agreements that strengthen our country and protect American jobs, today’s bill falls short of the mark.”
Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the above statement after he voted against the Trade Promotion Authority bill:
Garrett was target of crackdown by House Speaker Boehner, report says
JUNE 25, 2015, 5:16 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015, 5:21 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD
Rep. Scott Garrett’s penchant for bucking the Republican House leadership and voting his own way almost cost him his chairmanship of a House subcommittee, according to a report by Politico.
But Garrett told The Record he hasn’t been approached about his voting by either Speaker John Boehner or Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. But he also went out of his way to mention he was pleased another conservative who did lose his chairmanship got it back on Thursday.
Politico reported Wednesday night that Garrett was one of the targets of a crackdown Boehner had begun on on conservatives who oppose the party on major legislation, especially those in privileged spots as subcommittee chairmen.
Prefering to handle discipline through committee chairmen, Boehner had House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy approach Hensarling, and he vouched for Garrett, Politico said.
The Ban on Confederate Flag Memorabilia Is Having One Unintended Consequence…
BY CONOR SWANBERG
The Confederate flag has been under heavy fire following the shooting in Charleston. It’s been removed from major stores like Walmart, Ebay, and Sears.
But now small, independent stores which still sell the merchandise have been surprised with an unexpected consequence—a massive spike in sales.
CNN Money has been actively tracking and interviewing stores that sell the items, such as Flag and Banner, based in Little Rock, Arkansas,
Owner Kerry McCoy has been surprised:
“Somebody in Rhode Island ordered in 50 Confederate (lapel) pins”
“We sold 20 (flags) today and we would normally sell none,”
Another small business owner, Freddie Rich, who runs the Rebel Store in North Carolina, said that sales are “unbelievable right now. This is something I never envisioned.”
He has sold nearly 200 flags in 24 hours, and included this message on his site:
The message reads:
“We appreciate your support during this terribly sad time while the intolerant, the mean spirited, and the uneducated attack our Proud Southern Heritage with a vengeance.
Sorry – we have sold out. Thank you so much – our faith in the South has been renewed!
If you have already placed an order with us – please be patient and rest assured that we are working as quickly as possible to get your order out to you and we will send an email as soon as we ship with the tracking information. We have received over 3,000 orders in less than 24 hours, when a good day for us is 20 orders in 24 hours. We are filling them and shipping in the order in which they were received.
As soon as we are ‘caught up’ with the backlog, we will again have the website back up and running.”
There’s still no verdict on whether or not the Confederate flag will be removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds, but that hasn’t stopped people from scooping up whatever they can get their hands on after large vendors ceased sales.
The Confederate Flag Is the Legacy of Democrats, Not Republicans!
By JEFFREY LORD
Updated Aug. 13, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET
As Democrats prepare to nominate Sen. Barack Obama to be the first black president, the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Howard Dean, have whitewashed the party’s horrific and lengthy record of racism. The omission is in the section of the DNC Web site that describes the party’s history. The missing history raises the obvious question of whether the Democrats, unable or simply unwilling to put their party on record as taking direct responsibility for one of the worst racial crimes of the ages, will be able to run a campaign free of the racial animosities it has regularly brought both to American presidential campaigns and American political and social life in general.
What else to make of the official party history as presented by the DNC on its Web site? It is a history so sanitized of historical reality it makes Stalin look like David McCullough.
The DNC Web site section labeled “Party History,” linked here, is in fact scrubbed clean of the not-so-little dirty secret that fueled Democrats’ political successes for over a century and a half and made American life a hell on earth for black Americans. Literally, the DNC official history, which begins with the creation of the party in 1800, gets to the creation of the DNC itself in 1848 and then–poof!–the next sentence says: “As the 19th Century came to a close, the American electorate changed more and more rapidly.” It quickly heads into a riff on poor immigrants coming to America.
In a stroke, 52 years of Democratic history vanishes. Disappeared faster than the truth in the Clinton administration. Why would this be? Allow me to sketch in a few facts from those missing 52 years. For that matter, lets add in the facts from the party history before and after those 52 years, since they aren’t mentioned by the Democrats’ National Committee either.
* * * So what’s missing?
There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. There were six from 1840 through 1860. There is no reference to the number of Democratic presidents who owned slaves. There were seven from 1800 through 1861 There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms that either supported segregation outright or were silent on the subject. There were 20, from 1868 through 1948. There is no reference to “Jim Crow” as in “Jim Crow laws,” nor is there reference to the role Democrats played in creating them. These were the post-Civil War laws passed enthusiastically by Democrats in that pesky 52-year part of the DNC’s missing years. These laws segregated public schools, public transportation, restaurants, rest rooms and public places in general (everything from water coolers to beaches). The reason Rosa Parks became famous is that she sat in the “whites only” front section of a bus, the “whites only” designation the direct result of Democrats. There is no reference to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, which, according to Columbia University historian Eric Foner, became “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party.” Nor is there reference to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease’s description of the Klan as the “terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.” There is no reference to the fact Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The 13th banned slavery. The 14th effectively overturned the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision (made by Democratic pro-slavery Supreme Court justices) by guaranteeing due process and equal protection to former slaves. The 15th gave black Americans the right to vote. There is no reference to the fact that Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was passed by the Republican Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, who had been a Democrat before joining Lincoln’s ticket in 1864. The law was designed to provide blacks with the right to own private property, sign contracts, sue and serve as witnesses in a legal proceeding. There is no reference to the Democrats’ opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses Grant. The law prohibited racial discrimination in public places and public accommodations. There is no reference to the Democrats’ 1904 platform, which devotes a section to “Sectional and Racial Agitation,” claiming the GOP’s protests against segregation and the denial of voting rights to blacks sought to “revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country,” which in turn “means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed.” There is no reference to four Democratic platforms, 1908-20, that are silent on blacks, segregation, lynching and voting rights as racial problems in the country mount. By contrast the GOP platforms of those years specifically address “Rights of the Negro” (1908), oppose lynching (in 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928) and, as the New Deal kicks in, speak out about the dangers of making blacks “wards of the state.” There is no reference to the Democratic Convention of 1924, known to history as the “Klanbake.” The 103-ballot convention was held in Madison Square Garden. Hundreds of delegates were members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Klan so powerful that a plank condemning Klan violence was defeated outright. To celebrate, the Klan staged a rally with 10,000 hooded Klansmen in a field in New Jersey directly across the Hudson from the site of the convention. Attended by hundreds of cheering convention delegates, the rally featured burning crosses and calls for violence against African-Americans and Catholics. There is no reference to the fact that it was Democrats who segregated the federal government, at the direction of President Woodrow Wilson upon taking office in 1913. There \is a reference to the fact that President Harry Truman integrated the military after World War II. There is reference to the fact that Democrats created the Federal Reserve Board, passed labor and child welfare laws, and created Social Security with Wilson’s New Freedom and FDR’s New Deal. There is no mention that these programs were created as the result of an agreement to ignore segregation and the lynching of blacks. Neither is there a reference to the thousands of local officials, state legislators, state governors, U.S. congressmen and U.S. senators who were elected as supporters of slavery and then segregation between 1800 and 1965. Nor is there reference to the deal with the devil that left segregation and lynching as a way of life in return for election support for three post-Civil War Democratic presidents, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. There is no reference that three-fourths of the opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Bill in the U.S. House came from Democrats, or that 80% of the “nay” vote in the Senate came from Democrats. Certainly there is no reference to the fact that the opposition included future Democratic Senate leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia (a former Klan member) and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore Sr., father of Vice President Al Gore. Last but certainly not least, there is no reference to the fact that Birmingham, Ala., Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor, who infamously unleashed dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protestors, was in fact–yes indeed–a member of both the Democratic National Committee and the Ku Klux Klan.
By Mario Trujillo and David McCabe – 06/11/15 04:30 PM EDT
The new federal rules for net neutrality were allowed to take effect on Friday, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a motion to stay the rules.
“Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” the three judge panel said in its Thursday, ruling, which allowed the rules to kick in Friday at 12:01 a.m.
The court denied a request for a stay that would have put the rules on hold until a broader court battle is settled. It ruled that it will expedite the underlying case.
The ruling is not on the final merits of the challenge, but hands an early victory to net neutrality advocates.
The regulations reclassify Internet providers as utilities, giving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) more powers to regulate them. That includes stopping providers from selectively slowing the delivery of content to users.
“This is a huge victory for Internet consumers and innovators,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the Internet fast, fair and open.”
Rep. Anna Eshoo (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, called the ruling “critical validation that the new rules to protect an open Internet are grounded in strong legal footing and can endure future challenges by broadband providers.”
But Thursday evening, Republican lawmakers said the ruling was creating “uncertainty.”
“Unfortunately, we are now in for a long, unnecessary wait while the courts determine if the commission was out of bounds,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
JUNE 10, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015, 10:21 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Students were asked to put themselves in unfamiliar shoes as they attempted to help fictional Ridgewood High School (RHS) peers in coping with their issues at the school’s 2015 leadership summit.
After tackling the issue of social media last year, the group of ninth, 10th and 11th grade students were assigned this year with the task of helping their peers with problems they face in everyday life.
Students were split into nine groups, each one receiving a faculty advisor, and given a fictional character with certain demographics, strengths and weaknesses. Each character had a problem to solve and the students had to find a way to help that person deal with his or her troubles.
Teachers and administrators in attendance included Sean McCullough, the district’s director of Fine and Applied Arts, social studies teacher Medha Kirtane, RHS Principal Thomas Gorman and Superintendent Daniel Fishbein.
The obstacles assigned to the characters included divorce, gender issues, social anxiety, insecurity, financial struggles and both learning and physical disabilities.
The exercise taught students to solve a problem through someone else’s eyes, a person who may be very different from them, since a true leader must be able to lead people of all backgrounds and abilities.
“Even if a problem doesn’t necessarily apply to you, you still have to be understanding and be able to cope with it, because that’s what really makes a good leader,” said RHS junior Tyler Porfido.
May 31, 7:36 PM EDT
BY ERICA WERNER AND KEN DILANIAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency will lose its authority at midnight to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk, after an extraordinary Sunday Senate session failed to produce an 11th-hour deal to extend the fiercely contested program.
Intelligence officials warned that the outcome amounts to a win for terrorists. But civil liberties groups applauded the demise, at least temporarily, of the once-secret post-Sept. 11 program made public by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which critics say is an unconstitutional intrusion into Americans’ privacy.
The program is all but certain to be revived in a matter of days, although it also looks certain to be completely overhauled under House-passed legislation that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reluctantly blessed in an about-face Sunday evening. With most senators opposed to extending current law unchanged, even for a short time, McConnell said the House bill was the only option left other than letting the program die off entirely. The Senate voted 77-17 to move ahead on the House-passed bill.
But no final action was expected before Sunday’s midnight deadline after McConnell’s fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul served notice that he would assert his prerogatives under Senate rules to delay a final vote for several days.
“This is what we fought the revolution over, are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? … I’m not going to take it anymore,” Paul declared on the Senate floor, as supporters wearing red “Stand With Rand” T-shirts packed the spectator gallery.
McConnell countered: “We shouldn’t be disarming unilaterally as our enemies grow more sophisticated and aggressive, and we certainly should not be doing so based on a campaign of demagoguery and disinformation launched in the wake of the unlawful actions of Edward Snowden.”
“Verita$” was a best seller in Korea, author Shin Eun-jung’s native country, because she asks the question that’s hardly ever asked: Why Harvard?
Eun-jung says the third word a Korean baby learns, after “Mom” and “Dad,” is “Harvard.” She argues that this is a tragedy, because Harvard isn’t the global intellectual powerhouse of reputation.
Now, there are plenty of criticisms of Harvard, though rarely the one Eun-jung levels: that Harvard swanned its way to dominance by maintaining a false front of liberalism when it is, in fact, an arm of the governing right.
“Verita$” recites a litany of bad acts: the Salem witch trials, eugenics, a so-called “collaboration” with Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, architects of financial collapse such as Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, McCarthyism, racism, sexism, tyrannical labor practices and “a poison called elitism.”
Her list is long. I might add Harvard produces such venerable alumni as Henry Kissinger, Ted Kaczynski and Dr. Oz.
POSTED: 05/21/15, 6:28 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 DAYS AGO
Larry Maxam was his name, and before we begin filling our propane tanks, roasting the hot dogs and cracking open a beer, I’d like to tell you his story.
Because, to me, he is the perfect face of Memorial Day. The guy we should all be thanking this weekend.
Sometimes we lose track of what Memorial Day is all about. It’s not a patriotic celebration of military might, but a remembrance of the 1 million plus casualties of all our wars who never made it home.
Most of them were still kids, really, like Maxam.
His buddies from Vietnam say he was a friendly, quiet guy who wore his Mormon religion on his sleeve right next to his corporal stripes.
“Other guys would go out, get rowdy, whatever, but not him,” says Larry Clinesmith, who shared a foxhole with Maxam. “He was quiet, always looking to help the new guys coming into the platoon.”
No one ever made the quiet kid from California as a hero.
The night he died, Feb. 2, 1968, Maxam was in charge of a fire team of four men protecting part of a defensive perimeter set up around the Cam Lo District Marine headquarters.
Sometime around midnight, the VC — Viet Cong — threw everything they had at the perimeter. Maxam spotted a hole in the defense where a large group of VC was gathering for a full frontal attack.
He got there before they could break through, set himself up behind an abandoned machine-gun placement, and began firing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The fate of the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records is unclear following an FBI warning, House-Senate disagreements and more than 10 hours of criticisms by a GOP presidential candidate.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the most libertarian-leaning of the major Republican presidential contenders, dominated the Senate floor from 1:18 to 11:49 p.m. Wednesday to decry the National Security Agency’s mass collection of phone data without warrants. In doing so, he highlighted deep divisions within Congress — and among his party’s presidential hopefuls — over the program whose existence was exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden, now living in Russia.
Paul wasn’t coy about the political overtones. His campaign issued a fundraising appeal while he slowly paced and steadily talked in a mostly empty Senate chamber. It also told reporters that several conservative House Republicans were available for interviews after they sat a while in support of Paul in the Senate.
It marked the second time in two years that Paul has used a marathon Senate speech to draw attention to a pet issue, and to himself, as C-SPAN cameras provided unbroken footage for Twitter and other social media. In March 2013 he spent 13 hours filibustering John Brennan’s nomination to head the CIA, to underscore Paul’s opposition to U.S. drone policies.
Wednesday’s performance wasn’t an official filibuster because the bill before the Senate dealt with trade, not surveillance. Still, by never sitting or yielding the floor, Paul kept senators from talking on other topics.
Paul opposes renewal of key sections of the Patriot Act, which the government cites to authorize the massive examination of who calls who on American phones. The government does not collect the content of the calls. Those sections are set to expire June 1.
The Republican-controlled House voted overwhelmingly to end bulk collection of phone data but to allow surveillance on a case-by-case basis if a special court approves. President Barack Obama supports that change. Paul says it doesn’t go far enough.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is among those Republicans who want to keep the full program going. But McConnell says the Senate will vote on the House bill, and possibly other versions, before beginning a Memorial Day recess.
A stalemate in the Senate would leave the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) without powers they have used to track terrorists for years, say supporters of the Patriot Act.
Without action by the end of the month, key provisions of the Patriot Act will expire, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argues would put the United States at a pre September 11, 2001-footing.
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Yet McConnell has no definite path to extend those provisions.
He and other hawkish senators are pressing for an extension of the key Patriot Act measures, but they are opposed by other senators, the White House and a majority of House lawmakers in both parties.
The House voted last week to approve reforms to the NSA provisions in an overwhelming 338-88 vote.
McConnell filed a short-term extension of existing law just 24 hours later, signaling his determination to move in a different direction.
Observers say it’s increasingly looking like the standoff could result in no action by Congress, which would mean the Patriot Act provisions would lapse.
That would be a worst-case scenario for the NSA, but a pipe dream for ardent civil libertarians who have been rooting for such a result.
“Right now that we’re down to the wire… it’s just not clear to me how you get authorization through the Senate and the House,” said Neema Singh Guliani, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union and critic of the law.
Defenders of the NSA say that would be disastrous for national security.
“Congress must act to reauthorize” the provisions, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) — two hawkish members of their respective Intelligence Committees — warned in an op-ed for Fox News on Friday. “The alternative is too dangerous.”
At issue is Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the federal government to collect “any tangible things” that are “relevant” to an investigation into terrorist or foreign intelligence activity.
The NSA has used that to collect millions of people’s phone call “metadata” — which include information about the numbers involved in a call and when the call occurred, but not people’s actual conversations — without a warrant. Supporters say that’s a crucial tool that has allowed the government to connect the dots between possible terrorist suspects.
If Congress doesn’t act, the program would end, the White House has said. The NSA would simply stop collecting the records.
McClatchy Washington BureauMay 9, 2015 Updated 15 minutes ago
LYNCHBURG, VA. — Looking to win over skeptical evangelical voters, Jeb Bush pushed back Saturday against what he said are modern intrusions on religion as he lauded graduates and their families at Liberty University, a Christian college popular on the path to the Republican presidential nomination.
“Fashionable ideas and opinions – which these days can be a religion all by itself – have got a problem with Christians and their right of conscience,” Bush told an audience of 34,000 in the school’s football stadium.
“That makes it our problem, and the proper response is a forthright defense of the first freedom in our Constitution.”
Some evangelicals view Bush warily, questioning whether the former Florida governor and likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination would provide a suitable bulwark against gay marriage, illegal immigration and other issues key to conservatives.
Christopher Maisano, a 17-year old New Jersey high school student, has been selected as the winner of the Professional Numismatists Guild (www.PNGdealers.org) 2015 young numismatist scholarship. The PNG will provide tuition, dormitory accommodations, meals and airfare to and from Colorado Springs, Colorado for him to attend one of the week-long sessions of this year’s American Numismatic Association (www.money.org) Summer Seminar.
“I am so happy and grateful for this opportunity! It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” Maisano said.
He began collecting two years ago while on vacation with his parents when he saw coins in the window of an antique shop.
“I was captivated by the old U.S. coins. I entered the store with my parents and spent hours looking at all the coins in their inventory. With my own allowance money I purchased my very first coin, an 1873 With Arrows Seated Liberty half dollar from the Philadelphia Mint,” Maisano recalled.
He said it is in poor condition and the least valuable coin now in his collection, but it “is the most beloved and prized coin in my collection because it was my first.”
Family members and friends soon responded to his interest in numismatics.
“My grandmother gave me her father’s coin collection. It included mostly Morgan dollars. None of the coins were very valuable but I found it so interesting to research them and learn about how my great-grandfather loved collecting coins,” he explained.
He also credits Ridgewood Coin & Stamp in Ridgewood, New Jersey for nurturing his interest in coins and mentoring him about buying and selling. Last October his parents took him to the PNG show in New York City where he met PNG member-dealer Donald Kagin and associate member David McCarthy of Kagin’s, Inc. who showed him gold coins from the Saddle Ridge Hoard. McCarthy and another PNG associate member, John Brush of David Lawrence Rare Coins, told him about the annual ANA Summer Seminars.
