Another ordinance, to ban City Council members from collecting a second government paycheck, fell short when the petition organizers were told shortly before the deadline that they needed about 10,000 more signatures because it dealt with payroll.

Dwntownguy wrote:

Do you have a Nanny?
Is the Nanny Legal or Illegal
Do you pay her a ?Living Wage??
Can we see a copy of the Nanny?s W-2?
Do you provide Healthcare for the Nanny?

DTG

ianmac47 wrote:
Obama is already doing better than Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall in Colorado. I think Udall is likely to win in Colorado, and by extension, Obama will also.

In Virginia, Democratic Senate Candidate Mark Warner is way up, and is likely to help carry Obama to victory there.

Virginia and Colorado put a Democratic candidate over 270 votes assuming the campaign carries the blue states of 2004, and will still go over the top without New Hampshire, the whitest state in the union.

I think that's worst case scenario Obama faces.

I think its likely Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina could vote for Obama; the percentage of black Americans in those states nears 30%. I also think its likely that black Americans will vote for Obama in the 80 to 90 percent of eligible voters. (in most places, only 60 to 70% of eligible voters are registered, and of that, in the best of years, only 60% of registered voters actually bother voting.) That is, I think black Americans will achieve an unprecedented level of registration, and have an unprecedented level of turnout, while white voters in those states will probably remain apathetic. More importantly, the Senate races in those states probably are generating little interest, and voter apathy will probably mean non-black voters simply won't care enough to vote.

At this point in the game, I think Obama wins with somewhere near 300 electoral votes.

JoyOfSound wrote:
hello,

my female friend who just moved into my building called me and told me she was assaulted by two men at journal square.

she said one asked her for a cigarette, as she was walking past the payphone/plaza area. she gave one a cigarette, and then walked away to continue home. the other one yelled at something to her, like "why you so rude?", and demanded another cigarette.

i think she was scared they may follow her, so she went to give the other guy a cigarette, and then they grabbed her arms and tried to walk her away. she was telling them to let go of her, and they were not letting go. she was very scared, and able to break free, and ran the 3 blocks home from the square.

she asked me if this sort of thing happens a lot around here, and i told her that was the very first time i have heard of anything like that. i told her that she should call the police, and at least notify them that two strange guys are grabbing women in the fountain area of JSQ. she felt maybe she was being paranoid, but we both agreed that a line has been crossed when someone GRABS your arm forcibly and won't let go.

i told her to call the non-emergency line and report the incident. i hope she follows through.

but, we both wondered, what would the cops do, if anything at all?

they really need to have a stronger police presence at JSQ at night. i don't think people feel safe walking through there.

she said the two men looked shabby and homeless. she said one looked like a really bad drag queen (no joke). she said, he wasn't looking glammed up....just like a weird gross cross dresser. she said the other one looked cracked out and scary.

just a warning to you all....

...Wall Street investment banks failed to securitize even a single dollar of collateralized mortgage-backed securities over the summer. With Wall Street basically shut down for financing, the sales volume for investment properties is stagnant. Combine this with a year in which thousand of individuals have lost jobs, and the outlook seems bleak. Yet despite all the negatives affecting the market, industry leaders are cautiously optimistic.

An ecosystem of corruption is a situation in which many have a stake in the status quo, which is to say - corruption. Because the import of 'culture of corruption' is very badly understood, a corrupt public official is portrayed by the media (ALL media, including 411) as existing in isolation. The public generally accepts this as true - that is, while they might see ALL pols as individually corrupt, or even all media as individually covering for them, they cannot grasp their own place in the ecosystem of corruption.

In any ecosystem, every living thing plays a part. In the Hudson County ecosystem of corruption, newspapers play a part. The publisher of a paper such as The Jersey Journal understands that it is allowed to report investigations of public officials - but not launch its own. It is allowed to criticize public officials - but only up to a point. For example, recently the JJ's editorial page director Augustin Torres was called on the carpet by HC prosecutor Ed DeFazio for suggesting that DeFazio might have put a beer on his expense account. With the line drawn there, Torres knows better than to run a story looking into the fact that DeFazio has NEVER prosecuted a prominent public official.

Hold Healy accountable
Thursday, September 04, 2008

Jersey City Mayor Jerra miah Healy should be held to the same standard im posed on Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone. Rone was removed from office because in December 2006 she intervened when Rutgers-Newark University police stopped her nephew for a traffic violation.

She told the officers she was a councilwoman and even said she'd call "the real cops," a threat she delivered on.

For her antics, she was convicted on a disorderly persons charge -- a relatively minor offense -- but one significant enough to prompt Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow to seek Rone's removal from office.

The punishment was harsh -- but one we found hard to argue against given the language in the statute requiring public officials to forfeit their offices for misconduct that touches on their jobs.

At the time, Rone's defenders said she was being unfairly singled out and pointed to Hea ly's situation. In the summer of 2006, a few months before Rone's altercation, Healy was arrested by Bradley Beach police when he tried to intervene in a quarrel outside a Shore bar owned by his sister. Witnesses said Healy was drunk. The mayor was pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and arrested.

Healy supporters and, more important, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio insisted Healy's case was different from Rone's because he never mentioned that he was mayor of Jersey City and never sought special treatment.

Now, according to the Jersey Journal, quoting police testi mony before a grand jury that indicted Healy on charges of resisting arrest and obstructing the administration of law, the mayor was quite vocal about who he was.

"I'm the mayor of Jersey City. I was a judge. I was a lawyer. I am a good personal friend with your chief (Lenny Guida). Call the chief and let's get this rectified without any charges. For the good of your town, for the good of your department, for the good of my city, we need to resolve this without charges. Can you sweep this under the rug?"

Healy denies he made these statements, telling the Jersey Journal they are "completely untrue."

This should be sorted out through the same kind of legal process that Rone faced.

In Rone's case, the prosecutor pursued forfeiture, relying on statements captured by video. In Healy's case, the prosecutor has taken a hands-off approach. It is former assemblyman Louis Manzo, who may run against Healy, who has been pushing the issue. While Manzo's motives may be political, it's clear the Healy case needs further scrutiny.