New Footage from Obama’s Mandela Eulogy

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Third Monmouth County Business Gets A Post Sandy Face Lift

Gaetano’s Restaurant and Market of Red Bank is the latest Monmouth County business to benefit from the Grow Monmouth Facade Improvement Program. The $75,000 program is funded by HUD Community Development Block Grants and administered by the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Freeholder Director Tom Arnone presented Gaetano’s owner Tom Cappello a check for $1,824 on Wednesday as reimbursement for lighting fixtures for the restaurant.

Early this month, Woody’s Roadside Tavern in Farmingdale received a $1700 grant for its facade improvements. Old Monmouth Candies of Freehold was the first recipient of a Grow Monmouth Facade Improvement Grant.

Businesses with privately held commercial properties in the municipalities of Aberdeen, Atlantic Highlands, Belmar, Bradley Beach, Colts Neck (Naval station only), Deal, Eatontown, Farmingdale, Freehold Borough, Freehold Township, Hazlet, Highlands, Howell, Keansburg, Keyport, Lake Como, Manalapan, Matawan, Neptune City, Neptune Twp., Ocean Twp., Red Bank, Shrewsbury Twp., Tinton Falls (naval station only), Union Beach and West Long Branch are eligible to apply for facade improvement grants of up to $1,850.

Asbury Park, Long Branch and Middletown businesses are not eligible for this program because those municipalities receive designated HUD Community Development Block Grants directly.

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Christie: We’re all one of God’s creations

Excerpts of Governor Chris Christie’s remarks at the Passaic County Superior Court’s drug court graduation this morning.

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ObamaCare Update

680,000 New Jersey residents will be losing their health care coverage  in the coming weeks, as Horizon Blue Cross and AmeriHealth cancel policies that are not compliant with ObamaCare.

But all is not lost!  HealthCare.gov doesn’t work, so one of the firms contracted by the federal government to help with the enrollment process has opened centers in Edison and Wayne that are open seven days per week where trained navigators will be on hand to help the uninsured and soon to be uninsured enroll.

The deadline to enroll in ObamaCare, if you want coverage by January 1, is December 23.  Get your elf off the shelf and hustle off to Edison or Wayne.  There are malls nearby.

President Obama is leaving Friday for a $4 million vacation in Hawaii.

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2 tickets hit $636M Mega Millions jackpot – but neither is from N.J.

2 tickets hit $636M Mega Millions jackpot – but neither is from N.J. (via NJ.com)

The second-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history finally has a winner — two of them in fact. The lucky tickets that will split a $636 million prize were sold in San Jose, Calif. and Atlanta. There were also 20 tickets sold that matched five numbers…

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You might be drunker than you think

In case you missed the Today Show this morning, here’s the video of the Rossen Reports segment shot last week at Raven and the Peach in Fair Haven last week.

Watch me dance stumble through the field sobriety test.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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N.J. Senate pulls gay marriage bill

N.J. Senate pulls gay marriage bill (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — State Senate Democrats have pulled from consideration a bill that would write gay marriage, already legal in New Jersey by court order, into the law books. Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg said Sunday that she decided to follow the…

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Drinking on the Today Show

The segment was bumped by the Short Hills Mall shooting story.  It is now rescheduled for Tuesday between 7:30am and 8am.

Tune into NBC Monday morning between 7:30 and 8 or set your DVR  to catch some familiar faces, including your favorite blogger, demonstrating the dangers for drinking too much during the holiday season, or anytime, especially if you plan to drive.

The Today Show, in conjunction with the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the Fair Haven Police Department, hosted a holiday party for a small group of Monmouth County residents at Raven and the Peach last week.

The drinking, followed by sobriety tests and interviews, should serve as an important warning. Hopefully, those of us who participated will not look too ridiculous.

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Keep an eye on Kennedy

As was the case in the early days of the 2008 presidential campaign, which started the day after George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, Hillary Clinton is considered a lock for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Along came Davids Plouffe and Axelrod to snatch the 2008 nomination away from Hillary in favor of an unknown and untouchable freshman U.S. Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

Presidential campaigns are big business.  If James Carville and Company cruise Clinton to the nomination without a fight, Plouffe and Axelrod stand to lose out on millions in consulting fees as well as their seats at the pinnacle of power.

For most of her adult life, President John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline, kept a low profile and went by her married name, Schlossberg.

After Clinton was named President Obama’s Secretary of State, Kennedy Schlossberg briefly entertained the idea of running for the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by the appointment.

Now that she is Obama’s Ambassador to Japan, Caroline is officially a Kennedy.

A Caroline Kennedy for President campaign is a long shot. But not as long as shot as Barack Obama’s candidacy was in 2005.

You have to wonder why she would start using her maiden name after 27 years, if she wasn’t running for something.

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Bridgegate: What difference does it make?

Some members of New Jersey’s press corps, along with Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman John Wisniewski and the Democratic National Committee seem think they finally have an issue to thwart Governor Chris Christie’s rising star.   They’re hoping traffic jams in Fort Lee will prevent Christie from becoming President of the United States.

The Star Ledger has an article this morning quoting Democrats and academics saying “the scandal” could hurt Chrisite’s national ambitions.

But questions about the incident have fueled a scandal that even Christie’s masterful team of brand managers can’t make go away.

The Record’s Charles Stile writes that “Christie won’t easily shake GWB flap.”

Stile and The Star Ledger’s reporters have it wrong.  Christie deftly accepted “ultimate responsibility” for the mistakes made in Fort Lee last September, while deflecting blame, at his press conference on the matter on Friday. As NJTV’s Michael Aron said on Reporters Roundtable, the issue is ‘fundamentally over.”   If the ‘Bridgegate’ story gets any ink at all in 2014 and beyond, it will be deep in the back pages.

It’s doubtful that the subpoenas that Wisniewski, as Chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, issued will result in any smoking gun that proves that Christie or anyone in his inner circle other than Port Authority’s Bill Baroni or David Wildstein knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closures that tied up traffic in Fort Lee for a few days is September.  Even if a smoking gun is discovered, as Hillary Clinton would shout, “What difference does it make?”

Now that Christie is a legitimate presidential contender, the front runner in the early polls, it is perfectly appropriate that the press and his opponents attempt to make mountains out of traffic jams and other mole hills as part of the vetting process for a president.  Barack Obama got a pass from the press and his opponents in 2008 and 2012. Look what that got us.

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