COVID-19 puts more children at risk of exploitation
By Rep. Chris Smith
Today—October 28th—marks
20th anniversary of the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000—the
comprehensive, historic law that I authored to aggressively combat sex and
labor trafficking both within the United States and around the world.
The TVPA created a new,
well-funded whole-of-government
domestic and international strategy and established numerous new
programs to Protect victims, Prosecute traffickers and to
the extent possible,Prevent human trafficking in the first place.
“I do not intend to prejudge the past.” – William
Whitelaw
There’s a right way to do an Indigenous People’s Day and a
wrong way. Leave it to today’s Asbury
Park to choose a bigoted way.
The right way to do Indigenous People’s Day is to host a
celebration of them, where all their cultural markers are observed.
The wrong way is to spend most of the event haranguing
Italian Americans for celebrating Columbus, which is what the Asbury Park event
turned out to be. What low self-esteem
Native Americans must have if all they can muster at a celebration of
themselves is a complaint about other people. That’s who you are? A complainant? That’s how you define yourselves?
There have been over 6 million votes cast nationally in the general election so far, according to a report at TheHill.
Almost 4 million of those votes have been cast by voters unaffiliated with the Democrat or Republican Parties. 1.4 million ballots have been cast by Democrats and 653,000 by Republicans.
Senator Declan O’Scanlon, Freeholder Deputy Director Sue Kiley, Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso and Congressman Chris Smith in a pre-pandemic photo
By Senator Declan J. O’Scanlon, Jr
I am tremendously proud of my friend and our Congressman Chris Smith who consistently rises above the noise and clatter of politics and personally goes the extra mile to help people in desperate situations.
During this pandemic Chris Smith has done it again—he has literally saved lives. He’s not just saved the lives of countless unknown people who did not get sick because of the PPE Chris was able to secure for first responders and medical providers. But he’s saved really sick patients whose families called their congressman because they were desperate for answers, medication, and approvals for treatment in a healthcare system that was overwhelmed. Chris Smith came through for them.
Labor Day marked the unofficial end of the COVID summer as well as the unofficial start in earnest of the political campaign season.
The period between Labor Day and Election Day is when voters begin paying more attention to who’s running for which office and trying to catch up on the issues.
Will students and staff be safe in the schools that fully re-open or adopt the hybrid model? With most set to open next week, the answers should come quickly.
Governor Murphy’s election rules have the real potential to make him and New Jersey the laughing stock of the nation and cause constitutional chaos. It is very possible that Jersey ballots will not be tabulated before the Electoral College meets on December 14 or when the President is to be inaugurated on January 20.
House races in districts 2,3,5, 7 and 11 could still be undecided when the House of Representatives is scheduled to be sworn in on January 3.
In 2002 the citizens of New Jersey were preparing to choose a US Senator for a six year term in the November election. The candidates were selected, via the primary system, to be Democrat incumbent Robert Torricelli and Republican Douglas Forrester. As the election wound toward November the Democrats found that they had several ethics issues with Mr. Torricelli and his reelection was far from assured. Mr. Torricelli, following President Truman’s dictum “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen”, proceeded to, on September 30 withdraw his candidacy. The Republicans began their victory dance as Mr. Forrester was now unopposed and the Democrats would be prevented from replacing Mr. Torricelli because of the time constraints of the New Jersey Constitution.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s response to the shooting at the home of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas should be condemned by gun control advocates and Second Amendment supporters alike.
