S&P Global Downgrades NJ’s Credit Rating Again

New Jersey’s financial reputation took another hit yesterday, with S&P Global, one of the Big 3 Wall Street credit-rating agencies, announcing it has once again lowered the state’s debt grade by one step. The downgrade is another setback for Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who has now suffered through more credit-rating reductions than any New Jersey… Read the rest of this entry »

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Christie vetoes unemployment benefits for striking workers

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie on Monday nixed a bill that would have allowed striking workers to collect unemployment benefits. Instead, the governor sent a revised bill back to the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would amend “the language of the current law to make it clear that all striking workers are disqualified from receiving benefits,” according to… Read the rest of this entry »

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Golden Days: Monmouth GOP dominated county races

Surrogate Rosemarie Peters, Sheriff Shaun Golden, Congressman Chris Smith, Freeholder Serena DiMaso and Freeholder Tom Arnone celebrate their victories on Election Night

By Art Gallagher

Monmouth County’s Democrat leadership is spinning the shellacking they took last week from Sheriff Shaun Golden, Surrogate Rosemarie Peters, Freeholder Director Tom Arnone and Freeholder Deputy Director Serena DiMaso as a function of President-elect Donald Trump’s performance in the county.

Vin’s spin is laughable on many levels.  Let’s hope he believes it.

The Monmouth GOP swept the county races because, under Golden’s leadership, they campaign the same way the govern.  They work smarter and harder with less money.

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Steven Van Zandt to help announce milestone in Count Basie Theatre’s expansion plan

Freeholder Lillian Burry, Steven Van Zandt, Maureen Van Zandt and Mary Eillen Fouratt, Executive Director of Monmouth Arts at Count Basie Theatre, August 22, 2014, for the presentation of the Vanguard Awards

RED BANK — Count Basie Theatre officials, including E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, will gather on Monday morning to announce the historic theater is nearing the halfway point of funding its $20 million expansion plan. The downtown Red Bank theater, named after borough resident and famed jazz musician William James “Count” Basie, announced in… Read the rest of this entry »

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‘N.J.’s best diner’ featured on CBS Sunday Morning

The Broad Street Diner in Keyport, winner of our N.J.’s best diner showdown, was featured on CBS Sunday Morning today. Show chef-in-residence Bobby Flay pays a visit to the classic stainless steel diner and interviews owners Maria and Nick Kallas, who reminisce about how they grew up together as kids – in a family-owned diner. “My… Read the rest of this entry »

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Booker: ‘I have deep concern about the future of our country’

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said Sunday that “people are so fearful” in the wake of Tuesday’s election and expressed “deep concern” about America’s future. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Booker (D-N.J.) decried the tone of the just-concluded campaign run by President-elect Donald Trump, who received enough electoral votes to become U.S. chief executive… Read the rest of this entry »

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Trump’s election won’t make Christie great again

By Art Gallagher

With the news that President-elect Trump demoted Governor Chris Christie to a secondary role on the Presidential Transition Team, thousands of New Jerseyans breathed a sigh of relief.

The narrative that Christie was demoted because he was stacking the new administration with his own loyalists and had been doing the job with the belief that Trump would lose the election is entirely believable to observers and participants of Christie’s governance of New Jersey.

That Trump quickly and decisively put Vice President-elect Pence in charge of the transition should give comfort to anyone who fears that the Trump Administration will be a reckless frat party.

Yet, New Jerseyans are hopeful that Christie will land and accept a job in the Trump Administration.  The best thing for New Jersey and Christie is for him to get out of Trenton.  The sooner the better.

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Supermoon will be visible Sunday and Monday

Get your cameras ready. The biggest supermoon in more than six decades will be rising in the autumn sky Sunday night and setting early Monday morning. There’s been lots of buzz in the astronomy community, with Sky & Telescope magazine referring to the upcoming celestial event as the “super-duper supermoon” and others stressing how rare this… Read the rest of this entry »

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Thank you to the men and women who answered the call

By Art Gallagher

Since September 11, 2001, 1,000,000 American kids have answered the call.

Today, November 11, 2016 the mainstream media is focusing on a few kids who are protesting the outcome of the presidential election in their safe spaces.

I prefer to honor those 1,000,000 men and women who have sacrificed and experienced unimaginable horrors to protect our American way of life that gives those of us who are ridiculing the protesting kids from our own safe places the right to do so.

I recently had the privileged of beginning to get to know one of those young men, Staff Sergeant (Ret) Matthew O’Neil.  Matt is the eldest son of my friend Rick O’Neil, the Mayor-elect of Highlands.

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Trump’s Internal Polls Were Spot On

By Adam Geller

I want to give a gentle pushback against the narrative that “all the polls were wrong” on the Presidential race. Many of them were wrong. Maybe most of them were. But the internal polls for the campaign were spot on.

You may recall that the pundits laughed when Kellyanne mentioned that we spotted a fairly large hidden Trump vote, or as she called them, “undercover Trump voters.” Our polling always showed these folks in fairly large numbers. And they fell off of their chairs on their bright shiny studio sets when we started actively campaigning in states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. But again, the polling provided evidence that there were cracks in that big blue wall. And we listened to the polls, and trusted them.

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