Many more Mensches and the Pick of the Putzes

As a professional stand-up comedian, I use the First Amendment each and every weekend at a comedy club somewhere in the country. So, I am proud to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU of New Jersey. These folks are like the DELTA Force for free speech here in the Garden State, and you don’t want to mess with these bad-asses.

Relentless is defined as, “not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty; ‘intense determination'”. The ACLU-NJ folks are relentless. They most recently went relentless on the City of Newark.

Back in 2004, the ACLU found that “the City [of Newark] required anyone who wanted to hold a march to secure a $1 million insurance policy and indemnify the city from harm or damage.” This requirement was over turned in court.

Long story short, Executive Director Deborah Jacobs and Legal Director Ed Barocas followed up this week in court yet again because of Newark’s failure to live up to that 2004 court ruling. They are truly and absolutely relentless.

For their never-ending story of fighting the entrenched bureaucracies of the cities of New Jersey against First Amendment violations, Jacobs and Barocas are once again Mensches of the Week.

The Power of Being a Putz

"When did you become an illegal alien?" questioned Essex family court Judge James B. Convery of lawyer Ivette Ramos Alvarez. Alverez is a former president of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey, and she was the recipient of the 2005 Professional Lawyer of the Year by the New Jersey State Bar Association.

What would compel Judge Convery to pose such an offensive question? Who cares, because it does not matter.

Alvarez has filed a complaint against the judge with the New Jersey Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct (ACJC), so that the issue can be brought to the attention of Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.

The Hispanic Bar wrote to Chief Justice Rabner, “…immediate and aggressive action to ensure that comments by members of the judiciary, either on the record or off the record ... never again fall outside the boundaries of common sense and propriety."

For this bad judgment show by Judge Convery, he is our pick for Putz of the Week.