On the job

Strangely enough, a politician who wants to get a little nookie on the side while he is in office can’t win no matter what they do. The latest to test this theory was Governor Mark Sanford from South Carolina.

If you’ve been following the news, you may know that “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” is a new Southern euphemism for “getting laid”.

Sanford traveled all the way to South America get his nookie, apparently.

At least the others in the US: Spitzer got his in Washington, DC; McGreevey stayed at NJ highway rest stops for his.

And President Bill Clinton stayed on the job by getting his right in the Oval Office. If nuclear launch codes were needed, Clinton was still right there will and ready to be the leader of the free world.

Not so Sanford. He was out of town during his affair.

Unreachable by his staff, the press and the people of South Carolina. He met his paramour on a trip a year ago paid for by the South Carolina Department of Commerce---the taxpayers kicked in for that one. To his credit, the governor did offer to pay back the state for that portion of the trip where he had the affair. I guess any days where he failed to get laid, he’s not paying for. Good sport, governor.

Under the South Carolina State constution, Article IV, SECTION 2. “Qualifications of Governor”:

No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being.

So, if when he was getting his nookie, the good governor did not shout out the Lord’s name, perhaps he can get impeached.

Robo-calls, yet again.

I hear from these people about once a year, always at the end of October. And they never listen to what I have to say, but just talk and talk. Yup, the dreaded Robo-calls.

Bill Clinton. Frank Lautenberg. This year it was Leonard Lance and my good friend from Leadership New Jersey, Michael Hsing.

I cannot wait for this robo-call some day:

“Hello, this is Assemblyman Petey McPeters. I am sponsoring Assembly Bill A-1401, the “Stop Robo-Calls” legislation. These calls, like this one, are annoying and inconvenient, and all too often clog up your phone line at home. Please join me in calling upon the Speaker of the Assembly to move A-1401 out of committee, and post it for an up or down vote. If you do, you may not have to get anymore robo-calls like this one.”

So, here is a column back in July 2007, about Robo calls:

"Hello, this is Bill Clinton. I am supporting Democrat Melvin Smendrovich for Borough Council in Jerseytown because Melvin shares my values on the 'kitchen table' issues that...."

"Hey folks this is Joe Piscopo. We both know that New Jersey needs Republican Petey McPeters to be the next governor. He'll work hard everyday to...."

We've all received the dreaded robo-calls come election time. Automated phone canvassing calls that come day and night. They come with increasing frequency as we get closer and closer to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

They block our phone service. They are annoying, coming at the most inconvenient time. Dinner. In the shower. During love making. However, they serve a purpose of re-minding voters over and over again to support Melvin in his race for Jerseytown Borough Council. That Melvin is the best person for the job. If Bill Clinton can take the time out of his busy day to call you [albeit automatically], then Melvin is the person you should support.

Unfortunately for the hapless Jerseytown resident, robo-calls are a part of campaigns because they’re cheap and they work to election advantage. So, what if robo-calls tick off a voter or two? If they get your candidate elected, they will be part of the campaign strategy.

Legislative Effort in Trenton

There is an effort in Trenton to curtail robo-calls or ban them altogether. While such legislation may run afoul of the First Amendment, several states have enacted laws impacting the practice.

For guidance in dealing with this issue, perhaps Trenton should turn to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. In his novels Asimov developed the following Three Laws of Robotics ----[most likely not written by a lawyer from NJ]:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These seem to be clear rules regarding what criteria the state legislature should use in adopting an anti-robo calls bill.

“No harm to a human being?”
Sounds good to me.

“Robots must obey orders”?
This will work just fine.

“A robot must protect its own existence”?
Well, maybe that one will get fixed in committee.

If you and your robot support such a bill, call your legislator's office over and over again----but wait until he or she is eating lunch or in the shower.

Fellow Democrat: You can help Hillary, or you can turn the page.

Or surf to another website. Or post SuperPoke someone on Facebook. Or play Scrabulous with someone from across the world.

I received the email below from President Bill Clinton offering to let me have a shot at eating with himself and Hillary, if I give just $5 to help ‘retire that pesky campaign debt’.

I am sure that back in February the Clintons never figured they’d be sending out such a message about now.

Not a chance.

It must be quite a let down asking for 'Lincolns' instead of inviting supporters to the Linclon bedroom.

So, I gonna send in my five bucks. But, if I should win, I am not sure I want to have dinner and listen to Bill whine about the ‘pesky campaign debt’ and the fact that he’s gonna have to stay in New York instead of move back to the White House.

Maybe he will run for governor of New York now.

I heart Huckabee-NOT.

It’s hard to believe that both Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas.

Mike Huckabee and Bill Clinton have only three things in common: They both served as governor of Arkansas; they both loved to eat; and both had Dick Morris as a political adviser.

That is where the similarity ends.

Huckabee, who is surging in Iowa and Florida, is a Christian Evangelical’s dream candidate. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and solidly pro-life, and does not believe in evolution.

Here are examples of his extremism:

Huckabee indicated that he does not believe in evolution during a GOP primary debate.

Huckabee said it is imperative to “take this nation back for Christ.” [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6/8/98]

Huckabee said that most prisoners would love to be in a jail like Guantanamo Bay. Said the former Governor: “Most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States.” [ThinkProgress 6/7/07]

Huckabee called legal abortion a “holocaust.” Huckabee told the Family Research Council: "It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973." [CNN, 10/21/07]

Prior to leaving office, Huckabee had online gift registries allowing lobbyists to know exactly which gifts to buy him in order to curry influence. In response a former Arkansas state government official was quoted as saying: “He’s using the trappings of the governor’s office to get everything he can, and the sad part of it is, I honestly believe he does not see anything wrong with this,” [Arkansas News Bureau, 11/13/06]

Huckabee falsely claimed that most of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen. In fact, only one of 56 was indeed a clergyman. Huckabee said: “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were ‘brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen.’” Per the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly’s website PoliFact, only John Witherspoon was a clergyman. [PolitFact.com, 10/21/07]

On Huckabee’s campaign website, he says that religion “drives” his decisions and that he does not separate religion from his professional life. Additionally, Huckabee pledges on his website that, as President, he would “staff all relevant positions with pro-life appointees.” Huckabee also says that his efforts in Arkansas to infringe on a woman’s right to choose “are the accomplishments that give him the most pride and personal satisfaction.”

And, some creepy one-liners from Governor Huckabee:

Huckabee “joked” that he lost weight because Democrats put him in a concentration camp. "I have just come from six weeks at a concentration camp held by the Democrat party of Arkansas in an undisclosed location, making a hostage tape. That's why I look that way,” he said. [Arkansas Times, 10/6/06]

Huckabee said that only Baptists go to Heaven. “I love to tell the story of the lady who asked me in my early political life if it was true that I was a Baptist minister, and I said, ‘Yes, ma'am, that is true.’ She said, ‘Well, let me ask you, are you one of those narrow-minded Baptists who think only Baptists go to heaven?’ I said, ‘No, ma'am, actually I'm more narrow than that; I don't think all of the Baptists are going to make it.’" [Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 6/6/07.

Repubs: Think this man should be president? Think again.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

The video of Miss South Carolina/Teen America Lauren Caitlin Upton has been blasted over the web for the past several days.

I read somewhere that she has been seen by an astounding twenty million-plus people world-wide ---more people than who watched the actual Miss Teen America pageant itself.

A Republican elected official in Hunterdon County criticized me in an email for pointing out that Ms. Upton’s representative in Congress is a Republican. "What difference does that make?” he wrote. “Your always trying to prove that Republicans are stupid and Democrats are smart.”

I needn’t point out the irony of his spelling “you’re”, ‘Y-O-U-R’.
Indeed, a point well made.

However, I do think our presidents, by and large, are smarter than theirs.

We have Jimmy Carter (winner of the Nobel Peace prize and a guy who studied nuclear physics in his youth) and Bill Clinton (a guy who won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford and who attended Yale Law School). They have Ronald Reagan ("Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do,") and George W. Bush (too many to list here!).

You decide.

However, here is the real question:
Is President Bush smarter than a Miss Teen South Carolina? Again, you decide:



And finally, Ms. Upton quizzes YOU on geography, too.


Think you're so smart?

Maybe she cannot find the U.S.A. on a map of the world, but obviously her Press Agent was able to find a great connection at People Magazine.