At U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.’s forum on senior issues, held in the Montclair council chambers on Monday, things are said to have gotten a little pushy. According to NJ Tea Party’s founder Mark Kalinowski, there was an actual physical shove by Pascrell’s field representative Ann Mega as she tried to usher Pascrell’s Republican challenger Roland Straten from the meeting. Straten was attempting to distribute campaign literature to the roughly 90 people attending the forum.
Kalinowski, who lives in Clifton, contests that Mega also attempted to stop him from distributing a flier by using physical force.
When Baristanet talked with Paul Brubaker, Pascrell’s spokesman, he implied that it was a “he said/she said” scenario and that the 70-year-old Mega — a former Cedar Grove mayor who is under 5′ tall — flatly denies that the incident took place. “If she (Mega) had physically attacked anybody (how Kalinowski describes it) , it would have gotten a lot of attention, and people would have seen it” said Brubaker. “People’s focus should be on the fact that Congressman Pascrell had a great meeting with his constituents, and answered really excellent and difficult questions for 2 hours. There were many more people who asked to continue the dialogue, and our staff is following up with them this week.”
According to Straten’s campaign manager Bobbi Bennett, the Republican candidate, who is well over 6′ tall, didn’t feel physically threatened and wasn’t bothered by Mega. “He’s a big guy,” she said. Bennett further commented that Straten’s purpose for being at the meeting was to let voters know that there are other perspectives on the issues at hand, and conceded that she doesn’t believe Pascrell has any bad intentions. “It’s just that he doesn’t understand his constituency. He’s out of touch.”
Political campaigns being what they are, we could be in for a lot more pushing and shoving this election season, but one new political party is hoping the focus stays on the issues at hand rather than the distracting drama. The “Chamomile Tea Party,” espouses unity and an end to partisan bickering. Founder Jeff Gates has launched an old-fashioned poster campaign because he’s basically just fed up. Here’s what Gates says:
Tired of the rancor between the political left and right I’ve formed the Chamomile Tea Party, a calming force in American political discourse. When party politics, character assassination, and rhetoric take precedence over the good of the country it’s time to say enough is enough.
At the next local political meeting, who knows what will happen. After all, two senior citizens in near fisticuffs at a senior forum — assuming it really happened at all — is hard to top.
Tea Party platforms may include requirements for herding up all illegals and placing all 20 million of them in a massively huge detention camp somewhere.
No word on who’s paying for the land acquisition, construction and staffing, however.
It should be noted that someone at The Montclair Times actually witnessed one of the altercations that allegedly didn’t happen.
Hey Albert, Still d’baggin Nazi Fascist baiting? You forgot to blame Bush.. Nixon… Cheney et. al. Don’t forget McCarthy or Cohen.
Prascal is a liar but that’s no prblem for you is it. You do it all the time.
The chamomile tea party sounds good.
I’d like to propose a mixed drinks party. Instead of a chicken for every pot, the motto will be “a whiskey sour for every thermos.”
First, let’s get the names right. Mark’s last name is Kalinowski, not Kulinowski. Now let’s see if we can get the facts straight. Mr. Brubaker’s position is laughable in light of a Times reporter’s witnessing of the assault on Mr. Straten.
The fact that Mr. Straten’s physical size allowed him to brush off the pushing by Mega is irrelevant. He was pushed. It was witnessed. Whether Mr. Kalinowski was also physically pushed is irrelevant. What is relevant is the attempted denial of Mr. Straten’s and Mr. Kalinowski’s inherent right to free speech.
Ms. Mega’s age and physical size are also irrelevant. The power belongs to Pascrell, and to the Township attorney, and was transferred to Mega. In her capacity as a staffer to an incumbent Congressman she had the power in this situation.
There is something awfully wrong when we blindly accept the one sided information of government as truth and prevent citizens from exposing facts the powerful would rather we don’t know. The township’s only interest should be to do it’s best to ensure that voters and taxpayers have all the facts. To support only the statements of elected officials, as if these had no relationship to that official’s desire to keep his job – no matter how he has to twist facts to do so – would be laughable if it wasn’t so frightening. What Pascrell is promoting as fact is really political propaganda.
Pascrell himself admits that we shouldn’t sleep at night when Congress is in session. He admits the Health Care bill he voted for and claims to have written (in part) is flawed. Yet he’s still selling the same snake oil as if it is the cure all for what ails us. If the bill is flawed, why did he vote for it? How can we trust a man to make the laws we must live under if he doesn’t know what’s in it, or worse, knew it was flawed and voted for it anyway?
Since when was a resident of Montclair denied the right to pass out information at a public information meeting? What happened to the freedom loving, independent, free speech advocates in this town? What ever happened to the idea of speaking truth to power?
When the scuffle occurred between Mega and Kalinowski, Mr. Straten stood up for Kalinowski’s 1st ammendment right to free speech. He’ll stand for yours, too. Where do you all stand? On the side of liberty? On the side of truth? Or on the side of a government that would pass 3,000 pages of legal mumbo jumbo and then, with a straight face, tell us they know what is in it, and that we should love it,and them, because they know what is good for us?
The tea party platform is written for all to see in their Contract from America. Google it.
Hey whatsup, looking for a job?
In an interview with Salon today, a Republican candidate for the Florida state Legislature stood by her controversial idea to arrest illegal immigrants and send them to “camps” where they can be held en masse.
“We can ship them out to the middle of the country and put up high walls and leave them there,” said Marg Baker, the middle-aged real estate broker vying for the Republican nomination in the state’s 48th district, north of Tampa.
Baker was filmed advocating the camps idea at a local meeting of the 9-12 Project, Glenn Beck’s activist group, earlier this month… She told Salon today that she was upset at the way some had misinterpreted her comments. “They’re trying to think I want to erect some sort of prison camps like over in Germany” — which she is not, Baker said.
Asked if what she had in mind was more like the Japanese internment camps of the World War II era, Baker said, “something like that. But unfortunately in the Japanese camps they detained American citizens. The only ones I want to detain are the ones who are illegal.”
She added, “You’ve gotta have places for them to eat and sleep and breathe fresh air. It can be a tent city … You don’t want to make them too comfortable or they’ll want to come back.”
@Nick Charles, thanks for posting, but that link to The Montclair Times is annoying. It never takes you to the article referenced. It takes you to the current main page. By that time, you’ve lost interest and click back to Baristanet. Would like to have read it, but, oh well.
@Nick Charles, thanks for posting, but that link to The Montclair Times is annoying. It never takes you to the article referenced. It takes you to the current main page. By that time, you’ve lost interest and click back to Baristanet. Would like to have read it, but, oh well.
marine mom,
there’s what’s written on a web site, and then there’s the rhetoric that is foisted upon us by the candidates who embrace the Tea Party movement.
you don’t get to have it both ways.
whatsup,
birthers
repealing the 14th amendment
terrorist babies
death panels
thanks for reminding us that we don’t need to turn to the past to find examples of right wing lying and scaremongering
as for your attempt to whitewash the past—didn’t the bushies blame the clintonites after 911? hypocrite
The link works for me, but here’s another
http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/100507084_Accusations_fly_during_Pascrell_s_senior_forum_.html?page=all
Years ago, I was pushed away from the Democrats by:
-> economic illiteracy (shrieking against the Reagan-driven recovery from the Carter malaise),
-> willful blindness to reality (anti-welfare reform),
-> and unfairly harsh rhetoric (of many examples, see “Borking”).
More recently, I have been pushed back, waaay back, to the Democrats (on a national platform level) as the Republicans have purged every morsel of moderation, restraint and careful thinking from their party (anyone seen David Frum lately?). Combined with the Tea Party, we’re faced with an onslaught of modern day Know Nothings whose mob-driven preachings and distortions become more vile by the day.
To think: I used to cringe at the thought of Hilary Clinton attaining high office! The absolute revulsion that I feel towards Sarah Palin and all she represents puts pale to that.
Yes, examples of the Tea Party’s platform are easily found on the web.
I’m waiting for the 3rd Party and term limits.
According to NJ Tea Party’s founder Mark Kalinowski, there was an actual physical shove by Pascrell’s field representative Ann Mega as she tried to usher Pascrell’s Republican challenger Roland Straten from the meeting.
Mega pushed whom exactly? You have to read further down to surmise that Kalinowski was the one who was pushed, and that the pusher was a 70 year old shrimp of a lady. By then, the dramatic silliness of it all is lost, like the punchline of a badly told joke, giving MarineMom a rhetorical opening she clearly doesn’t deserve.
Erika, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you’re female, and thus probably never went through an Ernest Hemmingway phase. Get hold of that wonderful volume of the newspaper articles he wrote before he made it big, or find them online. Simple declarative sentences can do wonders for clarity.
I share appletony’s views fairly closely as posted above. Terribly disappointed in what was wrought during the previous GOP regime, but looking at the last two years I feel like the Democrats should change their symbol to “The Trojan Horse.”
Leaving aside the usual whatsup horseshite, I wonder what bills that ANYONE votes for are not “flawed”?
Is there a perfect bill? Which one?
I love the paranoia that these folks exhibit on virtually every occasion.
The “government” controls the media> The “government” is taking away your rights. The “government” is bad, evil, socialist.
When did people in this country become so distrustful of their own government? Has it done badly by you? Are you starving? Are you unable to voice your opinions? Are you run over by tanks or decapitated in public squares if you veer off course?
When I came to this country, people had plenty of beefs but they believed that the country was good, the people would by and large do the right thing, and the outlook was good. I loved that optimism, that is so intrinsically American. Where did it go?
If I have to look to Stratten for “liberty” and “truth”, I guess we’re all in trouble.
Walleroo, I think you’re missing the point.
Who cares how big Pascrell’s aide is? No one’s saying she hurt anyone. But five foot two or six foot nine, she shouldn’t be physically pushing anyone out of the council chambers.
Also, it’s alleged she pushed both the Tea Party guy AND Roland Straten. The offense? Handing out materials in a public space.
Regardless of party, or what you think of the odious Tea Party movement, you should be appalled.
I would suspect that most Americans still believe that this is a great country. The evolution of the Internet, e-mailings and the blogosphere has facilitated the wingnuts in both the liberal and conservative camps, to send and post their extreme points of view without a filter. It could be, I suppose easy to believe that they speak for all but I doubt it. And too, hard as it is sometimes to identify with negative radical positions I’d submit they are often thought provoking. Just as is the incivility of discourse apparent on some threads right here in B-land. I often find the bomb throwing here funny as well as stimulating.
BTW This country was founded on a basic distrust of government. Our Constitution was meant to protect “the people” from a tyrannical government. Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address voiced that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. The arguments as to the best way to accomplish this are historical and not at all new to this nation.
This country was not founded on a basic distrust of government. It was founded on a basic distrust of the monarchy, and a belief that a government composed of what at the time passed for “regular” folks would be more responsive than one composed of nobles sitting 3000 miles across the water. That was the “tyrannical” government, the people themselves were its antithesis.
I believe that the historical roots of the US Constitution can be traced to Greek and Roman history and philosophers as well as the Enlightenment philosophers. These thinkers evaluated monarchies, aristocracies and constitutional republics. The US Constitution can be viewed as the evolution of political thought.
My point, however, was more to the ongoing augments apparent on the blogosphere as not really being new to Americans.
From which country do you hail?
I believe that you are correct in seeing the US Constitution as an outgrowth of Greek and Roman — I’d argue Greek more so — political thought.
But the very act of creating a government, and crafting a document to legitimize it as well as curtail it, would point to a basic belief in the power of government to improve the lot of the people — indeed, to protect the people. If you feel that government is an intrinsic evil, why bother?
To answer your question, I was raised in what is commonly referred to as Northern Ireland, then as now a part of the UK. As one who was born a Catholic, I did not find that government to be overly responsive to my needs or representative of my community. I find this country to be, with all of its faults, head and shoulders above.
cro,
I respectfully submit that the formation of these United States was greatly influenced by a mistrust of government, not just monarchy — namely, that government of the people will be invested with the failings of humanity as well as its better spirits. Our founders thought carefully through these issues in refining the framework of checks and balances under which we continue to live.
In this case, I draw my example from Federalist #51:
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”
We must always be wary of our own, self-created government.
I’d second that appletony. Thanks for the support!
apple, I’ve found you to be consistently the voice of reason, and while I accept some of your argument, I’d refer you to Garry Wills’ A NECESSARY EVIL: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT.
Of special note, from Robert Westbrook’s review, is his attempt to “dismantle the fake history of the early republic that he believes informs antigovernmentalism. Here he complains that we have been saddled with an ironically Anti-Federalist view of the Constitution as a charter for a shackled state. Calling upon the testimony of James Madison and other Federalist winners in the ratification debate, Wills seeks to demonstrate that the founders, far from seeking an enervated, divided, self-checking government, saw themselves as creating an effective national polity capable of necessary good.”
He makes a very persuasive case, and I would encourage you to check it out.
Being “wary” is wise. Being paranoid is foolish.
I’m more wary of the increasing power of special interest groups and corporations as opposed to the government. Why a corporation should be considered an individual and be allowed to contribute an unlimited amount of money to a political campaign is truly shocking. Just shocking.
And being too wary of the government can easily lead one on the path to donning a tin foil hat. Although Glenn Beck is comical, it’s really not very funny that so many people of this fine country lap up his crazy BS. The country is being overrun by clottypolls and wuwts.
Come on, tudlow!
You mean that you didn’t see the hammer and the sickle in the Industry and Agriculture sculptures at Rockefeller Center? Why, Beck saw them, and they are proof positive that there is a long-standing Communist plot to gnaw away from the inside. All of those skaters and Christmas Tree admirers and eejits who used to pay $50 for an ashtray that said “defense de fumer” at Librarie de France are being slowly, inexorably, drawn into the Communist web.
You had better wake up, my young friend. Clotty and whatsup and the rest are giving you ample warning. When you wake up next week with some grinning Chinese Red eating your beloved Schnauzer, don’t say you weren’t warned!
I am not a fan of Beck but once past his drama some of his points are interesting.
Surprisingly (at least to me), Glenn Beck has a libertarian view of gay marriage.
Interesting?
A train wreck is “interesting”.
What “points” of Beck’s do you find “interesting”?
Oh, you know I’ve always been of fan of you, croiagusanam. Your afternoon post today was particularly brilliant. I look forward to whazzup calling me tluddite or something of the sort tonight in his drunken stupor. It makes me chuckle.
DagT, you seem like a wonderfully spirited woman, one that I might even enjoying chit chatting with as we stand in line at King’s. But Beck is interesting because only in America can a marshmallow faced blubbering alcoholic loon like him make millions off of the general pubic’s gullibility and stupidity (and propensity toward hatred). People actually think they are learning US history from him. It’s analogous to one thinking they can learn about wildlife from watching Bugs Bunny and his pals. The book that changed his life, “The 5,000 Year Leap” was written by one of the biggest crackpots in history. I would think that one of your intelligence could find someone of the conservative bent with a bit more sanity and intellectual integrity.
I’d not be surprised by a real libertarian accepting gay marriage.
After all, how dare the government get involved in a private agreement between two people?
Of course, his ex-wife may have a different take.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched an entire Beck program. I find his style hard to take. However, peel away his tears, fears and silly drawings for the most part he appears to be a champion of individual rights and limited government.
It’s possible to be a champion of individual rights (whatever that means–hey, I’m all for the individual and I’m what you would consider a liberal or a progressive or whatever the word du jour is) while not being a bald-faced liar.
I think that you just gave me a left handed compliment tudlow. I’ll look for you on line. I’ll be wearing my red hat.
I suspect that many of Beck’s fans have a much higher intelligence than you give them credit. One of the many things, imo, that we do when discussing firmly held opinions is discount the oppositions’ thinking ability. Not always good form! Generally, you’d loose points in a real debate.
And regarding Fox News in general, here’s my view, summed up nicely by a recent editorial by my dear ol’ Pops :
“Author and philosopher Voltaire wrote “I may disapprove of what you say, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it.” Albert Camus said “A press that is allowed to be free can be either good or bad; a press that is not free can only be bad.” Voltaire and Camus never had to watch Fox News. There has never an editorial position or opinion on Fox that is worth fighting or dying for. And, although Fox News is certainly free, it is uniformly bad.”
There is a great editorial by James Poniewozik in the most recent Time magazine called “The Myth of Fact.” It’s a great little commentary on the birthers and the astonishing lingering belief re: “death panels.” Why let facts get in the way anymore, really now. I used to be rather moderate, a registered independent but the direction and tactics of the conservatives/Republicans are disgusting. The far right currently has much more influence in this country than the far left does–it’s rather interesting, actually. Reality and facts really do seem to have a liberal bias these days.
But, DagT, do you wear a red hat? Are you of the Red Hat Society? Always fun to see those ladies out for lunch. I’ll be the one in line telling my kids to put back the candy bar and to stop fighting.
Honestly, methinks we have very different ideologies but I mean you no harm. I have many conservative friends from my rural homeland. We get along just fine when we are not discussing politics. (Red) hats off to you.
(WOW… In the heat of August, late in the night, you folks are working this sh*t out!! Carry On!!)
she shouldn’t be physically pushing anyone out of the council chambers.
The point you’re missing, Nick, is that this little old lady cannot physically push anybody out of the chambers, except perhaps a 5-year old or a small dog.
I’m not actually missing any point, walleroo. The local paper was there and witnessed Ann Mega shoving Roland Straten. Whether or not she injured him is not really an issue. The point is, should Pascrell’s rep be shoving his opponent out of a public chamber?
Appltony, you cite as proof an article about an alleged tea party “leader” who was denounced and ousted from the Tea Party movement. Every mass movement collects its share of wing-nuts. The difference between those of us who believe in a civil society in which people govern themselves and those of us who fall prey to promises made by those who believe that some are more equal, and better able to govern than others, is that we eject our wing-nuts, while the other side celebrates and elevates theirs.
If you want to know what the Tea Party is really about, go to a meeting or check out the Contract From America. The Tea Party advocates balanced budgets, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, respect for the Constitution and Term Limits – these are not radical or particularly controversial ideas. Tea Party members I’ve come to know are well-informed because they read the bills and watch and read multiple news sources. They are regular people who are concerned about their children, their mortgages, their taxes and their jobs and businesses. They question what they hear in the mainstream media because it conflicts with what they have learned from source documents and what they can see in their own lives.
In this incident some are giving the benefit of the doubt to Pascrell, simply because he is an “official.” To think that he speaks the truth in that capacity is naive – his concern is getting re-elected. As a constituent, I am outraged at his attempts to silence free speech and to use our taxpayer dollars, and the trappings of office to bully the people he is supposed to be representing. This isn’t the first or only time he has done this – it is his habit when he is challenged. Examples of this tactic are plentiful on the internet.
Straten is a candidate, he also is a constituent and has a right to speak and share information, just as you do, at an informational meeting held in the building his and your tax dollars pay for. Straten is standing up for your rights, too, even if you haven’t taken the time to find out whether you agree with him or not. Instead you choose to bash your fellow citizens based on cherry-picked information. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not a useful idiot, but are just so busy paying your own onerous Montclair taxes, as well as State and Federal taxes that you didn’t have time to research the subject thoroughly.