News and Stuff

Having a few minutes, I thought I'd post a few things.

- Representative Scott Garrett is taking some heat for cutting funds to Naturally Occurring Retirement Community programs. Specifically, $170,000 was intended for the UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. Garrett wrote the Jewish Standard with his reasoning:

"Unfortunately, this bill was about politics, not people," Garrett said in an e-mail to this paper on Friday. "The new majority knew it would be vetoed and that the veto would be sustained because this bill would have busted the federal budget and exceeded executive branch budget requests by over $8 billion."

This is the same SCHIP line Garrett used in backing the President's veto over SCHIP. Obviously, once again, Garrett's pledge to the President has trumped those of us living in the District.

- The Asbury Park Press points out that Garrett's self professed love for the 10th Amendment (powers not delegated to the federal government go to the states) is hollow. Garrett is the only Representative from New Jersey to vote against formalizing New Jersey's power to ensure rail waste transfer sites are not polluting our neighborhoods and water supply. This measure was attached to the Federal Railroad Safety Administration bill, which I noted Garrett was one of only 38 Representatives to vote against it.

- Fred Snowflack got an answer from Garrett as to why he was one of only 36 Representatives to vote against improving the Head Start program. Garrett said he was opposed to the bill's cost and "such minutiae as the level of required training for teachers, details of background checks for bus drivers, and hiring policies for providers." As Fred noted, "Since when is training teachers and background checks for drivers a bad thing?"

- Herb Jackson pointed out that Camille Abate is having a fundraiser hosted by Mark Denbeaux, an attorney fighting for the rights of those at Gitmo. The event is this Wednesday, and you can find details here.

- Dennis Shulman, who is challenging Abate for the Democratic nomination, got some love from Matt Stoller over at Open Left. His piece about the GOP predicting they will get thrashed next year includes this little snippet:

...Democrats are spreading the playing field thin, and are forcing the Republicans to use what resources they have defending incumbents like Scott Garrett against potentially strong candidates like Dennis Shulman in district Bush easily took in 2004.