The Santorum "Threat"
Several progressive New Jersey bloggers are mad at Rick Santorum for threatening New Jersey for backing out on an agreement concerning the dredging of the Delaware River.
Scott Wolman from Poetic Leanings writes:
Apparently Rendell had a promise from our Governor Codey that New Jersey's representatives on the Delaware River Port Authority would approve the dredging as soon as last year's gubernatorial election was over.
We have no opinion about the dredging, but it’s pretty clear the threats coming from Pennsylvania are bipartisan and amount to nothing more than election year bluster from our friends across the river.
Now we could be wrong, but we get the feeling the “progressive” bloggers writing on this issue care more about “dumping Mike” and defeating another state’s Senator for reelection than they care about threats to New Jersey from Pennsylvania politicians and dredging the Delaware.
While we don’t appreciate being threatened and find the Pennsylvania pols’ talk childish, we are more concerned about threats from other parts of the world. For example, we are more apt to be disturbed about fascist, lunatic threats from al Qaeda in Iraq *, then by political grandstanding from the Governor and Senator of Pennsylvania. It’s all a matter of your prospective, we suppose.
From today’s Political Diary from Opinion Journal (subscription required):
"We call on the Islamic Party to abandon the road to perdition on which it has embarked and which threatened to cause the loss of the Sunni community," Zarqawi said, adding that the party "should have called the people to jihad (holy war)."
The Iraqi Al-Qaeda leader then laid down two conditions for giving up the jihad.
"First, chase out the invaders from our territory in Palestine, in Iraq and everywhere in Islamic land.
"Second, install sharia (Islamic law) on the entire Earth and spread Islamic justice there (...). The attacks will not cease until after the victory of Islam and the setting up of sharia," he swore.
Zarqawi concluded: "O young Muslims everywhere in the world, and in particular in the neighboring countries (of Iraq) and in Yemen, I recommend jihad to you (...). O nation of Islam, America is today drawing its last breath."
Scott Wolman from Poetic Leanings writes:
Republican fascist, lunatic Senator Rick Santorum is threatening New Jersey because the state will not succumb to Pennsylvania's wishes to deepen the Delaware. This would help Pennsylvania's shipping, but potentially damage the environment.Blue Jersey’s jmelli posts Spreading Santorum love across New Jersey:
New Jersey has the right to block this and negotiate as it sees fit. Pennsylvania will just have to get a grip. As for Santorum, who will only be a Senator a bit longer, New Jersey has this message for you, Ricky: GO F*CK YOURSELF!! (Ed: asterisk added)
Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum has a special message for New Jersey. … So long, Ricky.The Dump Mike blog:
Please call Rep. Ferguson's office at 908-757-7835 and ask his staffers if the Congressman stands by Senator Santorum's threat to block all funding for New Jersey if we don't do what he wants. You can also write to Rep. Ferguson on his website e-mail form.What’s missing from these posts is any word on Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell joining forces over the issue with Santorum and the Democrat’s threat to shut down the commuter rail line from New Jersey into Philadelphia.
Another avenue is to send letters to the editor talking about Senator Santorum's threats. Local and regional newspapers are as follows …
Apparently Rendell had a promise from our Governor Codey that New Jersey's representatives on the Delaware River Port Authority would approve the dredging as soon as last year's gubernatorial election was over.
We have no opinion about the dredging, but it’s pretty clear the threats coming from Pennsylvania are bipartisan and amount to nothing more than election year bluster from our friends across the river.
Now we could be wrong, but we get the feeling the “progressive” bloggers writing on this issue care more about “dumping Mike” and defeating another state’s Senator for reelection than they care about threats to New Jersey from Pennsylvania politicians and dredging the Delaware.
While we don’t appreciate being threatened and find the Pennsylvania pols’ talk childish, we are more concerned about threats from other parts of the world. For example, we are more apt to be disturbed about fascist, lunatic threats from al Qaeda in Iraq *, then by political grandstanding from the Governor and Senator of Pennsylvania. It’s all a matter of your prospective, we suppose.
From today’s Political Diary from Opinion Journal (subscription required):
Apparently brotherly love doesn't extend across the Delaware River to New Jersey. Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, normally political opponents, have formed an alliance to threaten New Jersey with retaliation for reneging on a gentleman's agreement about dredging the waterway that separates the two states. Both pols are up for re-election this year.* Zarqawi hit out at the Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic Party for having taken part in the December 15 general elections, and called on it to renounce such actions.
At issue are shipping lanes up the Delaware River to Philadelphia. Pennsylvania wants to dredge them by five feet and share the cost with New Jersey. Governor Rendell says he had assurances from almost-former New Jersey Acting Governor Richard Codey that New Jersey's representatives on the Delaware River Port Authority would approve the agreement as soon as last year's gubernatorial election was out of the way. They haven't and Messrs. Rendell and Santorum are ready to rumble.
Mr. Santorum, the Senate Republican Conference Chairman, has vowed to strangle any Congressional legislation benefiting New Jersey if the neighboring state doesn't cry uncle. "I'll just assure you that anything New Jersey-specific, we will have a hold on it in the United States Senate until this is taken care of," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr. Rendell, for his part, is threatening to shut down the high-speed commuter rail line that feeds New Jerseyans into Philadelphia.
New Jersey Governor-elect Jon Corzine has so far declined to get involved, but he'll have no choice after January 17, when he's sworn in. The Pennsylvania donnybrook isn't New Jersey's only riparian border scrap. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle a dispute with Delaware over a pier New Jersey wants to build on its side of the river. In that case, Mr. Codey last year proposed to settle the matter by calling the U.S.S. New Jersey out of retirement and training her guns on Dover. The dreadnought is berthed a hundred yards of so from Philly. No word yet on Mr. Corzine's planned negotiating strategy. -- Christian Knoebel
"We call on the Islamic Party to abandon the road to perdition on which it has embarked and which threatened to cause the loss of the Sunni community," Zarqawi said, adding that the party "should have called the people to jihad (holy war)."
The Iraqi Al-Qaeda leader then laid down two conditions for giving up the jihad.
"First, chase out the invaders from our territory in Palestine, in Iraq and everywhere in Islamic land.
"Second, install sharia (Islamic law) on the entire Earth and spread Islamic justice there (...). The attacks will not cease until after the victory of Islam and the setting up of sharia," he swore.
Zarqawi concluded: "O young Muslims everywhere in the world, and in particular in the neighboring countries (of Iraq) and in Yemen, I recommend jihad to you (...). O nation of Islam, America is today drawing its last breath."
Posted by Enlighten-NewJersey @ 7:17 PM
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8 Comments:
what is this zarqawi islamic shit at the end of your post?
its totally baffling and out of place.
you have confused me and have lacked what we in the conversational world call...
a point.
Media,
Note the asterisk in this sentence from our post right next to the words "al Qaeda in Iraq":
“We are more apt to be disturbed about fascist, lunatic threats from al Qaeda in Iraq *, then by political grandstanding from the Governor and Senator of Pennsylvania. It’s all a matter of your prospective, we suppose.”
Then note the asterisk at the bottom of the post that precedes the quoted threat from al Qaeda in Iraq as reported in the news yesterday. Zarqawi, you may remember, is the terrorist leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the one that Saddam Hussein gave sanctuary prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Our point was to compare a progressive blogger’s idea of a fascist, lunatic – Senator Santorum, to ours - al Qaeda leader, Zarqawi. We wanted to provide the details about the threats made by each person – Santorum, Rendell and Zarqawi, to make our point.
Further, it seems to us dredging the Delaware is a New Jersey vs. Pennsylvania difference and not a Republican vs. Democrat one. Yet the progressive bloggers we cited gave the impression only Republicans were involved in the dispute– Santorum threatening to hold up legislation in the Senate that would benefit New Jersey and Congressman Mike Ferguson, well for belonging to the same political party as Santorum. Rendell’s threat was giving a pass and we thought it should be noted.
We now know Rendell’s actions were not mentioned by Blue 7th PAC’s blog because they solely focus on “Dumping Mike” and therefore, mentioning Rendell’s threat is beside the point and does not further their purpose of defeating the Republican Congressman Mike Ferguson for reelection.
We wrote in our post “we get the feeling the “progressive” bloggers writing on this issue care more about “dumping Mike” and defeating another state’s Senator for reelection than they care about threats to New Jersey from Pennsylvania politicians and dredging the Delaware." It seems at least one blog has confirmed our point.
"GO F*CK YOURSELF!! "
Boy that was poetic. Hahahahah
I can see it now:
"You from Jersey?"
"Yeah."
"No cheese steak for you."
Jim
Parkway Rest Stop
http://parkwayreststop.com
Ricky's threat doesn't seem that impressive to me... with the amazing skillz of Lautenberg and Corizine (now Menendez) in bringing about first rate Jersey-specific projects it actually seems kind of empty. Blocking 100% of nothing is still leaves New Jersey with nothing. Or, have I overlooked a blockbuster NJ-centric thingy in the last few years?
Blue 7th PAC,
Our suspicion was the sole purpose of your post and blog was to dump on Mike. We pointed out in a comment above that you have confirmed our hunch in your previous comment. So we are in agreement on that point.
But, let us explain the genesis of this post. We were reading Monday’s Political Diary which included the piece on the spat between PA and NJ over dredging the Delaware. We decided to check the NJ blogosphere to see if anyone was writing on the issue. The three NJ blogs cited in this post were the only ones that came up in our search.
If we would have found other NJ blogs writing on the topic, we would have included them in our post, regardless of their position. As it worked out, all three were progressive blogs and all three did not mention the threat from Rendell. As you point out, you didn’t mention Rendell because you only dump on Mike. The other two blogs have taken the more expansive progressive position – dump Santorum. No doubt a position they didn’t hold until this incident.
“Dump Mike” does not let readers know whether or not Ferguson has a position on the issue or on the threats from the PA. politicians. It’s a safe bet though, that Ferguson isn’t for holding up legislation that would benefit New Jersey. So we assumed it was not the dredging or the threat that mattered to Blue 7th PAC.
It’s pretty clear the dredging issue and Santorum’s bluster has nothing to do with Ferguson. Therefore it seemed to us the Blue 7th PAC was really stretching to bring Ferguson into the mix. It was merely an excuse to dump on Mike and get people fired up to write letters and jam Ferguson’s voice mail. Speaking of which, are you the group behind the regular calls to people’s homes explaining why Ferguson needs to be called in order to stop – fill in the blank? Good luck with that annoying tactic.
Now, perhaps you could explain the nefarious relationship between Rick Santorum and Mike Ferguson, beyond the fact they are both Republicans? And maybe you could explain why having a representative in the majority party isn’t a benefit to the people in the NJ’s 7th Congressional district?
As Mr. Apropos points out Lautenberg and Corzine produced nada for the state and we would highlight the pair’s primary domestic issue was to raise taxes. Why on earth would anyone in the 7th want to Dump Mike and replace him with Lautenberg/Corzine soul mates? Excepting of course those that want to move up in NJ’s Democrat Party.
If PA keeps it up, we should tell them they can no longer drive their cars across the Delaware through our state and on to NYC. Let them go around.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/blogs/dbenko/
Blue 7th PAC,
We are “twisting” to make a point?
According to you, “Dump Mike” is not a news blog, but rather one which highlights aspects of the news in an effort to defeat Mike Ferguson in an election.
There is no dispute that the point of your blog is to “dump Mike”, but it’s pretty clear to us you are attempting to achieve your objective by “dumping on Mike”. Call your method what you will, but it doesn’t require “twisted” logical to reach our conclusion.
Now, obviously if your goal is to defeat Ferguson you aren’t going to publish positive news or information that might reflect favorably on his record. But we think it’s a bit of a stretch to imply Mike Ferguson might agree with Santorum’s threat to hold up legislation in the Senate beneficial to New Jersey based upon the facts you present:
1. Mike Ferguson is a Republican and so is Rick Santorum
2. In June 2005, Ferguson's political action committee, MIKE PAC, contributed $1,000 to Rick Santorum's campaign.
3. Santorum at one time was a member of the board of the Catholic Campaign for America while Ferguson was the Executive Director of the group.
Isn’t it rather novel to call on someone to demand a return of their donation? And isn’t it rather unusual to conclude that failure of a person or group to demand a return of a donation amounts to agreeing with everything a person or group says or does?
If anyone is “twisting” to make a point, it‘s you.
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