Gov-Elect in AC
Governor-elect Phil “The Jolly Leaper” Murphy was in Atlantic City yesterday to speak before the New Jersey League of Municipalities. The Press of AC’s John DeRosier says Murphy “did not offer many details” on policy implementation but laid out priorities, including:
• school funding
• property-tax relief
• common-sense gun laws
• legal marijuana and
• fixing our broken public transportation
“It drives me crazy that in the densest state in the nation—the fourth smallest geographically—a state that sits between the largest market in the world in New York and one of the largest in the country in Philadelphia, we can’t get people to work on time,” DeRosier said Murphy said.
The incorrigible S.P. Sullivan noted Murphy refused to comment on the criminal trial of Bob Menendez but after a mistrial was declared called Menendez a “strong voice” for New Jersey who would have his “full support” should he seek reelection.
Elsewhere Senator Menendez got his George Norcross seal of approval reupped as well, so he’s got that going for him.
Drug Doc
A Marlton psychiatrist has had his medical license permanently revoked for writing way too many prescriptions for powerful, addictive opioids. Joel Glass prescribed more than 75,000 oxycodone pills to two “patients” including one guy from Vermont whom Dr. Glass supplied “33,610 pills of 30 mg oxycodone between January 2013 and April 2015 without conducting a single physical examination,” per the Courier-Post.
“Dr. Glass has learned the hard way that when it comes to fighting the spread of opioid addiction and saving lives, we mean business,” State Attorney General Chris Porrino said, by which he means Glass gets to retire (he’s 74) and pay a fine.
One Had a Gun
All four Harborfields escapees have been apprehended.
In a Septic Tank
In a story that seems funny until you read the details, a Mullica Township woman was rescued after falling “10 feet down into an abandoned septic tank behind her home.”
Fifty-seven-year-old Tami Camp spent almost three hours, by one estimation, in the septic tank before being freed with the help of the Atlantic City Fire Department’s Confined Space Rescue Team. The tireless Erin Serpico of the Press of AC reports Camp was conscious but in severe pain.
#MillennialWatch
NJ Transit could be hiking fares.
Voter Apathy Index: “More than 38%!”
The valuable NJ Spotlight has yet another invaluable interactive map, this one showing voter turnout for last week’s governor’s election. It’s broken down county-by-county and lets you compare the turnout this season with four years ago. “Statewide voter turnout has been declining steadily for the most part over at least the past two decades…” the Spotlight writes.
Worth it for the Video
Vineland got a Lidl.
A Persecuted Overclass
Representative Tom MacArthur was the lone “yes” vote among the New Jersey Congressional delegates yesterday for the Republican tax bill that would trigger $25 billion in “immediate” cuts to Medicaid (per the Wall Street Journal) and probably raise taxes on poor people in order to give big cuts to billionaires and their progeny.
Populist billionaires Ivanka Trump and Steve “I-Got-Picked-On-In-High-School-Is-Why-I-Worked-For-Goldman-Sachs” Mnuchin appeared alongside MacArthur earlier this week at the Bayville Fire Hall to promote the benefits of the bill before MacArthur’s constituents in the third Congressional district, where the median income is $55,000. One of them, a “Tom Beach, 70, of Berkeley, and a Republican,” told the Asbury Park Press he supported the bill’s (putative) goal of improving the economy but left the speech “still unsure about what it would mean for him.”
“I wanted to know a little bit more about how it would affect people like me, particularly seniors.”
Which, good luck with that Tom Beach.