Letter: Congressman Smith would rather play politics

The following letter appeared over at CentralJersey.com:


Congressman Chris Smith recently voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

This legislation, which had enjoyed bipartisan support since it was first passed in 1994, is crucial in providing funding for domestic violence and sexual assault programs all across the country, including funding for the forensic exams done by sexual assault nurse examiners to collect evidence from victims, and funding for domestic violence shelters and other victim services.

Why did Chris Smith and other House Republicans vote against VAWA this time? Because the bill provided non-discrimination protections for victims who are members of the LGBT community and because it provided special rules for dealing with victims who are undocumented immigrants or Native Americans and are willing to cooperate with law enforcement.

As the whole nation recently saw in the Ray Rice video of the incident in the elevator, domestic violence is ugly and brutal. The National Football League is beginning to understand the issues involved and seems to want to be part of the solution. Congressman Smith, it seems, would rather play politics.

By voting against reauthorizing VAWA, Congressman Chris Smith has once again shown that he puts his own personal and party ideology over the interests of his constituents, especially female voters. It’s time for a change.

Alice Lloyd 

former sexual assault nurse examiner 

Allentown 

Does Tony Fiore Have Women Issues?

Does Middletown's former Mayor, Tony Fiore have an issue with women? He certainly "Liked" this picture that was posted to his Facebook page on Sept. 14th.

The image is offensive on so many levels and is inappropriate for an elected official to display so proudly on his social media page. You would think that Fiore would be smart enough to understand how inappropriate and degrading the image is to women but he is so self-absorbed, smug and cocksure of  himself that I suppose he thinks the picture is harmless and funny. Tell that to former Baltimore Raven's running back and Rutger's University alum Ray Rice's wife, Janay Palmer Rice. I'm sure she'd think it's hilarious.

For a pompous politician who is up for reelection this year, you'd like to think he'd be a little more careful about his image and what he'd allowed others to publicly post or share with others on his social media accounts, let alone agree with what's posted with a thumbs-up Facebook "Like".

Below is a screenshot of the offensive post to Tony Fiore's Facebook page. The only editing I did to the picture was to delete the individuals name and picture who posted it to Tony's page. Notice that Tony "Liked" the picture.

UPDATE: 

Evidently Middletown Township Committeeman Tony Fiore doesn't want anymore people trolling his Facebook page. As of this morning, his profile page has been deleted along with the many other offensive posts he condoned.  I only wish that I had taken screenshots of some of those - MM 9/26/14


UPDATE:

I'm working on a follow up report to this post. To clear things up Tony Fiore's Facebook Page was not deleted. Instead of having his personal page open to the public as it was when this post first appeared, he has changed its settings and is now "Private". I and a few others have been "blocked" and can no longer see any updates posted to Facebook from Tony Fiore.  Good for me I have pictures.... MM 9/30/14