Robert’s Rules suggests 14 days’ notice. Morris GOP gives 5 days (over July 4th).

By Rubashov
 
Calling a snap election is a cute trick used by British Prime Ministers, but rarely encountered in America, where fixed terms are the rule. Nevertheless – and in the middle of a long holiday weekend – Morris County GOP Chair Laura Ali has called a snap re-election and scheduled it for next Saturday. Like a British PM, her term of office isn’t up for a year.
 
There’s a further catch to this maneuver. Republicans outside the establishment have until Thursday, July 6th, to present a letter of intent from any candidate hoping to oppose Laura Ali for Chairman. And, if that is not a formidable hurdle enough, there’s this:
 
“The Candidate for Chairperson must put forth a full slate of candidates, for the remaining elected offices (Vice-Chair, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, Sargent at Arms and Counsel), provide the same information for those candidates as required for Chairperson and what offices they intend to seek.”
 
Maybe Laura Ali uses a British calendar that marks “bank holidays” instead of “Independence Day”? Or perhaps, mindful that the GOP bosses in next-door Sussex County gave their members 10 days’ notice – and then failed to elect the establishment slate – she has opted for half that time.
 
And, in another nod to what happened in Sussex County, Laura Ali’s letter emphasizes this point: “No nominations will be heard from the floor.”
 
As one observer put it:
 
“So Laura really thinks everyone is stupid.
 
Makes this grand gesture on a holiday weekend knowing everyone is not home, then only gives people a few days to build an entire slate.
 
This is a complete joke.”
 
The Soviets held elections too. They didn’t mean anything, and the results were managed to the point of predetermination, but they still could claim to have held an election. Those elections were meant to “unify” their population behind the party leadership but only fools saw anything in the results.
 
The purpose of the democratic process is to tease out the will of the majority and elections are the best tool we have to achieve that end. Elections are a more exact representation of the popular will than any poll or pundit’s opinion.
 
An organization that knowingly skews the process so that an election cannot be representative is only fooling itself. It is cheating at solitaire – kidding itself that the ends its wishes are being achieved. Like the Soviets did, for so many years.
 
Unity, bringing together people who were formerly at war with each other, is a different thing. Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican President knew this:
 
“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”
 
Had he lived, what would have been the fruits of the reconciliation he had planned?
 
The current leadership of the Morris County GOP is constantly in court battling its own members or conservative Republicans like Pastor Phil Rizzo. They have pursued this litigious strategy to the point of party bankruptcy. Lincoln counseled a better way:
 
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.”
 
Laura Ali’s full letter appears below… 

Will Matt Platkin break the back of the Democrat Party in NJ?

By Rubashov

Across the Western world, the idea that parents have the right to mentor and guide their children is the wall against which the LGBTQ+ sea is breaking. This is happening even in Canada, which – since the early 1960’s – has led the world in acceptance of what were once called “gay rights” and was one of the first nations to adopt same-sex marriage (2003).
 
In a National Post column (June 26, 2023: “After 50 years, Canadians encounter an LGBT frontier they don’t support”), Canadian journalist Tristin Hopper outlined the backlash the LGBTQ+ cause is taking over its perceived targeting of children:
 
After more than 50 years of being impressively ahead of the curve on gay and trans rights issues, Canadians may have finally encountered an LGBT issue that they consider a bridge too far.
 
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs recently took the controversial stand of becoming the first high-profile Canadian politician to resist a policy of having public schools accommodate the gender transition of young students without informing parents.
 
…according to a Leger poll last May, a clear majority of Canadians are on Higgs’ side. Of respondents, 57 per cent agreed with Higgs, while a mere 18 per cent agreed that schools should continue facilitating gender transitions without parental consent.
 
For such a roundly disliked policy, however, it’s already standard practice across much of the country. In school districts from Ontario to B.C., the official policy is that if a student claims to be another gender, teachers and staff must immediately “affirm” the new identity without question. And if the student requests, the details of their new identity are concealed from their parents…
 
It's very much the same situation in New Jersey, where a policy that not only negates the involvement of parents in their children’s lives but actively obstructs it was allowed to take hold. Look at the plainly political definitions being used to underpin the policy. If an education system adopts radical ideological terminology to define a policy, the education that follows is little more than propaganda. In this regard, the parallels between New Jersey’s schools and those of, say, the old Soviet Union are striking.
 
Some argue that the terminology used has a religious or pseudo-religious aspect to it. The pejorative term “deadnaming” – which seeks to shame those who use an individual’s legal or “birth” name – reeks of the practice of renaming that goes on in cults and some religious orders.
 
Meanwhile, the education of children is going down the toilet – with reading and math scores plummeting. Axios.com points this out in a recent article (June 21, 2023):
 
American students' test scores in math and reading got significantly worse last year — continuing a decade-long freefall. The decline in math scores last year was the biggest in the past 50 years, according to newly released federal data.
 
The findings come from a test known as "The Nation's Report Card" — a continuous, national assessment of 13-year-old students. Results were distributed by the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the Education Department…
 
The average math score for 13-year-olds declined 9 points between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years.
 
The average reading score for 13-year-olds declined 4 points between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years.
 
About 8,700 students took the assessments at about 460 schools across the country.
 
The lowest-performing students scored at levels last recorded in the 1970s, when the assessment began. Scores declined among all racial and ethnic groups, and among both male and female students, and across urban, suburban, and rural areas.
 
Enrollment in algebra dropped from 34% of 13-year-olds in 2012 to 24% in 2023.
 
And fewer students said they frequently read for fun, which is associated with higher achievement.
 
Enter Attorney General Matt Platkin – as radical as any Soros prosecutor – who is attempting to use the brute hand of government to beat parents into line. Yesterday, Platkin and Acting Department of Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan threatened parents to stay out of their children’s lives and re-affirmed that children belong to the state. What’s next? Will they give them uniforms (perhaps they have?) and call them the “Murphy Youth” (or “Jugend”, in the original German)?

So, we have a wasteful education system (arguably the nation's most expensive) delivering Woke ideology but not math and reading, and more wasteful spending on enforcing a policy that splits children from their parents. How long are people going to want to pay for that?
 
And where has the state’s Republican Party been in all of this? How many Republican Senators voted to confirm Matt Platkin? How many will vote to confirm Angelica Allen-McMillan?
 
Why didn’t the party of opposition speak up while it was happening? Good question… especially when the origins of many of these noxious policies date back to the administration of the last Republican Governor – Chris Christie. But that is for another column.
 
Even without a political party in its corner, there is parental outrage, and that can be a mighty thing. It’s been shown that parents who are motivated into action to protect their relationship with their children can become profoundly motivated voters.
 
The National Post column continues:
 
“It’s not a benign act. It’s a psychological intervention — and it’s not a minor psychological intervention — that teachers and counsellors are entering into without any psychological training at all,” said one Ontario mother, a former academic, whose child had their new name and pronouns immediately adopted by the Hamilton-Wentworth school board.
 
…In a 2021 Nanos survey, Canadian support for transgender rights dropped off a cliff when respondents were asked about instances of minors pursuing surgery or hormone treatment. In such cases, 72 per cent of Canadians said that it couldn’t be left to personal choice, and that there needed to be “strict requirements” on health-care officials giving the green light to a young person “irreversibly” altering their body.
 
A similar skepticism is already sweeping Europe, where some of the world’s most gay and trans-friendly countries have run up against a brick wall of public and even medical opinion when it comes to the gender transitioning of minors.
 
In just the last few months, many of the countries on which Canada usually takes its cues on progressive issues – Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands — have dialed back official recommendations on so-called “gender affirming” care. While it’s still legal to medically transition minors in those countries, public health agencies are now saying it should be an extraordinarily rare occurrence, and not a routine treatment for gender dysphoria.
 
Meanwhile, the LGBTQ+ movement isn’t doing itself any favors. For example, at a recent “Pride” celebration (officially, the “NYC Drag March” on June 23rd), revelers broke into a chant of “we’re coming for your children”. Snopes checked the incident and even that far-Left “fact-checker” had to admit that it was “true”. 

“We’re coming for your children.”

Yesterday, Attorney General Matt Platkin and Acting Department of Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan issued a bureaucratic version of the above.

3 More School Districts Vote for Parental Rights and Transparency

Jersey Conservative is now read by thought leaders in key 2024 primary states.

By Rubashov

The Substack blog “Chaos & Control” reports on three more wins for transparency in education. Meanwhile, in supposedly “conservative” Sussex County, GOP insiders want their next County Chair to be Candice Smith, an advocate for the transgender policy that prevents parents from knowing about their children. If she is elected, we predict it will permanently split the party – or even create a separate conservative organization with its own policy goals.
 
MATHGODDESS reports:
 
“Tonight, Manalapan, Marlboro and Manalapan continue to do what Hanover started by revising Transgender Policy 5756. The schools will now notify parents if their child has changed their gender identity. This is a big win in light of the fact that NJ DOH reported that there has been a 4000+% increase in children that identify as non-binary from 2019 to 2022 (pre-pandemic to post-pandemic).
 
Only parents can help a child that is struggling with gender identity. The fact that the Murphy administration is trying to force schools to hide this vital information from parents is quite disturbing. A child who is changing gender identity is at high risk for bullying and suicide. Keeping this vital information from the parents will most certainly hurt children by preventing parents from seeking help for their kids.
 
This change in policy is a direct result of parents running and getting on the school boards all over the state of New Jersey. Last year, the parent run group, New Jersey Project (that’s us), reported to have endorsed candidates who won over 151 BOE seats in 85 Districts.
 
It’s time for more parents to get involved and RUN FOR BOE!!” 

Biden-supporting union runs “conservative” policy group in NJ

Jersey Conservative is now read by thought leaders in key 2024 primary states.

By Rubashov

Affordable Energy for New Jersey is a principal advertiser on Save Jersey, a website that unabashedly calls itself conservative. Affordable Energy for New Jersey is where the Republican legislative caucuses go for ideas on energy policy and proposed legislation for individual GOP legislators to adopt.
 
But Affordable Energy for New Jersey is not a think tank run by local conservatives with connections to national conservative organizations in the way that, say, Americans For Prosperity (AFP) once was. Not long ago, New Jersey Republicans had healthy connections and an on-going dialogue with the national conservative movement. In common with every other Republican state organization in the country, ideas passed back and forth with some of the best national ideas making their way into Trenton’s consciousness. The party’s recent leaders have purposefully destroyed those national connections and in their place Democrat activists now run the think tanks that New Jersey Republicans rely on for ideas on important policy areas like energy.
 
Affordable Energy for New Jersey is a non-profit organization incorporated in New Jersey on January 24, 2020 (NJ Business ID #0450457449). It is organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the IRS Code, making it a lobbying organization.
 
Affordable Energy for New Jersey’s Board of Trustees is Ron Morano, of Bloomingdale; Daniel Ortega, of Waldwick; and Gina Sullivan, of Monmouth Beach. Who are these folks and what connections do they have, if any, with conservative policy on energy?
 
According to his LinkedIn page, Ron Morano is currently the CEO of RTM Communications, a “public relations, crisis communications, and presentation consultant.” For over 28 years, Morano was the Senior Public Relations Representative for FirstEnergy where, according to LinkedIn, he “served as spokesman and Public Information Officer. Advisor to JCP&L senior management on public relations strategy and implementation."
 
Both Daniel Ortega and Gina Sullivan can be found on the website of ELEC 825 – the Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative – under the site’s section on its “leadership”. The website provides biographies on the six leaders of ELEC 825: Greg Lalevee, Chairman of ELEC 825 and Business Manager of IUOE Local 825 (as well as Vice President of the IUOE’s General Executive Board); Mark Longo, Director of ELEC 825; Kate Gibbs, Deputy Director of ELEC 825; Daniel Ortega, who runs “Community Affairs” at ELEC 825; Gina Sullivan, head of “Business Development” at ELEC 825; and Michael Makarski, who operates “External Affairs” at ELEC 825.
 
Daniel Ortega’s biography reads:
 
Daniel Ortega joined ELEC 825 in October of 2014 and oversees the Community Affairs Outreach. Mr. Ortega’s primary responsibility is to assist in developing and maintaining contacts with local governmental entities, agencies, authorities, and other relevant organizations. He actively participates at community meetings such as municipal council/town meetings, public hearings, and Planning/Zoning boards, as well as community organizations such as chambers of commerce, business associations and economic development agencies. Through these efforts, he continues to pursue and promote ELEC’s mission to foster an environment that creates economic development and construction in our region which includes the State of New Jersey and five counties in the Hudson Valley in New York: Delaware, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan, and Ulster Counties.
 
Before joining ELEC 825, Dan served in multiple political and intergovernmental positions with an emphasis in project mobilization, coordination, strategic planning, decision making, problem identification, and resolution within governmental cross sectors.
 
Since April of 2017, Mr. Ortega has served as Chairman of the Housing Authority of Bergen County. Part of his responsibilities include working with fellow commissioners and the executive director; building consensus towards the best stewardship of scarce public resources to address local housing needs and facilitate the Agency’s mission; approve an annual budget of $47,000,000; and establish policies that help meet our goals. HABC manages 3,500 Section 8 Vouchers and a diverse portfolio of buildings for senior citizens, people with special needs, veterans, and multifamily housing amounting to 1,000 units. Mr. Ortega is devoted to the agency’s commitment to creating and preserving affordable housing.
 
Between May of 2006 and September of 2010, Mr. Ortega served as Commissioner of the Hackensack Housing Authority, Commissioner of the Housing Authority of Bergen County, and President of the Housing Development Corporation of Bergen County.
 
Gina Sullivan’s biography on ELEC 825 is succinct: “Gina Sullivan focuses on the Market Recovery grant program and works directly with our signatory contractors who utilize the program. She brings a wide-array of experience to labor-management fund. Gina previously worked for a member of the New Jersey General Assembly and holds a Bachelor’s as well as a Master’s Degree in Labor Studies from Rutgers University.” In March 2020, Gina Sullivan was honored as “the Young Democrat of the week” by the New Jersey Young Democrats.
 
Affordable Energy for New Jersey bills itself as “a broad, grassroots coalition that advocates for actionable, fact-driven energy policy that emphasizes keeping costs low for our residents and businesses and evaluates energy policies and proposals based by asking the following three questions.” On the group’s website, its “about us” page provides a different emphasis: “Affordable Energy for New Jersey is bringing together the voices of our state from all corners – local leaders, business owners, organized labor, rural communities and city commuters – who believe there is a sustainable energy path that will fight against the reality of our changing climate with reality of what extreme policy shifts will do to our everyday way of life.”
 
Affordable Energy for New Jersey is the brainchild of Michael Makarski of ELEC 825. Makarski is a very capable Democrat political operative. After working at U.S. Senator John Kerry’s office, he worked for Assemblyman Vinnie Prieto.
 
Makarski was seconded to the People for the American Way Foundation, where he was one of twenty “young progressive leaders from across the country” to receive training “in political fundraising, campaign management, field strategy, candidate development, and communications. Training was provided by nationally renowned media specialists, fundraisers, and elected officials.” In 2012, he was employed at the New Leaders Council, whose mission is “to train and support the next generation of progressive political entrepreneurs - those who are leading industries, setting trends, and building institutions that support robust civic and political life in a global America.”
 
Makarski was a member of the Secaucus Board of Education, where he was “Chairmen of Policy Committee, Legislative Liaison, Serve[d] on the Curriculum and Technology Committees.”
 
His biography on the ELEC 825 website notes: “A veteran political operative, Makarski has served as a consultant and advisor on races for the United States Senate, Congress, State Senate, Assembly and dozens of local offices… He was a New Leaders Council Fellow, Front Line Leader Academy Fellow, New Jersey Young Democrats National Committeeman and Executive Board Member, previously sat on the board of directors for the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. Makarski is also a Reed Award recipient for his political television commercials and direct mail campaigns.”
 
Ideologically, some might describe Michael Makarski as a “toxic” political consultant. There’s a lot of that going around these days. We only wish to point out that he is a deeply partisan one. That’s how he was trained and brought up in the business. It is to be expected.
 
Is Affordable Energy for New Jersey a genuine opposition think tank or just a narrow interest group looking out for the needs of a particular union? Would it be better described as a bargaining chip within the Democrat Party “family”? Unfortunately for ideological conservatives, it is occupying the space that a genuine opposition group on energy policy might occupy.
 
Affordable Energy for New Jersey has become the “go-to” for Republican energy policy ideas. Makarski and Kate Gibbs regularly brief Republican legislative leaders and fashion legislation for them. They are leading the opposition to Governor Phil Murphy’s energy master plan. But at the same time, Affordable Energy for New Jersey is controlled by ELEC 825 – and ELEC 825 is controlled by Greg Lalevee, a Murphy appointee who was part of Murphy’s transition team. And let’s not forget that the union Lalevee helps lead supported Joe Biden for President despite only 37 percent of its membership agreeing with that endorsement.
 
Indeed, Lalevee wrote an endorsement of Joe Biden and urged all of his Local 825 membership to vote for Biden. The union regularly backs Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Josh Gottheimer. In a Star-Ledger opinion column from February 2021, Greg Lalevee made very clear how he identifies on the ideological scale:
 
“Listening to Trump allies complain about Twitter’s so-called assault on the First Amendment after the former president was banned from the platform is more than a little rich. This is especially so for those who routinely moved to dramatically limit and even eliminate union supporters from exercising their First Amendment rights in their workplaces… So, let’s have some consistency in our opinions when it comes to free speech. If social media platforms are expected to meet First Amendment requirements according to those on the right, then those same people protesting Twitter should be just as vocal about workers’ First Amendment rights. Now that’s something we can all hopefully agree on. (But probably not.)”
 
This isn’t taking aim at Lalevee’s argument, which we broadly agree with, but rather his perspective. He writes as a man of the Left.
 
And that is okay. Just as it is okay for Republicans to collaborate with him and his union and ELEC 825 when Republicans find common ground and shared purpose. But we are past the point of collaboration. Republicans now “take orders” from ELEC 825 and the union’s affiliated PACs and SuperPAC’s have unbalanced the Republican primary process in New Jersey.

Greg Lalevee knows who he is. He is a man of the Left. The question becomes: Do Republican know who they are?
 
If the purpose of a Republican primary is teasing out the preferences of the Republican electorate, how is that possible in a process dominated by leftwing interest groups? How can average Republican voters – Republicans of modest means – be heard above the shouting of unions like Local 825?

Money is shouting. The U.S. Supreme Court has said so. How much do local Republicans donate vs. how much Local 825’s PACs and SuperPAC’s spend is a measure of that shouting.
 
Guess who is being shouted down? And where will they go and what will they do to be heard? 

“It was a thoughtless, mindless action… It’s really disturbing to think that the kids were targeted.”
 
Dr. Paul Saxton, Fort Lee School District

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

 

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Defend Parental Rights: Sign this petition to Attorney General Platkin

By Rubashov

The Murphy administration continues its assault on local elected school boards, parents, and taxpayers. The NJGOP and Republican legislative leaders could respond in several ways. One would be to use the budget process to question the weaponization of the Attorney General’s office in service of the Woke agenda. Will the NJGOP or any Republican legislator or leader do anything substantial to fight back against this extreme abuse of government power over children and against their parents?

AT ISSUE
On May 16, the Hanover Township School Board passed policy 8463 known as Parental Notice of Material Circumstances. It requires school staff to notify parents whenever their child’s mental health or social and emotional well-being is impacted. It lists over 39 possible issues that parents need to be informed about.  

On May 17, Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Hanover Township Board of Education because of this newly approved policy. In his view, parents have the right to be informed of the majority of the 39 issues listed in the policy except when it comes to gender identity/expression and sexual orientation. On those issues, parents must be kept in the dark.  

A Court issued a temporary injunction barring the school board from following its adopted notification policy.

THE LEGAL SIDE
The Attorney General had the choice of filing his action in the Superior Court (where actions are transparent to the public) or before the Division of Civil Rights (DCR), which falls within the Attorney General’s responsibilities, under the Governor’s Executive authority.  The DCR is an administrative agency with special authority allowing it to conduct its investigations in secret, away from public scrutiny.  The Attorney General chose to bring his complaint under the DCR, which presents a conflict of interest and could block the school board from an impartial hearing.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
The appointed Attorney General, representing the Governor, has chosen to challenge the right of a school board to notify parents when school staff becomes aware of something “that may have a material impact on the student’s physical and/or mental health, safety and/or social/emotional well-being.”
 
Given the choice of pursuing his complaint publicly (before the Court) or in secret (before the Civil Rights Division of the AG’s office), the AG has chosen secrecy.
 
At a May 30th hearing, Judge Stuart Minkowitz ruled that both sides of the argument negotiate to find a middle-ground solution without the need for Court intervention.
 
On June 6, the Hanover Board of Education read a newly amended policy in good faith to find a workable compromise.
 
On June 12, the Attorney General REJECTED this new policy and states he wants to cease all further discussions with the Hanover Board of Education.
 
Regardless of the outcome, the precedent will likely be binding on 685 other school districts, which may not have any input in the debate. 
 
WHAT  YOU  CAN  DO  NOW
Pacific Justice Institute and a coalition of parental rights organizations are urging all New Jerseyans to sign a petition to be delivered to Attorney General Matthew Platkin requesting he moves the case out of the Division of Civil Rights and into Superior Court to be fully litigated, open, and transparent. 
 

SIGN THE PETITION

PETITION FOR CONSOLIDATION
 
TO:  MATTHEW J. PLATKIN,
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY
 
RE:  Matthew J. Platkin, et al. v. Hanover Board of Education, et al.,
Division of Civil Rights, Docket No. P2023-900002
Superior Court, Docket No. MRS-C-42-23
 
SHOULD PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED BY SCHOOL OFFICIALS WHEN THEIR CHILD HAS A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE?
 
The issue in the above matter is of great public importance and concern.  A decision on the Attorney General’s allegations will affect every parent in our state and their constitutional right to determine their children's upbringing and moral development.  The matter deserves to be fully litigated, open, and transparent.  If the matter remains in the Division of Civil Rights, the parties will forgo the right to have the matter heard by a jury, and, more importantly, the public will not have any access to the investigatory records of the DCR, which are by law designated confidential.  See, N.J.A.C. 13:4-2.7 and §13:4-13.1.
 
The undersigned, therefore, DEMAND that the Attorney General requests that the court consolidate the matter of Matthew J. Platkin, et al. v. Hanover Board of Education, et al., Division of Civil Rights, Docket No. P2023-900002 with the matter in the Superior Court, at Docket No. MRS-C-42-23, before the Hon. Stuart A. Minkowitz, A.J.S.C.  


“It was a thoughtless, mindless action… It’s really disturbing to think that the kids were targeted.”
 
Dr. Paul Saxton, Fort Lee School District

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

 N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Why do NJ politicians suck-up to someone who put kids in danger?

Jersey Conservative is now read by GOP and conservative leaders in key 2024 primary states.

By Rubashov

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52): A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act “dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to:  (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
 
Let’s remember what Bridgegate was all about. Wikipedia explains: “The Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal or Bridgegate, was a political scandal involving a staff member and political appointees of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie colluding to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey, by closing lanes at the main toll plaza for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge… It was later suggested that the lanes had been closed intentionally to cause the massive traffic problem for political reasons, and especially theorized that they were a retributive attack against Fort Lee's Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who had not supported Christie as a candidate in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election. The ensuing investigations centered on several of Christie's appointees and staff, including David Wildstein, who ordered the lanes closed…”
 
According to the New York Times (May 1, 2015), the School Superintendent of Fort Lee believed that Bridgegate was an act of terrorism. Here’s how the New York Times covered it:
 
Fort Lee School Head Calls Lane Closings an ‘Act of Terrorism’
FORT LEE, N.J. — Hearing that the bridge lane closings were intentionally scheduled for the first day of school made Dr. Paul Saxton, the interim superintendent of the town’s schools, angry all over again on Friday.
 
Dr. Saxton called the plot “an act of terrorism.” To carry out a “premeditated action designed and targeted toward the kids, what did they expect?” he said in a phone interview after a former Port Authority official pleaded guilty in the scheme.
 
The official, David Wildstein, told a judge that the lane closings were timed to the first day of school in 2013 to maximize punishment to Fort Lee’s mayor, Mark Sokolich.
 
The gridlock, which lasted for days, created all sorts of headaches for the school district and for Dr. Saxton, who was starting out as the interim superintendent.
 
School buses were stuck in traffic, teachers could not get to work, crossing guards failed to make it to their posts. Worst of all, Dr. Saxton said, were the hazards all the distorted traffic posed for the majority of the town’s schoolchildren who walk to school.
 
“It was a thoughtless, mindless action,” he said. “It’s really disturbing to think that the kids were targeted.”
 
Is David Wildstein a “toxic” personality? Is someone really all there who gets off on shutting down roads, with school buses on them, on the first day of school? And to do so for politics – and just to get back at someone. What kind of a weirdo does a thing like that?
 
Apparently, someone is a little off and easily aroused. Throw in some deep insecurities and an obsession with being an “insider” – add the need to pleasure some perceived “powerful” person or persons. What you get isn’t pretty.
 
What does it say about the political class in New Jersey that they continue to suck-up to a critter like David Wildstein? In any other state, classy politicos would avoid someone with his “credentials”. But in New Jersey, he is allowed to pose as a kind of moral arbiter, which is all anyone needs to know about morality and politics in New Jersey.
 
If Bridgegate could reasonably be described as “terrorism” (read the law) and some people (people like the former head of the school district in Fort Lee) have made the accusation that it was terrorism, then is appearing on NJ Globe the same as appearing on a “terrorist” website? Would it be okay to employ the style of reportage used at the NJ Globe to claim a “link” to a “terrorist” website? Heck, just writing “linked to Bridgegate” would probably be enough. Average voters remember the word “Bridgegate” and know it was bad.
 
Could a political consultant like Chris Russell put that in a direct mail piece and feel good about? Might this become a standard line of attack?

"Mastermind of Bridgegate" David Wildstein, the anonymous blogger formerly known as "Wally Hand", has a new obsession (or maybe he understands that blog wars build readership?).
 

“It was a thoughtless, mindless action… It’s really disturbing to think that the kids were targeted.”
 
Dr. Paul Saxton, Fort Lee School District

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Will Bramnick, Bergen, and other NJGOPers embrace Fidelity over Pride?

By Rubashov

With Republican primary elections over, we can expect to hear the word “conservative” used a whole lot less by candidates supported by the state’s GOP establishment and various interest groups – like unions supporting Joe Biden and pro-transgender “women’s” groups. Now the word will disappear from campaign flyers and media – tucked away until the next time it is needed.
 
But that doesn’t mean that conservatives will go away. They are a mighty large portion of the electorate, even if they aren’t fully embraced by a major political party. The conservative tradition is a philosophy, a thinking tradition, and more than just a word used in advertising to get someone to buy a particular product.
 
Robert George is an American legal scholar, political philosopher, and public intellectual who serves as the sixth McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties, philosophy of law, and political philosophy. He is the Herbert W. Vaughan senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and the Ronald Reagan Honorary Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Nootbaar Honorary Distinguished Professor of Law at Pepperdine University, as well as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.
 
This being the month of June, we expect to see a multitude of Republican-controlled county and local governments – as well as GOP institutions like the Republican State Committee – falling over themselves to declare this “LGBTQ+ Pride” month. By doing so, they will be formally aligning themselves and the GOP with this relentless ideology in its attempt to sweep away all other traditions before it.
 
Professor George has a better way. He has called for the month of June to be recognized and celebrated as "Fidelity Month." Instead of the “Pride” bandwagon, the New Jersey GOP and towns and counties controlled by elected Republicans can declare June to be “Fidelity Month – a month dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, and our country and communities.”
 
Professor George points to a decline in Americans' beliefs and values pertaining to religion, family, community, and country. He has suggested that it is time for traditionalists to act to correct this decline. He told the National Catholic Register:
 
Recent polling data put out by The Wall Street Journal showed that there has been a very precipitous drop in Americans’ understanding of the importance of faith, of family, of patriotism. And I cannot help but draw the inference that this drop is both a cause and an effect of our current social ills: crime and delinquency, drugs, alienation, failure of family formation and family disintegration. Loneliness is reaching epidemic proportions. The mental-health crisis among young people cannot be attributed primarily to COVID-19 and the lockdowns because all the data show that this crisis was well underway before COVID-19 was on anybody’s radar.
 
But will bodies like the Morris County Commissioners and the Morris County Republican Committee – deep in the heart of “Christieland” (as in presidential candidate Chris Christie) – act? And what will all those candidates who were loudly proclaiming how “conservative” they were just a few days ago do? We will be reporting on it.
 
This is part of a national movement by conservatives to ask organizations, public officials, legislators, religious leaders, and others to celebrate the new designation. Professor George was asked if he was “concerned that some might frame your campaign in a negative light — as something opposing ‘Pride Month’?” He replied:
 
It’s a free country. People are entitled to their beliefs and to express their beliefs. They can celebrate them by focusing on a day, a week, or a month. But nobody gets a monopoly on a particular day or a particular month. As a Catholic, I think of June as the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I don’t think by designating June as Fidelity Month, I’m interfering with or detracting from or making some statement about the Sacred Heart. Catholics can observe June as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with their fellow Catholics and Fidelity Month with everybody else. If someone wants to observe their favorite cause and also observe Fidelity Month, I’m fine with that. The more the merrier.
 
Now that seems to be a compromise that even Jon Bramnick could live with. But will he propose a legislative resolution naming June “Fidelity Month”? We will just have to wait and see. 

FOX News reported: "Professor George, along with Deacon John Barry of Top Dog Design Studio, decided to use the myrtle wreath to represent the proposed holiday, as myrtle symbolizes fidelity. They also included other elements to symbolize God, family and country..."
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

Did Three SuperPACs coordinate attacks in LD24? Used same PA consultant.

By Rubashov

According to reports filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC), three dark money “SuperPACs” spent more than $200,000 to commandeer the primary process in legislative district 24. One superPAC is run by the IUOE 825 gas tax union. Another is a Pro-Transgender PAC set up to elect Pro-Choice “moderate” women. A third is a brand-new PAC and seeks to extend the influence of a controversial Islamic cleric. 
 
According to the latest figures provided by NJELEC, the Stronger Foundations superPAC – which is controlled by the IUOE 825 “gas tax” union – spent $75,134 in Northwest New Jersey’s District 24. In addition, the Pro-Transgender Women for a Stronger NJ spent $75,387 – primarily or entirely in District 24.
 
Another superPAC called Garden State Success spent $47,500. This PAC was created just a few weeks ago by insiders affiliated with District 24 Assembly candidate Dawn Fantasia. Both Fantasia and the PAC’s founders are linked with a charter school business controlled by followers of a controversial Islamic cleric, according to The Record newspaper and its affiliate, NorthJersey.com.
 
The final amount spent by these superPACs has not yet been reported to NJELEC. Whatever the final amount – the money was used to attack conservative Assembly candidates Josh Aikens and Jason Sarnoski and support the establishment team of Parker Space for Senate, and Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort for Assembly.
 
According to NJELEC, on May 19, 2023, Stronger Foundations paid Pathfinder Communications (827 Nathan Hale Road, Berwyn, PA 19312) for a “CABLE TV & MEDIA BUY” in the amount of $60,134.00.
 
NJELEC reports that on May 19, 2023, Garden State Success paid Pathfinder Communications (827 Nathan Hale Road, Berwyn, PA 19312) for “PRODUCTION” in the amount of $2,500.00; and an additional $45,000.00 for a “DIGITAL MEDIA BUY”.
 
And NJELEC reports that on May 25, 2023, Women for a Stronger New Jersey paid Pathfinder Communications (827 Nathan Hale Road, Berwyn, PA 19312) for “PRINTING, PRODUCTION & POSTAGE” in the amount of $50,070.00.
 
Women for a Stronger NJ misrepresented its expenditure to NJELEC, claiming it was for a “STATEWIDE” Republican primary with an election date of June 6, 2023. There was no statewide office on yesterday’s ballot.
 
Theresa Mondella signed the May 25, 2023, independent expenditure report on behalf of Women for a Stronger NJ. She is also listed on the D-4 Form for Garden State Success, filed with NJELEC on May 16, 2023. Theresa Mondella lists her personal email address as Garden State Success’ email address and her personal address corresponds to the official address used for Women for a Stronger NJ.
 
In addition to the $60,134.00 paid to Pathfinder Communications, on May 19, 2023, Stronger Foundations paid $15,000 to Northeast Communication Solutions (PO Box 6468 Jersey City, NJ 07306). This business belongs to Democrat campaign consultants Ethan Andersen and Jason Springer.
 
Ethan Andersen worked on Cory Booker’s first U.S. Senate race. According to NJ Globe, he was the “treasurer for a superPAC built to help Gov. Phil Murphy’s 2017 campaign.” Jason Springer was the communications director for the NJ Democratic State Committee. He is a founder of the state’s leftwing equivalent to this blog: BlueJersey.com. 

With such a cast of characters, Republican primaries in New Jersey are fast becoming unrecognizable from Democrat primaries. Same money, same consultants -- only the use of the word "conservative" changes. What is laudable in one setting is derisive in the other. What delicious hypocrisy.
 

"Honest Gil" talks campaign finance reform.
 

The Heritage Foundation has commissioned a study on the infiltration of Republican organizations and primaries by Biden-backing labor unions like IUOE 825 – the one bankrolling the Stronger Foundations superPAC that spent more than $350,000 to trash conservatives in two districts (LD04 & LD24).

Women for a Stronger NJ made the news in 2020 when it spent around $30,000 on negative direct mail in an attempt to defeat an incumbent State Committeewoman and replace her with a transgendered person. Women for a Stronger NJ is run by NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign manager and Hugin’s spouse is a founder of the committee, according to its webpage – which is very clear about the candidates it promotes:
 
“We're working to grow the number of women serving in elected office at the state and local level by building a diverse network of moderate Republican and Independent women throughout the state and expanding the pool of women considering public office.”
 
Garden State Success was incorporated on April 27, 2023. The lead trustee is Danielle Alpert, described by InsiderNJ as “a long time Trenton lobbyist”.  She is the wife of Brian Alpert, a state employee who works for Senators Steve Oroho and Tony Bucco. The other trustees are the County Supervisor for Roads of Passaic County and a Democrat activist from Newark. Danielle Alpert works for T.J. Best – a longtime elected Democrat. He was a County Commissioner in Passaic County and a legislative aide to Congressman Bill Pascrell. Alpert and Best work for Harry Lee, the CEO and President of NJPCSA and the former Chief Strategy Officer at iLearn Schools, where Assembly candidate Dawn Fantasia worked as a Chief Growth Officer and Chief Communications Officer. Both T.J. Best and Harry Lee hosted fundraising events for Dawn Fantasia’s Assembly campaign committee.

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Dark money flows into two GOP primaries in LD04 and LD24.

By Rubashov
 
One superPAC is run by the IUOE 825 gas tax union. Another is a Pro-Transgender PAC set up to elect Pro-Choice “moderate” women. A third is a brand-new PAC and seeks to extend the influence of a controversial Islamic cleric.  
 
Are these dark money special interest groups trying to steal the election in two GOP primaries?
 
Who are these groups and what does their dominance say about the New Jersey GOP heading into next year’s Presidential race?
 
According to figures provided by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC), the Stronger Foundations superPAC – which is controlled by the IUOE 825 “gas tax” union – poured $280,086 into the Republican primary in South Jersey’s District 4 and $75,134 into Northwest New Jersey’s District 24. In addition, the Pro-Transgender “Women for a Stronger New Jersey” spent $75,387 – primarily in District 24.
 
Another superPAC called “Garden State Success” spent $47,500. This PAC was created just a few weeks ago by insiders affiliated with District 24 Assembly candidate Dawn Fantasia. According to The Record newspaper of Bergen County and its affiliate,NorthJersey.com, both Fantasia and the PAC’s founders are linked with a charter school business controlled by followers of a controversial Islamic cleric,

The Record also reported that former Governor Chris Christie is close to some figures in that controversial cleric's operation. Christie, a potential presidential candidate, was supported by IUOE 825 in his effort to raise the state's gas tax by 23 cents a gallon when the TTF was last up for renewal. It is again up for renewal next year. 
 
This money was used to attack conservatives Nick DeSilvio, Michael Clark, and Denise Gonzalez in District 4; and Josh Aikens and Jason Sarnoski in District 24.

Gloucester County Commissioner DeSilvio is running for Senate, while conservative activists Clark and Gonzalez are running for Assembly in District 4. Parental rights advocate Aikens and Warren County Commissioner Sarnoski are running for Assembly in District 24.

SOURCE: New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC).
 

The Heritage Foundation has commissioned a study on the infiltration of Republican organizations and primaries by Biden-backing labor unions like IUOE 825 – the one bankrolling the Stronger Foundations superPAC that has spent more than $350,000 to trash conservatives in two districts. Heritage – America’s most prominent conservative think tank -- is watching this election closely.
 
Women for a Stronger New Jersey made the news in 2020 when it spent around $30,000 on negative direct mail in an attempt to defeat a conservative State Committeewoman in Mercer County. The SuperPAC wanted to elect what would have been the first transgender State Committeewoman to represent a county Republican organization in New Jersey. The incumbent, a biological woman, was pressured to make way for a transgendered person, so that Republicans could brag about electing their first “trans-woman” as a GOP State Committeewoman. When the biological female State Committeewoman refused – they went after her. The effort failed.
 
Women for a Stronger New Jersey is run by NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign manager, who has also benefitted as a vendor to the committee. Hugin’s spouse is a founding member of the two-member board that runs the committee, according to its webpage. And as if anyone needed clarification as to the ideology of the candidates the committee is looking to promote, the Women for a Stronger New Jersey website is very clear on this:
 
“We're working to grow the number of women serving in elected office at the state and local level by building a diverse network of moderate Republican and Independent women throughout the state and expanding the pool of women considering public office.”
 
In other words, conservative Republican women need not apply. In 2021, when the state’s senior Pro-Life Senator decided to run for re-election, Women for a Stronger New Jersey urged a pro-abortion woman to primary him. And now, in 2023, Women for a Stronger New Jersey has got involved in the GOP primary in District 24, putting out mailers and ads on behalf of Assembly candidates Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort.
 
Garden State Success is running ads for Assembly candidates Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort too. This PAC was incorporated on April 27, 2023. The lead trustee is Danielle Alpert, described by InsiderNJ as “a long time Trenton lobbyist”.  She is the wife of Brian Alpert, a state employee who works for Senators Steve Oroho and Tony Bucco. The other trustees are the County Supervisor for Roads of Passaic County and a Democrat activist from Newark.
 
Danielle Alpert works for T.J. Best – a longtime elected Democrat. He was a County Commissioner in Passaic County and a legislative aide to Congressman Bill Pascrell. Alpert and Best work for Harry Lee, the CEO and President of NJPCSA and the former Chief Strategy Officer at iLearn Schools, where Assembly candidate Dawn Fantasia worked as a Chief Growth Officer and Chief Communications Officer. Both T.J. Best and Harry Lee hosted fundraising events for Dawn Fantasia’s Assembly campaign committee.
 
Danielle Alpert is listed on the D-4 Form filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) on May 16, 2023 – along with Theresa Mondella, who lists her personal email address as committee’s email address. Mondella is a longtime Trenton establishment operative who is closely associated with Chris Russell, the political consultant for the Space-Fantasia-Inganamort campaign. Last year, Mondella set-up a SuperPAC for Russell client Bob Healey – a candidate for Congress in South Jersey’s 3rd District. The SuperPAC created by Mondello in 2022 (she was listed as Treasurer), was called Garden State Advance.
 
According to The Record newspaper & NorthJersey.com, iLearn Schools is linked to an Islamic cleric who is a convicted criminal in his native Turkey and wanted for terrorism.  Here’s a good overview from The Record/ NorthJersey.com (February 16, 2017):
 

Charter school leaders, founders linked to controversial Turkish cleric

 
A group of charter schools that arose from North Jersey’s Turkish community is rapidly growing in the state, with seven schools collecting more than $60 million in taxpayer money last year alone to fund their growth.
 
Now, an investigation by The Record and NorthJersey.com shows that some founders and leaders of the schools have close ties to the movement of Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Islamic cleric accused of working to overthrow the government in his native Turkey last summer. Gulen is fighting extradition demands as he lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, about 10 miles from the New Jersey border.
 
…Some belong to Turkish émigré groups that tout the cleric's teachings. There are also political donors who collectively have furnished hundreds of thousands in donations to U.S. office holders while the North Jersey charter schools in general have been adept at wooing state and local government officials with trips to Turkey and, in some cases, jobs.
 
Records show the charter schools in North Jersey also have been a channel for state taxpayer money to private entities that serve the schools as landlords or vendors — in one case, a Wayne boarding school that is openly Gulen inspired.
 
Turkish prosecutors accuse Gulen of attempts to overthrow the government and of instigating the 2016 coup attempt. In 2000, he was found guilty, in absentia, of scheming to overthrow the government by embedding civil servants in various governmental offices. A Turkish criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Gulen and Turkey is demanding his extradition from the United States. Gulen is wanted as a terrorist leader in Turkey and Pakistan, as well as by the OIC and GCC. Turkey is a member of NATO.
 
…A state-financed property deal involving the Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology also benefited its landlord, a private group with close ties to the Gulen movement:
 
That group sold the property and used the proceeds to help open a new campus in Wayne for its private boarding school that hews closely to Gulen's teachings and caters largely to students from Turkey. 
 
Public money, in fees and rent that could amount to millions of dollars over time, continues to flow to the charter school's new landlord, a firm with multiple ties to Turkish charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere. 
 
…More than $30 million in long-term, low-interest loans have been granted by the state to benefit the Paterson charter school despite its continuing financial and academic troubles…
 
A number of prominent Turkish nationals connected to the charters or their vendors have emerged as fundraisers and contributors to Hillary Clinton and Obama, among other political leaders. A former head of the Science and Technology charter in Paterson, Furkan Kosar, is the president of the Council of Turkic American Associations. Kosar raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election bid in 2012. He did not return calls made to the council.
 
Critics say the presence of big-money contributors connected to the schools in New Jersey and other states is evidence the cleric and his followers are advancing the Gulen movement at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
 
…Among those critics is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s recently ousted national security adviser who claimed American taxpayers “are helping finance Gulen’s 160 charter schools in the United States” in an op-ed piece written in November for The Hill.
 
There is every indication to suggest that Garden State Success was created specifically to help elect Dawn Fantasia to the Assembly. Fantasia bragged to people – including colleagues – that she would be getting help from these sources.
 
We don’t know why, but during Dawn Fantasia’s December 2022 interview with LD24 and SRM staff, she made it very clear that iLearn’s leadership would facilitate her role as a legislator and that they saw her advancement in positive terms for their movement. When questioned about the conflict between her schedule as a school principal and the legislative schedule, Fantasia told interviewers that she had discussed it with iLearn’s leadership and that her role in the Legislature would be important enough for them to accommodate her schedule by assigning her a different role in their organization, like communications or government affairs.
 
Are Steve Oroho and Hal Wirths aware of this? And if they are, do they support Gulen and his works? Moreover, are they comfortable with sending someone from that organization into the GOP legislative caucus? 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell 

A Reader disagrees with us. Supports Bramnick & Cryan on S-3330

Editor's Note: Our readers often write to us in support or opposition to what we’ve posted and we always offer them the opportunity of having their words published either under their own name or anonymously. This gentleman chose the latter, which is his right, anonymous speech being a most American form of free speech. Please take a moment to read this thoughtful argument against our position.

Hello Rubashov,

I came across your thought piece on NJ Senate Bill S-3330, a bill which would institute grief education as part of standard public-school curriculum. It evoked a strong response from me, and I wanted to reply.

I am concerned that you have misunderstood the purpose of this bill, and I implore you to reconsider, and write a retraction to your piece. Your article indicates that you associate this bill with the Woke far left, with a Late-Stage Capitalistic society where businesses influence politicians to craft favorable legislation for them. Rubashov, that is simply not the case here.

S-3330 is not taking any power away from parents, nor is it in any way crafted to pump funds into private organizations – and the regional grief organizations that offer largely free services are not the political boogeymen you paint them as. Rather, what S-3330 does is address an incredibly critical need that currently exists in NJ – which is providing education, support, and resources for grieving kids.

There are more than 144,000 children in NJ that have experienced the death of a sibling or parent before age 18. 70% of teachers have at least one kid in their class who experienced a major death in their life over the past year. Furthermore, a full 60% of kids will experience at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), such as mental or physical illness, abuse, neglect, and divorce. When kids are grieving the death of someone close to them, or another major loss in their life, their ability to learn and engage with academic subjects is severely stunted. It is incumbent on us, their parents, educators, and community members, to give them the resources they need in order to be academically successful, and to help mitigate their risks for delinquency, substance abuse, incarceration, mental illness and death that come with traumatic grief experiences.

Before I go on to explain why this Bipartisan bill proposed by Senators Bramnick and Cryan actually reflects core Conservative values, I want to explain why I am so personally invested:

I have lived all my life in NJ and have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the state of NJ in my time. I think it is fair to say I represent a core NJ constituent, voter, and taxpayer. When I was 7 years old my dad had to leave his job due to a crippling disability, Early Onset Parkinson’s Disease. Our family was devastated both emotionally and financially, without health insurance (save for him thank goodness).

Our support networks collapsed as our family struggled, our extended family separated, and friends and community were not there. We found ourselves alone and isolated. Unable to communicate or support each other – either because we were lashing out from our trauma or trying to be strong and not show our pain to one another. We needed help that was not available. I, a grieving child, needed help, resources, and support.

My mother received a Breast Cancer diagnosis, but since we did not have health insurance, she was compelled to not pursue the more aggressive treatments and did not get follow-up mammograms. A few years later she was diagnosed with stage 4 Breast Cancer that had metastasized through her brain and other organs. I was her caretaker for the next year and a half until her death. My father followed her 6 years later. 
 
Watching both of my parents die slowly in front of me was extremely traumatic, as was the isolation and lack of support I felt. This experience negatively impacted my ability to be successful in High School, took a huge toll on my mental health, and left me needing years of intervention to get my life back on track. No child or family should have to suffer alone as mine did, and yet so many do. I write to you as their advocate.

It is possible for us to directly help grieving kids and families. The Mayo Clinic tells us that grief (which it defines as any significant loss) can lead to Depression, Anxiety/PTSD, increased risk of illness including cancer, substance misuse, and suicidal thoughts or behaviors. The Mayo Clinic prescribes the following for processing grief: talking to others, understanding why someone is suffering, and trying to resolve issues causing severe emotional pain. Support and talking are two of the key treatments that the Mayo clinic recommends for grief. These recommendations from the Mayo Clinic are captured in S-3330.

Thus far, I have shared the personal feelings of a NJ constituent, taxpayer, and griever. I have shared the medical community’s views on grief. And both come out heavily in favor of providing more support and resources for grieving kids, as S-3330 does. But I want to go a step further and show that the most Conservative Republican values do, in fact, also firmly support this initiative.

I noticed on your website that you have a great deal of admiration for Ronald Reagan. Reagan had a simple quote that can help us know his thoughts on providing additional support to grieving kids and families:

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

Perhaps the most iconic Conservative directs us to the Bible to guide our actions. Well, let’s see what the bible has to say on the subject of grief:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” – Matthew 5:4

“Blessed be [The Father] who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted” – 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about people who have died so that you won't mourn like others who don’t have any hope” – 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

The Bible promotes all efforts to support grieving people and to expose ourselves to grief, so that we may know it better. And so, from every angle, the bill proposed by Senators Bramnick and Cryan addresses the needs of the community, in-line with medical guidance and in congruence with core Conservative values.

I close by telling you that as a lifelong NJ resident who has grieved as a child, a teen, and an adult all in the state of NJ, that I needed support that I did not get. And as a taxpayer I am more than happy to have my dollars go to making sure other kids and families do have the resources, skills, and support that they need to manage their grief. And that teachers and administrators have the training and techniques they need to support our kids.

I know firsthand how much grief can inhibit everything in a person’s life, including learning and academic success. And so, I urge you to reconsider your initial impression of S-3330 and retract your previous piece. There is no room for a political lens when it comes to helping those in our community who are grieving. I was proud to see a Bipartisan bill that did not see partisan differences, but only a common need. I encourage you to cast aside your own political agenda for a moment in order to be part of a meaningful solution to a tremendous societal ill. We must all be part of helping kids and families who have suffered loss, and not turn our backs on the hundreds of thousands of grievers in NJ.

Most Truly Yours,

Anonymous Helping Hand

President Reagan dealing with a moment of national loss.
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

How GOP insiders caused Senator Ed Durr’s primary to happen.

By Rubashov

When Ed Durr beat Steve Sweeney – the longest serving Senate President in New Jersey’s history – it was international news. Newspapers overseas carried photos of the truck-driver who spent a few hundred bucks to beat the powerful Senate President who spent millions. Durr was featured on Fox News and praised by Tucker Carlson.
 
So, how did Senator Ed Durr end up in a primary with an opponent funded by the GOP establishment? An opponent whose campaign is run by establishment consultant Chris Russell, a moderate insider who is 2025 gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli’s top campaign advisor. Russell is the same political consultant brought in by Senate Minority Leader Steve Oroho to run the Space-Fantasia-Inganamort team in LD24.
 
Over a year ago, Senator Durr’s LD03 was identified as the number one target the Democrats would be coming for in 2023. The Senate Republican leadership and SRM were told that if Republicans had a chance at gaining a majority, they needed to hold all the 16 seats (at the time) they had. To do this, special provision would need to be made to protect Ed Durr, who was the most vulnerable Republican incumbent.
 
SRM’s top consultant at the time, and a nationally recognized talent in the field of political campaigning, looked at the data and made this clear assessment of Durr’s chances for re-election:
 
Look, Ed Durr didn’t fit the prototype of someone straight out of central casting. But you know what? His message connected with voters…and while he was outspent WILDLY by the Democrats, it turns out he had enough money…and he worked harder than Steve Sweeney. And guess what, he won. 
 
As I am out recruiting candidates for office next year, I am much more focused on candidates that connect with voters, will put in the effort to raise money and will work hard than any particular box of gender, color or the like.  
 
I am about winning, plain and simple…and those three qualities are what makes winning happen.
 
SRM’s generalissimo went on to note: 
 
These historic victories were driven by voters angry at the status quo… In Senator Durr’s district, 17% of the Republican vote came from people who don’t usually show up the polls! 17% of the Republican vote came from newly registered voters…people who were registered but had never showed up before…or people who only vote in presidential elections – these are all voters who never show up…but 17% of the Republican vote in District 3 came from Republicans who usually sit out elections like the one we just had – that’s unheard of!
 
The polling was good, the seat located in a populist region of the state in which the GOP was growing, and Durr was well known and his numbers solid. What he was weak on – owing to the underfunded nature of his upset win – was money. So, the SRM team pushed to have someone assigned to Senator Durr to help him start fundraising early. This is what any political campaign professional would have counseled anywhere in America. It is what you do.
 
But this is New Jersey, where things are generally not what they seem. That idea was repeatedly shot down by Senate leadership – Durr’s Senate colleagues – including Senators Oroho and Bramnick. Senate Minority Leader Oroho sounded bizarrely Darwinian in his insistence that Senator Durr be left to figure it out on his own.
 
Senator Oroho and top aide Jeff Spatola seemed angry that Durr had defeated Sweeney and offered contemptuous assessments of both the Senator and his remarkable victory. Again, and again and again, attempts to prepare Senator Durr for an expected 2023 assault by the Democrats were thwarted. He was the NJ Senate Republicans’ rock star – known nationally in conservative circles – but attempts to take Durr to Washington for a fundraising roundtable were nixed, as was a planned fundraiser hosted by a major conservative legal group.
 
A superPAC, planned to raise money to help incumbents like Durr, was killed in its infancy. Its inaugural event was essentially cancelled by Spatola, after a significant expenditure.
 
While suggestions to hire a fundraiser to work with Senator Durr were repeatedly rejected, as early as May 26th, there were internal memos circulating by Senate Republican leadership that SRM would need to go into triage mode, with the argument that an underfunded Durr would be too much of a strain on SRM’s finances:
 
“…we need to win six seats to get a net 5 because saving this seat [LD03] is way over what we can raise for all seats.”
 
That was on March 26, 2022! They looked to be giving up and seemed to be offering Durr up to the Democrats on a silver platter. So, Senator Durr, lacking the fundraising component the Senate GOP and SRM recognized that he needed, was allowed to roll into an election year in a vulnerable financial position. This all but ensured the Republican civil war that the Democrats were hoping for.
 
In conversation, Senator Oroho nourished the pipe dream that a GOP majority might be gained by the South Jersey Norcross wing of the Democratic Party joining the GOP en masse. Oroho spoke openly of his “lovely relationship” with Democrat Steve Sweeney. Along with his aide, Spatola, they appeared supportive of Sweeney’s gubernatorial ambitions.
 
Now Senator Durr is locked in a battle for re-election run by a consultant who trousers money from SRM and its candidates. The GOP establishment seems determined to prevent the Ed Durr miracle from happening again. If they succeed in destroying Ed Durr, will that 17% of the Republican vote from people who don’t usually show up at the polls that came out in 2021 to vote against the Democrats and all they stand for, come out again? Will they come out in 2025? And why would they? 

A "Lovely Relationship"?

Will 2023-24 see a second blooming of “candidate Ficus”?

By Rubashov
 

New Jersey is perhaps the worst place in America to run as an outsider. The state has that unique bar to outsiders known as “the party line” and a set of campaign finance laws that clearly favor establishment insiders. And those laws just got worse.
 
The state has a monolithic political establishment, with everyone drawing financial support from the same, largely transactional mix of special interests. Activist, true believers on the Democrat side have developed an ideological funding base, but the same can’t be said for Republicans.
 
This imbalance is why Democrats elect ideological candidates and Republicans do not. According to the latest ACU/CPAC scoring, Democrat voters have a 100% chance that the Democrat candidate they vote for will vote ideologically at least 90% of the time. Republican voters have only a 12% chance that the Republican candidate they vote for will vote ideologically at least 80% of the time.
 
As the primary season comes to a close in New Jersey, many are looking ahead to the 2023 legislative elections and the 2024 congressional elections with disgust at the lack of options offered them. Is this the environment in which “candidate Ficus” could make a comeback?
 
The Associated Press wrote about the “Ficus” phenomenon in 2000:
 
WASHINGTON (AP, 05-31-00) _ A team of candidates for Congress, deeply rooted in the environment, is trying to strike a blow against incumbency. But these challengers have to overcome unique disadvantages, such as an inability to speak and a need for watering.
 
Mobilized by satirist Michael Moore, political skeptics across the country have enlisted ficus plants to seek write-in votes for 24 congressional races.
 
“I’m doing this because the American people no longer show up to vote,” Moore said during a campaign appearance for the plant challenging Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. “The majority of people feel they have no choice.”
 
Moore is known for his 1989 documentary, “Roger & Me,” a dark comedy that assailed General Motors Corp. for closing its plant in Flint, Mich.
 
Ficus plants are being offered as candidates in 23 House races in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. One senator, Republican Craig Thomas of Wyoming, has vegetative competition.
 
…Campaign volunteers say they see the effort as a lark, but one with a message.
 
Sarah Cook of State College, Pa., said she was “really disappointed” when she learned Republican Rep. John Peterson of Pennsylvania had no Democratic opponent. So she and her husband Sean volunteered to host a ficus campaign.
 
“I think that people need to know that even when an incumbent is running unopposed, they do have a choice,″ said Cook, who works at Penn State University.
 
Lorne Wolfe, an associate professor of biology at Georgia Southern University, is helping run the ficus campaign against Republican Rep. Jack Kingston.
 
“As a plant biologist,” he said, “I was glad to see that (Moore) chose a plant to represent an alternative for the voting public.”
 
Jeff Seeman, who is running the ficus campaign in Ohio against Republican Rep. Ralph Regula, said his campaign theory is simple: “Why not?”
 
“I don’t think it would be better to have a potted plant represent us in Congress, but I certainly don’t see how it could be worse,” said Seeman, field representative for a national radio syndicator.
 
Thinking of offerings like State Senate candidate Parker Space, the above statement seems to be on point. And what about those elected politicians who refuse to show up to meet their constituents? A Ficus candidacy could make an important point, as the AP story shows:
 
Just like mainstream candidates, the ficus trees are making campaign stops. One in Pennsylvania traveled the district on a “listening tour.” In Georgia, the ficus candidate attended the grand opening of a greenhouse. A Texas ficus candidate sports a cowboy hat, while one in South Carolina posed outside Bob Jones University.
 
That’s right, Candidate Ficus will listen even if your elected representatives do not. A Ficus “listening tour” might be just the ticket in those districts where constituent outreach is a rarity or overly controlled. Of course, the New Jersey establishment never reacts well to nonconforming speech of any kind. They are not big on satire:
 
A ficus hopeful in New Jersey was denied a spot on the ballot when the state Board of Elections refused to accept its petition, which carried the slogan “Because a Potted Plant Can Do No Harm.”
 
The folks at Represent.Us used satire as well to make points about politics, political campaigns, and political consultants. Their “Honest” campaign of a few years ago, is spot on.
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Does Jack Ciattarelli owe Warren County Republicans an apology?

When Jack Ciattarelli loaned his top political advisor to the District 24 team of Assemblyman Parker Space (for Senate), Commissioner Dawn Fantasia (for Assembly), and Mayor Mike Inganamort (for Assembly), he probably had no idea that they would misrepresent the good work done by the all-Republican Board of Warren County Commissioners. But they did.
 
Somebody had the bright idea to put out tens of thousands of what are essentially lies about the record of the Warren County Commissioners. You see, the county property tax rate in Warren County is made up of three taxes: the County Purpose Tax, the Library Tax, and the Open Space Tax. Taken together, the three taxes equal the annual property tax rate that county residents pay.
 
That annual property tax rate has gone down every year since 2015: From 0.7788 in 2015; down to 0.7644 in 2016; down to 0.7630 in 2017; down to 0.7311 in 2018; down to 0.7230 in 2019; down to 0.7040 in 2020; down to 0.6995 in 2021; down to 0.6806 in 2022; down to 0.6301 in 2023. That is a property tax cut eight years in a row.
 
Now, we all know that Assemblyman “Parking Space” Space isn’t the most erudite politician, but even he understands what a tax bill is and that you owe the entire bill, not a portion of it. Nevertheless, his team selected one portion of the bill – just one of those three taxes that make up the annual county property tax bill in Warren County – and made the claim that county property taxes went up seven times.
 
Of course, anyone with a working brain knows that this is simply false. But the fact that what the Space-Fantasia-Inganamort team claimed is false hasn’t stopped them from repeating it tens of thousands of times in campaign mailers and commercials. They are lying in an attempt to win, and everyone knows cheating like that throws the whole process into disrepute.
 
What will Jack Ciattarelli – an announced GOP candidate for Governor in 2025 – say to the three Republican Commissioners his consultant trashed, claiming that they raised taxes when – in fact – they cut them, eight years in a row? Will Jack tell Commissioners Lori, Jim, and Jason that his team lies to get what it wants and so don’t be surprised when the promises Jack and his team make are lies too? How can any Republican in Warren County, or anywhere else, take Jack at his word when we have an incident that is proof that his team will say anything and lie to get what it wants?
 
Lying like this is a classic behavior of the narcissist. Narcissists lie effortlessly and are very convincing because they lack normal inhibitions. To make themselves look better, they devalue other people, to make them look bad. Where there is no fault to be found, they stage it. To achieve their goals, they have no restraint when it comes to lying. They even come to believe their lies are true.
 
Of course, many politicians are narcissists and some even exhibit behaviors associated with pathological narcissism. Politics attracts narcissists and acts as a mutual support society for narcissists. Average citizens need to be on their guard. 

SOURCE: The Warren County Newsletter.
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

 

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

 

We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Who is behind controversial SuperPAC buying ads for Dawn Fantasia?

A SuperPAC calling itself “Garden State Success” is spending a lot of money running ads for Assembly candidates Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort and trying to influence the June 6th Republican primary. Who is behind this new intrusion into the election process in Sussex, Morris, and Warren counties?
 
Garden State Success was incorporated in New Jersey on April 27, 2023 (NJ business ID #0450961264) as a non-profit corporation. The registered agent is an attorney with a practice in “establishing and operating New Jersey and federal PACs and Super PACs”, according to his website.
 
The lead trustee of the three trustees listed is Danielle Alpert, who is described by InsiderNJ as “a long time Trenton lobbyist”.  She is the wife of Brian Alpert, a highly paid state employee who works at the Senate for Senators Steve Oroho and Tony Bucco.
 
A second trustee is the County Supervisor for Roads of Passaic County. The third trustee is a well-known activist from Newark.
 
Danielle Alpert is the senior vice president of communications and advocacy for the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association (NJPCSA). A public charter school and a charter school differ in that a public charter school does not charge tuition. It is, under New Jersey law, a public school that receives public funding but is operated by a private organization under a charter granted by the Commissioner of Education.
 
Danielle Alpert works for T.J. Best – who owns a lobbying business as well as serving as Director of Government Affairs for NJPCSA. Best is a longtime elected Democrat. He was a County Commissioner in Passaic County and a legislative aide to Congressman Bill Pascrell.
 
Alpert and Best work for Harry Lee, the CEO and President of NJPCSA. Before joining the NJPCSA, Lee was the Chief Strategy Officer at iLearn Schools, where Sussex County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia worked as a Chief Growth Officer and Chief Communications Officer for iLearn. Fantasia lists this on her LinkedIn page.

Both T.J. Best and Harry Lee hosted fundraising events for Dawn Fantasia’s Assembly campaign committee. Fantasia disclosed this on fundraising invitations posted on her campaign website.
 
Danielle Alpert is listed on the D-4 Form filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) on May 16, 2023 – along with Theresa Mondella, who lists her personal email address as the committee’s email address. Mondella is a longtime establishment operative who is closely associated with Chris Russell, the political consultant for the Space-Fantasia-Inganamort campaign.
 
Last year, Mondella set-up a SuperPAC for Russell client Bob Healey – a candidate for Congress in South Jersey’s 3rd District. Politico reported that Bob Healey’s mother wrote a $2 million check to a SuperPAC. The SuperPAC created by Mondello in 2022 (she was listed as Treasurer), was called Garden State Advance.
 
According to The Record newspaper & NorthJersey.com, iLearn Schools is linked to an Islamic cleric who is a convicted criminal in his native Turkey and wanted for terrorism.  Here’s a good overview from The Record/ NorthJersey.com (February 16, 2017):
 

Charter school leaders, founders linked to controversial Turkish cleric

 
A group of charter schools that arose from North Jersey’s Turkish community is rapidly growing in the state, with seven schools collecting more than $60 million in taxpayer money last year alone to fund their growth.
 
Now, an investigation by The Record and NorthJersey.com shows that some founders and leaders of the schools have close ties to the movement of Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Islamic cleric accused of working to overthrow the government in his native Turkey last summer. Gulen is fighting extradition demands as he lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, about 10 miles from the New Jersey border.
 
…Some belong to Turkish émigré groups that tout the cleric's teachings. There are also political donors who collectively have furnished hundreds of thousands in donations to U.S. office holders while the North Jersey charter schools in general have been adept at wooing state and local government officials with trips to Turkey and, in some cases, jobs.
 
Records show the charter schools in North Jersey also have been a channel for state taxpayer money to private entities that serve the schools as landlords or vendors — in one case, a Wayne boarding school that is openly Gulen inspired.
 
Turkish prosecutors accuse Gulen of attempts to overthrow the government and of instigating the 2016 coup attempt. In 2000, he was found guilty, in absentia, of scheming to overthrow the government by embedding civil servants in various governmental offices. A Turkish criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Gulen and Turkey is demanding his extradition from the United States. Gulen is wanted as a terrorist leader in Turkey and Pakistan, as well as by the OIC and GCC. Turkey is a member of NATO.
 
…Officials in the turbulent Turkish republic have maintained Gulen is leveraging a network of more than 100 charter schools nationwide and U.S. tax dollars to support revolution back home that would put his followers in power.
 
“It’s clear these schools were being used both to raise funds for Gulen and employ Gulen followers and teachers and basically have them tie a percent of their income back to Gulen,” said Robert Amsterdam, a London-based lawyer hired by the Turkish government who is investigating charter schools in the U.S. that he alleges are linked to Gulen.
 
…As the international controversy around Gulen swirls, the Turkish-led schools in New Jersey continue to collect tens of millions of dollars in state financing and local tax support, public records show.
 
The Record's review raises key questions about state oversight of the schools…
 
The investigation found:
 
A state-financed property deal involving the Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology also benefited its landlord, a private group with close ties to the Gulen movement:
 
That group sold the property and used the proceeds to help open a new campus in Wayne for its private boarding school that hews closely to Gulen's teachings and caters largely to students from Turkey. 
 
Public money, in fees and rent that could amount to millions of dollars over time, continues to flow to the charter school's new landlord, a firm with multiple ties to Turkish charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere. 
 
Connections run deep among people involved with the schools, Gulenist groups and Turkish charter schools elsewhere in the U.S:  
 
Two of the New Jersey schools, for example, have a founder who has served as a director at the New York-based Alliance for Shared Values, considered the voice of the Gulen movement in this country.  
 
The CEO of iLearn Schools Inc. – an Elmwood Park-based non-profit that manages four of the local charter schools – comes from a charter network in Texas that the Turkish government claims is linked to the Gulen movement. 
 
The schools and their vendors have successfully courted prominent public-school educators and political figures.  
 
…Security consulting contracts at four of the schools worth more than $90,000 a year are held by ex-Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire, who took a 10-day trip to Turkey before he left office in 2010 with his family and local Turkish nationals tied to the schools. It was paid for in part by a Gulenist group.
 
More than $30 million in long-term, low-interest loans have been granted by the state to benefit the Paterson charter school despite its continuing financial and academic troubles:
 
In 2014, a Wall Street ratings agency downgraded the bonds issued for its expansion to junk status because the school’s revenues had fallen. Last year, Wall Street lowered its overall outlook on the bonds to “negative.”
 
Tracking tax dollars spent by the schools can be difficult because of loopholes in state law:
 
ILearn, which is set to add a fifth charter to its chain this year, declined to answer routine requests for information about its payroll, saying that as a private contractor it is not subject to the state Open Public Records law.
  
In common with Commissioner Dawn Fantasia, iLearn dislikes having to answer questions and resorts to claiming victim status when asked. It seems iLearn has as little regard for the state's Open Public Records Act (OPRA) as do County Commissioners like Fantasia and Jill Space, who regularly attack anyone who asks questions.

State officials said it is unclear if such charter-management organizations fall under the law, even though charters draw their funding directly from the tax-funded budgets of regular public schools. 
 
…A number of prominent Turkish nationals connected to the charters or their vendors have emerged as fundraisers and contributors to Hillary Clinton and Obama, among other political leaders. A former head of the Science and Technology charter in Paterson, Furkan Kosar, is the president of the Council of Turkic American Associations. Kosar raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election bid in 2012. He did not return calls made to the council.
 
Critics say the presence of big-money contributors connected to the schools in New Jersey and other states is evidence the cleric and his followers are advancing the Gulen movement at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
 
“They’re engaging in a series of activities that really don’t have anything to do with charter schools, and have much more to do with building political influence in the U.S. for his movement,” said Amsterdam, the lawyer for the Turkish government.
 
Among those critics is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s recently ousted national security adviser who claimed American taxpayers “are helping finance Gulen’s 160 charter schools in the United States” in an op-ed piece written in November for The Hill, the congressional newspaper that assailed the Obama administration for allowing Gulen to remain in the United States.

A controversial SuperPAC is backing Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort for Assembly...
Who are they?

 

There is every indication to suggest that Garden State Success was created specifically to help elect Dawn Fantasia to the Assembly. Fantasia bragged to people – including colleagues – that she would be getting help from these sources.
 
We don’t know why, but during Dawn Fantasia’s December 2022 interview with LD24 and SRM staff, she made it very clear that iLearn’s leadership would facilitate her role as a legislator and that they saw her advancement in positive terms for their movement. When questioned about the conflict between her schedule as a school principal and the legislative schedule, Fantasia told interviewers that she had discussed it with iLearn’s leadership and that her role in the Legislature would be important enough for them to accommodate her schedule by assigning her a different role in their organization, like communications or government affairs.
 
Are Steve Oroho and Hal Wirths aware of this? And if they are, do they support Gulen and his works? Moreover, are they comfortable with sending someone from that organization into the GOP legislative caucus?

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

Pro-Transgender SuperPAC sends out mailer for Fantasia-Inganamort

Have Steve Oroho and Hal Wirths switched sides?
 
Their ACU/CPAC conservative scores have declined over the last few years (Oroho declined from an 85% average to a 71% score; Wirths declined from a 76% average to a 68% score) but we hope they haven’t fallen so low as to keep company with the Women for a Stronger New Jersey SuperPAC.
 
Women for a Stronger New Jersey SuperPAC spent $30,000 to try to elect the first transgender GOP State Committeeperson in 2020. They opposed the incumbent State Committeewoman simply because she is a biological woman.
 
Women for a Stronger New Jersey is run by NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign manager and Hugin’s spouse is a founding member of its two-member board. The Women for a Stronger New Jersey website is very clear as to the ideology of the candidates they support:
 
“We're working to grow the number of women serving in elected office at the state and local level by building a diverse network of moderate Republican and Independent women throughout the state and expanding the pool of women considering public office.”
 
That’s right, conservative Republican women need not apply. But registered Independents – as in non-Republicans – are okay.
 
In 2021, when the state’s senior Pro-Life Senator decided to run for re-election, Women for a Stronger New Jersey urged a pro-abortion woman to primary him. And now, in 2023, Women for a Stronger New Jersey has got involved in the GOP primary in District 24, putting out a mailer on behalf of Assembly candidates Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort.
 
What do Steve Oroho and Hal Wirths think about this? What does Parker Space think of his running mates getting support from pro-Transgender activists?
 
How can Dawn Fantasia and Mike Inganamort seriously say that they will fight for parental rights and oppose the pro-LGBTQ+ curriculum mandates of Governor Murphy and the Democrats when they are taking help from Woke special interest groups like Women for a Stronger New Jersey?
 
Dawn and Mike have some explaining to do… so do Steve Oroho, Hal Wirths, and Parker Space. And in a hurry! 

Read the Women for a Stronger NJ website yourself:

Women for a Stronger NJ (wsnj.org)

Read this too:

Jennifer Williams is a candidate for Republican State Committee - Out In Jersey
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell 

We welcome your commentary.  If you would like to submit a column for publication, please contact us at info@jerseyconservative.com

Bramnick ad: We need people who believe in nothing running government.

By Rubashov
 
Comedy often relies on carrying stereotypes to extremes. As comedy, Senator Jon Bramnick’s current re-election ad works quite well. As comedy.
 
But as policy. Well, the ad really doesn’t touch on policy, does it?
 
What has Jon Bramnick done to fix… anything? The ad doesn’t say. What will Jon Bramnick do? It doesn’t say that either.
 
Big on comedy, free from policy.
 
Bramnick says, “Let’s start solving problems.” But then fails to name a single one that he intends to address, let alone, solve.
 
Bramnick says, “We want real people. Looking for real solutions.” But as a longtime elected official and a Trenton insider – does Jon Bramnick know any “real people”?
 
“Real people” don’t seek celebrity – as the Senator does – they have it thrust upon them. Like those two moms in Roxbury. Senator Bramnick faults people like them for “screaming at each other” because they are fighting to protect something they feel passionately about – their children. Yes, Jon Bramnick, sometimes mothers raise their voices in defense of their young. That’s real people.
 
The theme of the ad is “balance”. Sure, balance would be nice. A good yin and yang of Governor Murphy and the Democrats vs. a Republican opposition worthy of the name would be real nice. But that’s not Jon Bramnick’s record, is it?
 
As measured by ACU/ CPAC, over the last decade conservative voting scores have declined for Republicans legislators in New Jersey and the GOP caucus has become much more moderate. The average Republican scored in the mid-80s in 2012, now that score is in the mid-60s.
 
The ACU rates legislators using an analysis of the votes they cast across 186 policy areas ranging from cultural and life issues to tax, fiscal, and regulatory policies. In New Jersey, only 6 (out of 49) Republicans voted the conservative position at least 80% of the time. Conversely, 71 (out of 71) Democrats earned CPAC’s “Coalition of the Radical Left” designation for conservative ratings below 10%.
 
That means when a Democrat voter votes for a Democrat candidate, the voter has a 100% chance that the candidate will vote like a Democrat over 90% of the time. A Republican voter, on the other hand, has only a 12% chance that the Republican candidate will vote like a Republican over 80% of the time.
 
That is clearly out-of-balance.
 
Funny ad though. Maybe it will win somebody a Reed Award. 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

S-3330: Another mandate that takes more power away from parents

By Rubashov
 
The New Jersey Republican Party – and its legislative caucuses – claim to support clawing away power from centralized state government and turning it back to local school boards and parents. This would create true educational diversity and a marketplace of approaches to education from which lessons could be learned and the best practices applied.
 
S-3330 mandates that school districts “teach students how to cope with grief and loss.” Senator Jon Bramnick (R), who together with Senator Joe Cryan (D) sponsored this legislation, explained: “Grief is one of the hardest emotions to understand and manage as an adolescent. Although grief and loss are difficult for any person to go through, we have the tools to teach kids healthy ways to cope and teachers who are eager to provide support. This legislation ensures that our high school students learn how to effectively manage the physical, emotional, and behavioral impacts of grief.”
 
This is not a bad aspiration – but should it be mandated by state government? And what form will it take in a state whose central government is controlled by the Woke far left? Would it not be better to allow local school boards and parents to decide whether this is a problem that needs to be addressed in their individual communities? And wouldn’t having a diversity of approaches provide us with the data to determine what really works?
 
Doesn’t New Jersey have larger educational problems at the moment? Like math and language scores.
 
This bill has not been certified by OLS for a fiscal note. Which means, yet again, that the state is embarking on a new mandate without knowing what the cost will be.
 
Perhaps this love of mandates is a symptom of late-stage capitalism? Take a business or profession that is having a difficult time marketing their product. Add a lobbyist or two, a politician or two, and we get a mandate that lets the government do the marketing for them – by force, mandated, or else. It’s a great way to sell something that average people aren’t convinced they need.
 
The press release put out by the Senate when the bill passed on Monday (36 “yes” and 4 “not voting” – every Republican voted yes, except Senator O’Scanlon) outlines the details:
 
Senator Bramnick worked with Imagine, a Center for Coping with Loss on this legislation (S-3330) to require public school districts to add instruction on grief for students in grades eight through twelve as part of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards in Comprehensive Health and Physical Education.
 
Under the bill, the State Board of Education would adopt the new learning standards and require the Commissioner of Education to provide age-appropriate resources to public school districts. This includes information on mechanisms and techniques to use while dealing with the symptoms of grief. Public school districts would also be instructed to provide in-school support, mental health crisis support, and individual and group therapy for students.
 
We suspect that “Imagine, a Center for Coping with Loss”, is about to see an uptick in the need for its services. The organization might even become a vendor for the state or for local school boards that are now forced to implement the new standard.
 
That’s good for “Imagine, a Center for Coping with Loss”, because it has suffered from the lack of a steady public revenue flow – according to the latest IRS 990 returns available from Guidestar for this non-profit organization. In the run-up to the Covid pandemic, public financial support declined from $2,057,664 to $1,279,108 (990, Part 2, Line 1).
 
From the 990 provided by Guidestar, we can see the numbers of individuals who currently access grief counseling services and calculate the percentage increase that will do so in the future… pretty much every child in New Jersey. It will be a growth industry in New Jersey. 

Again, the work done by “Imagine, a Center for Coping with Loss”, is laudable. Now, it will be mandatory.
 
Late-stage capitalism. It’s the way we live now.

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a rebuttal, clarification, an opposing opinion or any column for publication, please contact the Editor at info@JerseyConservative.org.

Fantasia enlists the "Mastermind of Bridgegate" in war against free speech.

By Rubashov
 
For many years, the political consultant David Wildstein operated anonymous blogs with names like PoliticsNJ, PoliticsPA, and PolitickerNJ. Then he, known then as “Wally Edge”, was outed by one of the folks who writes for this blog – an embarrassment he has never forgiven.
 
Wildstein was very close to Chris Christie when he operated those blogs – providing coordinated coverage of Christie’s political corruption investigations when Christie was U.S. Attorney. Later, Christie rewarded Wildstein with a fat appointment at the Port Authority. This position had never existed prior to Wildstein's appointment and had no job description, but he received an annual salary of $150,020.
 
David Wildstein made national headlines in 2015, when he admitted his guilt in the Bridgegate Scandal – a criminal enterprise timed to disrupt the first day of school.  Dr. Paul Saxton, superintendent of Fort Lee’s schools, called the plot “an act of terrorism,” adding, it was “premeditated action designed and targeted toward the kids.” In a statement that made national news, the Bridgegate plotters, including Wildstein, had dismissed concerns that children might suffer, by saying that they were the children of their political opponent.
 
So, we find it remarkable that Sussex County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia would turn to David Wildstein, who was described as the “Mastermind of Bridgegate” to go head-to-head with a blog that has been critical of her. Even more so, as she runs a school herself – albeit a controversial one affiliated with an Islamic cleric who himself has been labeled a “terrorist” in his native Turkey.
 
Missing from David Wildstein’s article in the New Jersey Globe was the quote taken from a front-page story in the Star-Ledger newspaper. This quote is the key to this story:
 
“Like Jim Cunneely, Dawn Cunneely [Fantasia] believes he will never commit a similar crime. She calls him a good father, and she has granted him joint custody of the children.”
 
Fantasia’s statement was made on the front page of the November 10, 2014, edition of the Star-Ledger, the largest circulation newspaper in New Jersey. In a story concerning her former husband, a school teacher who was convicted of a sex crime against one of his students (and “required to register as a sex offender under Megan's Law and… undergo parole supervision for life”, ibid April 18, 2008).
 
Nobody made this up. It is on the front page of the state’s largest newspaper. And we’re not discussing events that happened at the time of her husband’s arrest and trial – but rather, statements made years after, when Dawn Fantasia was pursuing political office. Further, it appears the 2014 front page story was in aid of marketing a book, written by Fantasia’s former husband. Published in 2013, it is called “Folie A Deux” and is 374 pages of public disclosure. Anyone can buy it on Amazon for $19.95.
 
Our opinion, which we are allowed to express under the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, is that Commissioner Fantasia’s statement suggests she might be open to policies that allow registered sex offenders, convicted of sex crimes against children, to be granted custody of minor children. That is why we asked her for a clarification of her statement. We even invited her to publish her clarification, unedited, on our website.
 
Fantasia has steadfastly refused to issue a clarification, even though, if she is successful as a candidate for the New Jersey Legislature, she will be voting on bills that affect Megan’s Law and mandatory sentencing, and sex crimes, and child custody. In Wildstein’s column today Fantasia claims that the newspaper was wrong – 9 years after it appeared on the front page. She then tries to blame the judge, making the utterly fantastic statement that a judge would grant custody of minor children to a registered sex offender without the positive agreement of the mother of those children. We would like to see the court transcript of that! Where, in America, does that happen?
 
The issue before us is very simple: Do voters have a right to know candidate Dawn Fantasia’s position? Because that is all we’ve been asking.
 
Micah Rasmussen, Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, provides this answer: “Voters can't make informed decisions unless they're informed. If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they'd tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Commissioner Fantasia makes the false accusation that this blog coordinates with campaigns. That is untrue and has been investigated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and found to be untrue. A complaint was made in 2020 and, after a thorough investigation by federal authorities, there was no indication whatsoever that coordination had occurred. Anyone who knows anyone connected with this blog or its affiliated blogs knows that we take direction from nobody. That’s why they get so angry at us. Unlike most political blogs in New Jersey, we don’t even take advertising from politicians.

Commissioner Fantasia claims that a male consultant runs this blog. That is untrue. The administrator of this blog is a woman. Several people contribute. The administrator of the Sussex County Watchdog blog is a different woman. Neither the consultant or anyone else can post an article without their consent. Those are the facts. 
 
In today’s New Jersey Globe article, Commissioner Fantasia pledges to “stop” conservative media outlets like this from asking politicians tough questions. That’s not what anyone would call a conservative or constitutionalist legislative agenda.
 
Dawn Fantasia is a politician. She is paid by an organization that receives millions in taxpayer funding. She is an elected official who gets paid by the taxpayer. She is seeking higher public office – and a substantial pay raise. Dawn Fantasia does not get to decide what is or isn’t journalism.
 
She might think she’s a big deal, but the United States Supreme Court has over-ruled her. They have determined that blogs are indeed journalism and that bloggers are indeed journalists. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeated on anonymous speech and has upheld and protected it as a sacred American tradition. The Society of Professional Journalists agrees as well.
 
Dawn Fantasia is an example of how politicians become when there is no local media to scrutinize them. They become apoplectic when asked questions about statements they made to the largest newspaper in the state.
 
Tucker Carlson reminds us, “Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others.”

- - -

Senator Steve Oroho’s longtime political consultant was contacted and responded to this claim, published in the New Jersey Globe today: “After growing weary of his tactics, I did not enlist him for my current campaign,” Fantasia said.  “As such, I am his current target.”
 
The consultant states that the Commissioner is a public office holder and a candidate for public office. He is not. He further states that the accuracy of Commissioner Fantasia’s statement will be tested in a court of law, as he intends to bring a legal action against her and her campaign.
 
He notes that Senator Oroho asked him to be part of the team that vetted all the prospective Assembly candidates in LD24 in December 2022. The consultant’s concerns about her suitability as a candidate and the vulnerabilities she had were discussed and recorded in writing – including the incident described in the Star-Ledger article of November 10, 2014.
 
He further notes that he was lobbied by numerous individuals in an effort to get him to work for Commissioners Dawn Fantasia and Chris Carney for Assembly. These included Ms. Kate Gibbs of ELEC825 and the two candidates themselves, who made a trip to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to take the consultant to dinner in an attempt to convince him to work for them.
 
The consultant refrained from using the word “lie” as, he says, “That is a matter for the court to determine.” The consultant anticipates calling many witnesses and introducing a plethora of documentation that negates Commissioner Fantasia’s statement. 

Commissioner Fantasia should pay close attention to the free speech advocate in this video.

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell

Senate Republicans provide the votes to pass Woke ESG agenda.

By Rubashov
 
S-3605 passed the Senate yesterday, even though the bill has not been certified by OLS for a fiscal note. In other words, we don’t know what it will cost.
 
This bill “requires the Commissioner of Community Affairs to adopt regulations implementing certain reductions in required on- and off-street parking spaces in the Statewide site improvement standards by 20, 30, and 50 percent, depending on a residential development’s proximity to certain public transportation services.”
 
The prime sponsors of the bill are Senators Paul Sarlo and Troy Singleton. As legislation goes, S-3605 has led a charmed life. It was introduced on February 16, 2023; referred to the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee, from where it was reported on May 8th. It passed the Senate on Monday, by a vote of 21 yeas, 12 nays, and 7 not voting.
 
Democrats Beach, Cruz-Perez, Gopal, Greenstein, Johnson, Lagana, Madden, Pou, Sarlo, Scutari, Singleton, Smith, Thompson, Vitale, and Zwicker voted “Yes”.
 
Republicans  Bramnick, Connors, Holzapfel, Oroho, Polistina, and Stanfield put them over the top with their “Yes” votes.
 
Republicans Bucco, Corrado, Durr, Pennacchio, Schepisi, Singer, Steinhardt, and Testa voted “No”. Along with Democrats Cryan, Diegnan, Sacco, and Stack.
 
Democrats Burgess, Codey, Cunningham, Gill, Ruiz, and Turner were “Not Voting”; along with Republican O'Scanlon.
 
Legislation like S-3605 is a major goal of groups like the U.S. Green Building Council. They rate buildings that incorporate a “reduced parking footprint”, claiming that they “save money, improve efficiency, lower carbon emissions and create healthier places for people” and “are critical to addressing the climate crisis, meeting ESG goals, enhancing resilience, and supporting more equitable communities.”
 
ESG points are given “to minimize the environmental harms associated with parking facilities, including automobile dependence, land consumption, and rainwater runoff.”
 
No Parking or Reduce Parking (1 point)
Do not exceed the minimum local code requirements for parking capacity. Provide parking capacity that is a 30% reduction below the base ratios for parking spaces.
 
Carshare (1 point)
Provide dedicated parking for carshare vehicles. Provide carshare vehicle parking space(s) for at least 1% of total parking spaces, rounded up. If the project has fewer than 100 parking spaces, provide one carshare vehicle parking space. Establish an agreement between the project and carshare company guaranteeing that new and existing carshare vehicle space(s) will be dedicated for a minimum of two years from the certificate of building occupancy. Existing carshare vehicles located in nearby on- or off-street parking areas do not contribute to credit achievement.
 
Unbundling Parking (1 point)
Sell parking separately from all property sales or leases. For owner-occupied projects, do not provide free or subsidized parking for employees. Implement a daily parking fee at a cost equal to or greater than the daily roundtrip cost of municipal public transit.
 
Advocates of legislation like S-3605 point to the “Seattle Model” where transportation options are being determined by parking availability instead of personal choice.
 
Most U.S. cities require residential developers to provide one or more parking spaces with each housing unit they build. An oversupply of parking can lead directly to… more vehicle ownership and driving. As such, oversupplying parking harms the environment, reduces housing affordability, and thwarts efforts to improve social equity.

Realizing these downsides, a growing number of cities are reforming their parking policies to let developers provide fewer parking spaces… in Seattle, after the city reduced its off-street parking minimums… developers built less parking… this allowed Seattle to increase its housing production and discourage reliance on automobiles.
 
In addition to pushing the Green agenda, less parking means more profit for developers. Unfortunately for those who must inhabit such places, human activities -- like family gatherings at Thanksgiving or birthday parties -- will need to be curtailed. No parking, you see.
 
The Heritage Foundation has a new video on the threat of ESG:
 

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.”
 
Micah Rasmussen
Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University
 

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

ATTEND THE ROXBURY BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

From: A Seat At The Table

Have you heard about the defamation lawsuit from the Roxbury librarian against some of our incredible parents simply because they want to remove inappropriate books from the library?
 
Sexually explicit books do not belong on the shelves of our children’s library. Let your voice be heard on this issue…we must fight now for our rights as parents…they are our children, our decisions…not the school’s, not the state’s!
 
Date:  May 23rd, 2023
Time:  Arrive at 6:45 pm! (Meeting begins at 7:30 pm but crowds are expected)
Place: Eisenhower Middle School, 47 Eyland Ave., Succasunna NJ

"A Seat at the Table" was founded by New Jerseyans who believe influence is for all of us. New Jersey will see a resurgence when everyday citizens have a seat at the table. We are a bridge between grassroots and establishment, allowing everyone to have a voice in the future of our state.