Democrat Malinowski likes to watch illegals “mow lawns”

The new “Left” is absurdly rich and doesn’t care about working people.  It doesn’t matter if they are American citizens, legal residents, or illegal immigrants.

Lisa Bhimani is running for the Legislature in Morris and Somerset Counties.  She claims to be a “fighter” for average folks but how?  She’s so average she not only owns a million dollar home in the district – she has a $1.6 million place in Manhattan.  Check the United States Census figures.  That’s not average, that’s being a at the top of the One Percent. 

What’s wrong with the Democrat Party in New Jersey?

The last two Democrat Governors have been Wall Street One Percenters.  Cory Booker is a Wall Streeter, as are many others… this is who dominates and runs the New Jersey Democrat Party.   Senate President Steve Sweeney, a blue-collar union guy, is the odd-man-out in a leadership that got rich playing with money, through crony capitalism, and government contracts. 

In his book, White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University's Nick Carnes points out that while upwards of 65 percent of citizens are "working class" and 54 percent are employed in a blue-collar occupation, just 2 percent of the members of Congress and 3 percent of state legislators held blue-collar jobs at the time of their election.  How is that for a party that preaches diversity?

For non-citizen legal residents, the percentage in the working class is even higher, and for illegal immigrants higher still.  Not being eligible to vote, they are not represented at all – although the Democrats do make use of their bodies by carving out more Democrat districts by inflating the numbers with non-citizens.   

Not to worry… the One Percenters claim to be representing them.  Actually though, people like Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger (formerly of UBS Investment Bank) and Tom Malinowski (scion of a wildly wealthy blue-blood family) support policies that pit the illegal gray economy against American workers.  What difference does raising the minimum wage make when a business is free to hire all the illegal labor it wants – courtesy of a Sanctuary State scheme?

Just a generation or so ago, wages were such that the American working class formed part of the vast “Middle Class” that was the cornerstone of America’s economic and political stability.  Read Elizabeth Warren’s The Two-Income Trap or       

The Fragile Middle Class (Americans in Debt) for more on what happened.  Now the working class are the punchline in a joke perpetrated by people like Tom Malinowski and Phil Murphy.

Our friends at Save Jersey posted the story and video below.  In it, Congressman Tom Malinowski identifies his audience as “elitists” who he publicly assumes would never get their hands dirty.  He goes on to explain that there are “a lot of jobs in our community… that Americans are not willing to take” and asks “who do you think is taking care of our seniors” and “who do you think is mowing our beautiful lawns in Somerset County.” 

https://savejersey.com/2019/08/tom-malinowski-congress-house-illegal-immigration-election-2020/

While the administration of President Trump has created unprecedented job growth, it will not last forever.  And while the unemployment rate is currently low, it does not reflect those who have stopped seeking employment.  There could be great opportunities for business ventures and employment in the fields Congressman Malinowski mentions – provided that profits and wages are not held artificially low through the use of near-slave labor.

That is what Tom Malinowski is celebrating… the use of near-slave labor for the benefit of wealthy elites.  They employ near-slave labor through the gray economy and then say that American workers don’t want the jobs.  Is it the jobs they don’t want – or the pay?   

And the idea that there is nobody in central New Jersey who would be willing to do those jobs – provided the pay was something you could live on – is nonsense.  The poverty rate in Trenton is 28 percent – and Trenton is a lot nearer to Somerset County than Guatemala.  But those trapped in poverty in Trenton will never get out of it if the only jobs available are those in the gray economy working for near-slave level wages. 

A legal economy would smash the modern wage slavers and allow wages to rise to livable standards in America.  Those employed could then organize and form unions to collectively protect their rights. 

Tom Malinowski supports the status quo.  He wants illegal immigrants to be paid near-slave wages to subsidize the rich lifestyles of people like him.  It is an old story and it got Julius Caesar in trouble, back in the day.

Near the end of the Roman Republic, the rich patrician class had made the working class poorer by bringing in vast quantities of slaves to take their jobs.  Caesar objected to this and pushed through a law that protected jobs for citizens.  The Roman Senate ended up murdering Caesar. 

Human beings go round and round, chasing their tails.  We learn, unlearn, and relearn… now as then.

Democrat Suleiman’s racialist comment about “GOP base”

Atlantic County Democrat Party Chairman Michael Suleiman today issued a press statement in which he made racialist comments about the “GOP base”.  Suleiman said:  “They (the GOP) never miss an opportunity to not stand up to their base.” 

What does Suleiman mean by the “GOP base”?

Does he mean “property taxpayers”?

Maybe he means “religious Christians and Jews”?

Or the “unionized working class” that his own party once represented?

Or is he making a snide reference to “white Christians”?

Suleiman needs to explain himself because he holds a taxpayer-funded patronage job and some of the people he might be disparaging pay his very generous salary, benefits, and perks.  In March 2018, the Democrats gave Suleiman a public job as the lobbyist for the South Jersey Transportation Authority.

While the Democrats cut school funding across New Jersey, guys like Suleiman get paid.  Of course, Suleiman supports Murphy’s illegal Sanctuary State scheme that bullies law enforcement into ignoring the findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission).

Suleiman is a made member of a corrupt political machine.  He would support a horseshoe crab for office if his party told him to.  Suleiman’s Twitter page is filled with selfies featuring the love-struck Suleiman with Hillary Clinton, Phil Murphy, and Cory Booker.  Talk about having some explaining to do – we’re surprised this moron didn’t feature panegyrics to Jeff Epstein and Al Alvarez. 

Oh, and we wonder what Suleiman thinks about this stunt by Cory Booker…

While attacking taxpayer advocate Seth Grossman, Suleiman ignored this anti-Jewish prank by Cory Booker.  What does Suleiman have against taxpayers like Grossman?

But wait… in his statement, Suleiman compounds his racialism by making ethnic (and racial) assumptions about who comes into the United States illegally. He makes the claim that it is “race-baiting” to oppose illegal immigration.  That is a horrible generalization.  The term “illegal” does not denote a racial or ethnic group.

For Suleiman’s information of the 707,265 LEGAL immigrants who became LEGAL naturalized American citizens in 2017, 17 percent were from Mexico (118,559), followed by 7 percent from India (50,802), 5 percent each from China (37,674) and the Philippines (36,828), and about 4 percent each from the Dominican Republic (29,734) and Cuba (25,961).  Nationals of these six countries accounted for 42 percent of all naturalizations.  Other leading countries of origin included Vietnam (19,323 or 3 percent), El Salvador (16,941, 2 percent), Colombia (16,184, 2 percent), and Jamaica (15,087, 2 percent).

In common with many Democrats, Michael Suleiman uses race as a measurement for every human interaction.  People who do this – who think in terms of “people of color” – are called racialists.  Wikipedia notes that “Racialism is the belief that the human species is naturally divided into races, that are ostensibly distinct biological categories.”

The philosopher W.E.B. DuBois argued that racialism was merely the philosophical position that races existed, and that collective differences existed among such categories.  DuBois held that racialism was a value-neutral term and differed from racism in that the latter required advancing the argument that one race is superior to other races of human beings.

But science has largely erased such arguments.  Aside from some genetic correlations in the incidence of diseases in this subset or that, the idea of “racial identity” that is forced down every American child’s throat, that haunts our society in everything from census forms to employment applications, is entirely a political construct.  The American idea of “race” is nonsense and calling people “racist” is a nonsense game.  The actor Morgan Freeman got it right…

The Democrats’ insistence on the primacy of race is an inverted return to their past.  Like then, Democrats today are obsessed with what measure of blood from this group or that flows through someone’s veins.  They seem to forget that our blood – the blood of our common humanity – is categorized, not in terms like Black or White or “of color” or “not of color” – but as O, A, B, and AB.

The Democrats need to end their obsession… and embrace humanity.

A.O.C. and Cory Booker would get A+’s from AFP

Did you catch AFP’s latest score card?  The one where every far-left Democrat in the state got rewarded with an “A” or “A+” because they supported AFP’s crazy ideas about going soft on crime in America? 

It’s official.  Americans for Prosperity has left the building.  AFP has walked away from American conservatism and has become a hodgepodge of fashion statements pumped out of the bunghole of Koch Petroleum. 

Relentlessly anti-working man/woman and anti-Trump, AFP now seeks to join the most far-left Democrat Socialists to reward criminal behavior, empower convicts at the ballot box, and roll back the clock on the Reagan-era tough-on-crime prescriptions that have driven down the crime rate across America.  AFP wants to ignore the facts, when the facts are clear:

AFP wants to screw up what’s worked and turn that ship around.  In a few years or so, we can all look forward to a return to the crime rates of the past that AFP now appears to forget.  Once upon a time, before Rudy Giuliani, when they made movies like “Death Wish” to dramatize the terror that stalked American streets. 

Strap yourself in boys and girls… for the Great Re-Learning!

The people who run Koch Petroleum operate AFP as a lobbying unit of their globalist business empire.  Once-upon-a-time the Koch operation included the Libertarian Party.  One of the Koch brothers even ran for Vice President – against the ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush – on a platform that included the legalization of all forms of drug use and prostitution, as well as removing the legal protections for children, making them no different from consenting adults. 

The Kochs tried to take over the Republican Party… to remake it in their own image.  Failing that, they opposed the candidacy of President Donald Trump and continue to do so.  Now they are doing what so many “woke” corporations have done, adopting a fashion-statement issue in order to curry favor with the liberal establishment, to shield their corporate excesses from scrutiny.  They are hoping that people see the “good” they are doing in promoting a pro-criminal agenda and lay-off them when their petroleum centered business gets itself in trouble again.

So now you know why so many far-left Democrat Socialists have picked-up scores of “A” and “A+” from Americans for Prosperity’s latest score card.

Will Democrats step back from going down the road of Anti-Semitism???

Yet another Labour Member of Parliament has walked away from the Labour Party over its embrace of Anti-Jewish hate.  That’s eight walk away Labour Members of Parliament in just two days.

Who would have thought that in Great Britain – the mother of democracies – that one of the two major parties would embrace open Anti-Semitism the way the left wing Labour Party has?  The Labour Party is Britain’s version of America’s Democrat Party – and when you look at the virulent Anti-Jewish talk coming out of the new Democrats – who is to say that America isn’t next?

Take a look at this new Democrat congresswoman…

That flag is the banner of a political movement… the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO.  It is a terrorist movement responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jewish civilians – mainly women and children. 

The Anti-Semitism that is causing honest people on the Left to leave the Labour Party will soon confront Democrats here in the United States.  As politicians like Cory Booker and Phil Murphy mainstream the goals of the PLO and Hamas – to wipe out the Jewish state and its people – Democrats are going to face the same decisions being faced by Left-of-Center people in Europe today.  To walk away from their party… or follow the path that could lead to a second Holocaust. 

Will Booker’s presidential ambitions get derailed by Trump investigation?

Yesterday morning, the Washington Post reported the following:  “Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Monday charging two business associates of Michael T. Flynn with acting as agents of the Turkish government, describing in remarkable detail how the three attempted to persuade the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Throughout the fall of 2016, while Flynn served publicly as a key surrogate and foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, prosecutors say he and business partner Bijan Kian took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Turkish government to push for the extradition from the United States of dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen. Their efforts, prosecutors said, were directed by Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman with close ties to the country’s leadership.”

“As the Mueller investigation has moved forward, the Justice Department has seemed to take a more aggressive posture in recent months toward prosecuting those who lobby for foreign interests without registering appropriately. Mueller charged former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates with similar crimes for their work in Ukraine, and the Justice Department recently reached a plea agreement with a Russian woman whom it had accused of acting as a Kremlin agent in the United States.”

Concurrently with the period outlined above, a firm with deep ties to New Jersey Democrats – Mercury Public Affairs, LLC – was also working towards the same goal, on behalf of the Islamist government of Turkey.  Mo Butler, United States Senator Cory Booker's campaign consultant, former chief of staff, and "longtime advisor" and Michael Soliman, United States Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations Robert Menendez's political advisor and former State Director are top operatives at Mercury Public Affairs.

Began in 1999, Mercury handles national and international clients.  Michael Soliman joined Mercury in 2013 and soon after became a partner.  Mo Butler joined as a "managing director" in 2016 and became a partner this year.  Mercury Public Affairs has 10 partners, 160 employees, at 18 offices worldwide. Omnicom, a Russian company, purchased Mercury in 2003.

Last year, Mercury Public Affairs was the subject of a subpoena in the on-going investigation into Russia's meddling in the United States presidential election in 2016.  According to the Washington Post, former FBI Director and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller obtained the subpoena seeking information about work Mercury had done for a pro-Putin political party in the Ukraine:

"The investigators asked Mercury for information about their public relations work at Manafort’s behest for a Brussels-based organization called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which pushed for improved relations between Ukraine and European countries. The Brussels group primarily advanced the interests of a Russia-friendly Ukrainian political party that had been a client of Manafort’s before he joined the Trump campaign.”

Ross Perot predicted the rise of this type of international consultant-lobbyist in 1992:

"We've shipped millions of jobs overseas and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you served for a while you cash in, become a foreign lobbyist, make thirty-thousand-dollars a month, then take a leave (to) work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you've got good contacts, and then go back out."  (Ross Perot, 1992 Presidential Debate)

In January 2015, Michael Soliman registered with the United States Justice Department, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as a person representing the Embassy of the State of Qatar.  You must have read about Qatar in the news...Amnesty International has accused Qatar of being complicit in human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Yes, slavery. In fact, the United Nations gave Qatar one year "to end migrant worker slavery" or face an international investigation.  

Qatar is just one of freedom's garden spots represented by Mercury.  Remember the controversy in Uganda, when the President of that country decided that homosexuality was a crime that should be punishable by death?  Well, the law he wanted passed was "moderated" in December 2013, substituting life imprisonment for the death penalty. In 2015, Mercury was brought on to provide public relations, lobbying, and media monitoring services with regards to the Office of the President and the Ugandan government in general on subjects beginning with "human rights" and ending with "good governance."  For which the contract calls for Mercury to be compensated at the rate of $50,000 per month, with $150,000 up front.

Mercury also represents individuals.  Folks like Khalid bin Saqr Al Qasimi, who in 2003 led an anti-American demonstration in which he personally burned an American flag.  For its work, Mercury pocketed a $30,000 monthly retainer, plus expenses.

In January 2016, Mercury Public Affairs partner Morris Reid negotiated a contract with Amsterdam & Partners, an international law firm with offices in London and Washington, DC.  The document is marked "confidential and privileged" but is public information under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In August of the previous year, Amsterdam & Partners signed a contract with the Turkish Ambassador to the United States to provide legal services related to a "matter of importance" to the embassy.  The government of Turkey pays Amsterdam a retainer of $50,000 a month.

While the contract stipulates that the greatest security and confidentiality be observed, under the terms of the contract between Amsterdam and Turkey, third parties may be hired "as the Firm and the Client agree in writing are necessary to further the Engagement."  And so, in March of 2016, Amsterdam hired Mercury to perform work on behalf of the Turkish government for $20,000 a month -- above and beyond what was being paid to Amsterdam by Turkey. It is in the contract between Amsterdam & Partners and Mercury Public Affairs that we learn what all this cloak and dagger is in aid of:

The Amsterdam-Mercury contract references an "investigation into Fethullah Gulen and his organization in the United States."  So who is Fethullah Gulen?

Gulen has been in the news since the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.  Gulen is a religious leader from Turkey, and a one-time political ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Erdogan is the increasingly authoritarian and Islamist President of Turkey. He has been repeatedly in the news for purging the judiciary, jailing journalists who write unflattering reports, and successfully intimidating the opposition.  Erdogan had a law passed to allow the government to ban websites and he has promised to "rip out the roots" of Twitter. He has even attempted to censor speech in other nations, demanding that Germany prosecute a poet who had written some verse critical of him.

Erdogan and Gulen had a falling out over allegations of political corruption by Erdogan in 2013.  Gulen's books were banned. First, he was indicted on charges that a Turkish judge threw out, but then was indicted a few months later for treasonable offenses that carried the death penalty.  Gulen fled Turkey, came to the United States, and was convicted in absentia. According to Wikipedia, Gulen was one of the first Muslim leaders to condemn the attacks on September 11, 2001, writing a "condemnation article" in the Washington Post, the next day.  He wrote: "A Muslim cannot be a terrorist, nor can a terrorist be a true Muslim."

The government of Turkish President Erdogan has attempted to extradite Gulen back to Turkey in order to execute him for his political and religious beliefs, but the government of the United States hasn't cooperated.  In the hours after the coup attempt, Erdogan was quick to blame Gulen, while Gulen put forward the theory that Erdogan had staged the coup himself in order to consolidate power.

The Associated Press identified Amsterdam & Partners (the firm Mercury is working for) as "lawyer(s) for the Turkish government".  So why are Americans involved in trying to extradite a moderate cleric to satisfy the rage of an Islamist dictator?  

How is Cory Booker going to look when his top guy’s firm is pulled further into the Trump investigation mess?  How is Booker going to explain that this helps the American people? And with all this money from foreign powers floating around, at what point does a political advisor to a United States Senator and a prospective candidate for President find himself in an existential conflict of interest?

Blame Trenton Democrats for making Cory Booker discuss his sexuality

Writer Matt Katz recently tweeted: “Cory Booker confirms his heterosexuality (which he has to do, because opponents have stirred rumors about this from the beginning) & says he sees a pathway to becoming the first unmarried president since 1884.”

Well lucky Cory Booker… at least he is alive to confirm his sexuality.  That’s not the case with James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States, and someone whose sexuality has been the center of endless speculation – in an attempt to codify same and to teach children that he was America’s “first gay president.”

See, the LGBT movement has become a kind of religion… well, not kind of, it is a religion.  This new religion has adopted, as one of its core beliefs, something not unlike the Mormon Church’s “baptism for the dead” – also known as vicarious baptism or proxy baptism.  In the new LGBT faith, living people speak on behalf of those who are dead and ask on their behalf to become “gay” so that they may be added, posthumously, to the fold. 

Once added to the LGBT “sainthood” their life “stories” are then taught to children in the didactic manner, much as children in religious schools are taught about the lives of saints or martyrs or prophets.  In New Jersey, with yesterday’s passage of S-1569, the Legislature has made this an unfunded mandate – with the scrapping of old textbooks and their replacement with new “religious” tracts that focus on the lives of said “saints”. 

Strange how things go.  That we are back to this again.  It is like the ring-around-the-rosy in Poussin’s “Dance to the Music of Time”.  There is no such thing as progress… we just get stupid again, profligate, dissolute. 

But the religion bit is for real.  No less than Atlantic magazine and New York magazine have today unveiled stories that paint Cory Booker as the candidate of a “new” religion.  Atlantic calls it the “theory of love”, while New York magazine plumps for “candidate of the Christian Left”.  No kidding.  So it’s here.  Welcome to the new paradigm.  The religion of the Trenton Democrats is no longer Roman Catholic or Jewish or Protestant… but that of the golden ass, the most holy orgasm, and the sacrament of abortion.  These are not matters of policy… but of faith.  Not open to debate.

Writing in the Star-Ledger yesterday, reporter Jonathan Salant (pronounced Slant) noted that when Booker first ran for the Senate and was asked about his sexual orientation, Booker answered, “What does it matter?” 

We could not agree more.

But that was back in those quaint times of long ago… 2013.  Today, in today’s politics, religion matters – and nothing matters more than how you reach orgasm and with whom.  Piss on policy… today’s religious leaders in politics, corporate America, and academia want to know how you get down.  Just read S-1569.  It is the most important thing about you.

Poor Cory Booker.  He wants to run for President, so he has to declare a side.  And in the America of today – the America fostered by legislation like that passed yesterday in Trenton – it is a conundrum as great as that faced by any Irish politician in the midst of The Troubles.  What are you?  Who are you?  It’s all that matters.

Murphy spoke to Israel-haters at the Women’s March. Does he regret that now?

Earlier this year – while a young woman in his administration was trying to find justice after she claims she was raped by one of his top appointees – Democrat Governor Phil Murphy trotted on to the stage of the Women’s March in New Jersey.  He apparently didn’t care that the group’s founder, Linda Sarsour, called for Jihad against the government of the United States or that she was a fan of Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan.  He also didn’t seem to care that the Women’s March banner was being held by activists opposed to the Jewish State and that they were pushing anti-Israeli propaganda at the event – in front of him.

We thought of this over the weekend, when the Governor put out a press statement on the murders of eleven Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  That statement triggered a Star-Ledger headline that read:  “Murphy condemns rising anti-Semitism at vigil for Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.”

Condemn it… he’s part of it.  By allowing anti-Israeli propaganda to be part of the gatherings he speaks in front of, the Democrat is normalizing anti-Jewish sentiment by a major political party.  Forget trying to link it to President Trump’s coarse plain-spokenness – this is direct.  The people who would kill the Jewish State get to show up and be part of Democrat Party events and Murphy doesn’t say boo.

At the vigil attended by Murphy, the Governor had the gall to speak against what he himself has done:  "We must find the courage, even through tears and heartbreak, to reverse this trend. We cannot allow the normalization of hatred."  Yes Governor, we agree, so stop!

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that anti-Semitic incidents had gone up by 32 percent in New Jersey.  Of course they did.  Hating the Jewish state is now mainstream with people like Governor Murphy, the Women’s March, and the Democrat Party. 

Over the summer, Murphy’s close political ally – U.S. Senator Cory Booker – played up to the Hamas/Hezbollah loving Israel-haters – the Antifa wing of the Democrat Party.  After the Pittsburgh massacre, Booker had the gall to put out a press statement that triggered another Star-Ledger headline:  Booker says 'words matter' following attacks against Democrats and Jewish worshippers.

Ahem…

And then there’s Booker’s political ally – Democrat Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver – one of only three legislators to oppose a resolution that prohibited investment of state pension and annuity funds in anti-Jewish companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses.  That’s right, Ms. Oliver – Phil Murphy’s running mate and Cory Booker’s political ally – the Lt. Governor of New Jersey, sided with those who hate the Jewish state.   

The Roll Call vote is below.  Yes, words do matter Cory… and so do actions.

S1923 Aa (1R)  Prohibits investment of pension and annuity funds by State in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses. 

https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2016/Bills/AL16/24_.HTM

Booker says 'words matter' … forgets he trashed Israel a few weeks ago.

The arrogance of some politicians will take your breath away. 

A few weeks ago, U.S. Senator Cory Booker was playing up to the Hamas/Hezbollah loving Israel-haters – the Antifa wing of the Democrat Party.

Now he’s posturing before the media again.  The Newark Star-Ledger even ran a story, apparently with a straight face, with the headline:  Booker says 'words matter' following attacks against Democrats and Jewish worshippers.

Ahem…

Booker is quoted telling a group of Young Democrats (in New Hampshire… yep, Spartacus is running for President)… “We need to understand that words matter and that we all need to be mindful of what we're saying."

Then Booker went full on racist, telling the crowd that white Americans are to blame. Jonathan Salant (pronounced S’lant) of the Star-Ledger wrote:  “Booker, D-N.J., said the majority of terrorist attacks since 9/11 have come from white supremacist and other right-wing groups.”

Damned white Americans! 

Every day, Cory Booker sounds more and more like one of those American-hating clerics who haunts the Middle East.  “It is not us,” they claim, “America is the world’s greatest terrorist!!!” 

Booker is trying to use figures from a disgraced Leftist source that claims 79 people have died as a result of “right-wing” extremism since September 11, 2001.  Note that Booker starts his count from the day after Islamist terrorism killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others.  But okay, let’s go with Spartacus’ play at skewing the numbers – and we won’t count every act of Islamist terror, just some of the more notable ones:

The was the Bali bombing in 2002 that resulted in 202 deaths and 240 injuries.  The 2004 Madrid train bombing (192 dead, 2050 injured).  That same year, the Beslan murders of school children (385 dead, 783 injured).  In 2005, there were three separate bombing incidents (208 killed, more than 500 injured).  In 2006, we had the Mumbai train bombings (209 killed, more than 700 injured).  In 2008, 212 were killed in Islamist bombings with more than 200 injured).  In 2010, bombings killed 178 people and injured nearly 400.  The Christmas Day bombings in 2011 killed 41 and injured 57.  In 2012, Islamic terrorism claimed 32 killed and 180 injured. 

The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing killed 3 and injured 183.  The Westgate Shopping Mall massacre killed 67 and wounded 175.  The Borno Massacre in 2014 killed over 200.  For the rest of that year – 1,567 were killed by Islamic terrorism.  2,816 were killed in 2015 (and, as in years past, thousands were injured).  Islamists killed 1,453 in 2016 (and injured thousands).  For 2017, 501 were killed – and so far this year – 854 have been murdered by Islamic terrorists.

So based on this… Spartacus can’t count!

And then there’s Booker’s political ally – Democrat Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver – one of only three legislators to oppose a resolution that prohibited investment of state pension and annuity funds in anti-Jewish companies that boycott Israel or Israel businesses.  That’s right, Ms. Oliver – Phil Murphy’s running mate and Cory Booker’s political ally – the Lt. Governor of New Jersey, sided with those who hate the Jewish state. 

The Roll Call vote is below.  Yes, words do matter Cory… and so do actions.

S1923 Aa (1R)  Prohibits investment of pension and annuity funds by State in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses. 

https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2016/Bills/AL16/24_.HTM

Is the Star-Ledger’s Jon Salant a handjob? He re-wrote a hit piece for Menendez using old news.

There is a lot of real news floating around out there.  Certainly enough to prevent a writer from needing to plagiarize an early hit piece by the Menendez campaign for reuse as “fresh” news three weeks out from an election.  If the headline reads like the title of an attack piece put out by Menendez – that’s because it is: 

“Hugin says he's a different kind of Republican, but his campaign donations show otherwise.”

Breaking news… Republican Bob Hugin donates to the campaigns of (wait for it)… Republicans!!!  No shit. 

And this differs from (name ANY partisan candidate for office – Democrat or Republican) how?   

As evidence for his screwy contention, Jonathan Salant actually attacks Republican Bob Hugin and HIS WIFE for failing to support a Democrat Senator from Washington State.  Salant claims the Senator is bi-partisan… the record shows that she is the 5th most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.  Maybe we should just change Jonathan’s name from “Salant” to “Slant”.  What a pissbrain!

(Speaking of wives, as they have now been made fair game by Jonathan Slant, old Mrs. Slant is a kind of lobbyist/crony capitalist out on the hunt for taxpayer dollars for “deserving” corporations.  Yep, you can’t make this shit up.)

Salant’s hit on Hugin was all addressed earlier this year in a series of campaign attacks against Hugin by the Menendez campaign.  It is now being repackaged by the Star-Ledger and Salant in order to give it an “objective” slant – three weeks out from Election Day.  Salant’s goal is simple:  He wants to influence those women who have been turned off by Menendez’s trafficking of Eastern European women for his pal’s sexual purposes or the Obama Justice Department’s allegations about sex with underaged girls in the Caribbean.  Salant wants them to put that aside and pull the Big “D” lever (as they used to say).

Jonathan Salant wants reform Democrats to forget what kind of corrupt POS Bob Menendez really is.  Salant wants them to forget the bank scams and the Medicare fraud and stare straight ahead while they yank that Big “D”.  And the best he can come up with is that Bob Hugin is… a Republican. 

And that’s a big deal to a religionist like Jonathan Salant, who sincerely believes that being a Republican is a kind of original sin.  Salant, as his writing shows, will not be comfortable until the last of these venomous creatures is driven from the public square.

Every candidate gets stuck in the ass by the media.  It happens.  But there’s a difference between getting stuck by what was once a generally “uninvolved” or “non-partisan” press and getting stuck by a partisan writer like Jonathan Salant.  Salant is the kind of guy who will stick a candidate in the ass and not have the common courtesy to give him a reach around.  It’s an act of violence with him… and he’s going to make sure there’s nothing in it for the object of his attentions.

Cory Booker hearing Jonathan Salant’s confession.

That is our critique on the writing of Jonathan Salant.  We acknowledge that he is a “writer” of some standing and craft.  We dispute the title “journalist” being applied to him, because he has ventured so far from it.  Others may disagree… particularly the more “clubbable” members of the Establishment.  Nevertheless, these are our opinions.  If Jonathan Salant would like to dispute them on these pages, we will gladly publish what he writes, UNEDITED, which is a courtesy the corporate arse-lickers who run the Star-Ledger would NEVER extend to anyone with whom they disagreed.

On Citizens United, Cory Booker is a Fake Reformer

Okay, here are two videos.

One is from Cory Booker, a politician who has more makeovers than Donatella Versace… Ouch.

The other is from a real citizens reform organization.  Not a group funded by one set of Establishment insiders looking to screw over another set of Establishment insiders… yeah, like the group Cory Booker is shilling for.

So here is Cory Booker, Senator from New Jersey, doing his best impersonation of a teenaged drama queen trying out for the lead in a high school play… 

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisOpinions/videos/2230000037031474/

This from a guy who said he’d stop taking corporate money from his law firm but then kept on taking it.  Personal money… that went right into his own wallet.

Okay, enough of Cory Booker, he’s already taken millions from corporate PACs, lobbyists, and officers… Notice he doesn’t mention those last two?  Yep, this is all for show – and Booker already has a work-around for that corporate PAC money too.  It’s called SuperPACs!  So this is just another case of a good-looking spoiled rich kid having his usual way with the cake while eating it too.

Now… do you want to hear from some real reformers???  Okay, pay attention because this is what real reform is about…

Now wasn’t this straight talk refreshing after that bullshit P.C. earnestness that poured out of Cory Booker’s jaws? 

Is this the “Spartacus” Cory Booker is channeling?

The poor petulant dear!  Now in panic mode, Senator Cory Booker has shut down and is refusing to participate.  Maybe somebody should get him to sing the committee a song?

The Kavanaugh show trial. Is this Booker’s “Darkness at Noon” moment?

By Rubashov

We have all seen how United States Senator Cory Booker has morphed from a rather lightweight celebrity whore into a novitiate Stalinist, with a particular dislike for Israel…

All that remains to be determined is the kind of interrogator Booker will be.  A starched-assed Gletkin?  Perhaps.  Or a cynical Ivanov?  Whatever… just as in 1938, Booker’s position is already determined.

Ben Shapiro has written a great piece on the coming show trial…

On Monday evening, Wonkette founder Ana Marie Cox let the cat out of the bag regarding the Left’s perspective on the allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett Kavanaugh: it doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty or innocent. He’s guilty.

Cox was appearing on Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word on MSNBC when she made this shocking claim:

“We need to judge Brett Kavanaugh, not just by what he may or may not have done, but how he treats a woman’s pain. And that is something I’m going to be paying attention to on Monday. How does he respond to what’s happening. Whether or not he agrees that this happened with her, does he take her pain seriously? Do the people interrogating her pain take her pain seriously? Now, I’ll give you a spoiler alert, I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh takes women’s pain very seriously, and I know that because of the decisions he’s made as a judge.”

This is a morally abhorrent statement. So if a woman falsely accuses a man of rape, we don’t judge him based on whether he actually raped her – we judge him based on whether he feels the pain of a person falsely accusing him of rape. The real question of the Duke lacrosse case, by this standard, wasn’t whether a stripper was actually raped – the question is whether the members of the Duke lacrosse team were sensitive to her feelings while she was falsely accusing them of rape.

That would be an insane statement enough. But Cox goes even further: she already knows that Kavanaugh won’t meet her standard of sympathy because he hasn’t decided cases how she likes on key “feminist” issues, presumably like abortion. Now, never mind that Kavanaugh hasn’t actually signaled that he’d be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Think about the underlying contention: we can tell whether you are a bad person by your level of sympathy for a rape accuser whom you believe is lying about you, and we can judge your level of sympathy by looking at your political decisions. The logic is simple: if you’re a person who disagrees with Ana Marie Cox, you can be slandered as a rapist, and any attempt to rebut such accusations will amount to a lack of sympathy.

This is Stalinist show trial stuff. It’s immoral and perverse. But presumably Cox knows that and doesn’t care. She knows, deep in her heart, that Kavanaugh is a bad man – and if he was just maligned as a rapist, that’s a merely secondary concern. It’s hard to come up with a more bad-faith approach to a serious allegation than that.

In honor of Comrade Booker of the Democratic Socialists, we advance this theme music to be played at the start of the show trial…

IS AMY WILSON WRITING FOR A RACIST WEBSITE?

Ms. Amy Wilson, writing on behalf of editor David Wildstein (aka “The Mastermind of the Criminal Conspiracy known as BridgeGate”), has pronounced Congressman Tom MacArthur a “racist” because the NJGOP sent out a mailer attacking his opponent that appears to have deliberately used a font associated with businesses like “Chinese restaurants”.  MacArthur’s opponent’s ethnic background is Korean.

Evidently Ms. Wilson doesn’t know that Congressman MacArthur’s children share the same ethnic background as his opponent.  They too are ethnically Korean.  This delineation is, of course, of great importance to people on the Left, who have made a religion of such things.  For most of us, it is enough to know that we share an allegiance to the same flag.  That what matters is nationality.  That when tested in a time of war we would all wear the same uniform, which is, at the end of it all, the only color that matters. 

Ms. Wilson is apparently unaware that there are federal election laws in place that forbid Congressman MacArthur from knowing about or having anything at all to do with the preparation of such an expenditure by the NJGOP.  So if, as Ms. Wilson seems to suggest, Congressman MacArthur or his campaign team personally selected that font for that mailer… Well, let’s just say that Ms. Wilson’s opinion of him would be the least of his worries.

Clearly, the fault lays not with the Congressman, but rather with the State Party – the NJGOP.  Or does it?  Perhaps this is merely the case of some too cute-by-half Millennial  graphics designer and the failure of the institution to catch it.  And now there’s a controversy… but does it rise to the level of racist?  Especially when a simple Google search will reveal hundreds of advertisements featured in American newspapers that use the same or similar fonts.  Yes, these newspapers charged businesses money for these ads and, in most cases (because this is how it works) THE NEWSPAPERS DESIGNED THE ADVERTISEMENTS IN-HOUSE.  Should we conclude that print journalism is inherently racist?

Should we have legislation to ban the use of such “hate fonts” as they have banned the image of the swastika in Germany?  We can all agree that the use of such a font was in bad taste and juvenile.  Like a fart joke at a Bar Mitzvah.  But racist?  We thought racism was something serious… that crept into a man’s heart, turning him sour and away from God and his fellow man. 

If we use the term “racist” to describe a font, what are we left with to describe an entire book… like Mein Kampf or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?  Or even a sign, held by United States Senator Cory Booker…

We don’t know who is endangered by the silly font in the NJGOP’s mailer, but we do have a very sound estimate of the number of Jews who would face a pogrom of terror, torture, rape, and murder.  Calling for an end to Israel’s border wall and other fortifications that protect innocent civilians against terrorists is like calling for a second Holocaust. 

Most Americans are not racist but they are racialist – W.E.B. DuBois made this distinction.  They are racialist because they were taught to think in terms of race from a very early age.  Today, it is the religion of the Left that teaches some races have primacy over others, for a varied set of reasons, while some are marked with a kind of original sin (see Anne Hathaway).  Americans are supposed to be better than this.  We are supposed to be a people of the idea.  And that idea is America itself, of our Constitution, and the Republic – a Republic that doesn’t recognize wealth or class, in which the highest honor is the word “citizen” and where all stand equal before the law.  Of an individualism that says, “I’ll be judged by who I am… not by who my father was.”

Which brings us back to Amy Wilson.  The venue she’s chosen to write for is instructive.  As we mentioned earlier, NJ Globe is run by David Wildstein – former political operative, former elected official, former patronage appointment, convicted for his involvement in the infamous BridgeGate scandal.  We wonder if Ms. Wilson recalls some of the details of that scandal and the resulting testimony. 

Does she remember this exchange between the man she writes for and another staffer:

The lane closures caused many Fort Lee students to be late for their first day of school.

"I feel badly about the kids," the unknown person said. "I guess."

"They are the children of Buono voters," Wildstein replied.

Now, unfortunately, we must return to the delineation of race.  Fort Lee is 63 percent White and 32 percent Asian.  So “the children of Buono voters” are who?

We will leave Ms. Wilson to sort that one out with her boss.

Tom Malinowski caught trying to capitalize on John McCain’s death?

Democrat candidate for Congress Tom Malinowski is using Senator John McCain’s death for political gain… so says the executive director of a major national Jewish organization. 

 Apparently Malinowski’s campaign has launched a commercial that makes use of some “kind words” that the late Senator had for Malinowski after President Barack Obama nominated him for a post at the State Department.  Along with this, the Malinowski fundraising machine has launched another appeal for more money (it seems the Washington, DC, political team responsible for the commercial want to be paid).

 Senator McCain did have some “kind words” for Tom Malinowski, but that was after Malinowski told those at the hearing that his lovely mother was present.  It is kind of hard to be tough on someone who has brought his mom… 

 Regarding the Malinowski commercial that trades on the late Senator, Matt Brooks of the RJC issued the following statement:

 “For Tom Malinowski to use Senator John McCain’s kind words in a political advertisement to imply support for Malinowski in his race against Congressman Leonard Lance is wrong, and he should immediately take the commercial down. John McCain would have voted for Leonard Lance if he lived in New Jersey’s 7th district. John McCain would have quickly pointed out that Tom Malinowski is dead wrong on Israel, taxes, and a host of other important issues. John McCain’s strong support of Israel flew in the face of Malinowski’s lobbying against supplying Israel’s military with American weapons and his support for the Iran nuclear deal. To wait until the passing of Senator McCain to release a political ad featuring his kind words, and implying support for Malinowski, a claim that McCain is no longer here to refute, is disgusting. Tom Malinowski must take this disgraceful commercial down."

 Of course, we all know that Tom Malinowski has a long record of Israel-bashing and that his campaign has allied itself with groups like the Women’s March, led by “friend of Louis Farrakhan” Linda Sarsour – who last year called for Jihad against the elected government of the United States of America.  And Tom Malinowski is a close political ally of this guy…

Calling for the end to the border wall and other fortifications that protect Israel against terrorists is like calling for a second Holocaust.  It is not enough that Cory Booker’s international allies have driven Jews out of every country they control, now he wants to tear down Israel’s protective barrier and allow them to march in to commence a pogrom of terror, torture, rape, and murder.

And to make matters worse, thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer, now we know that Booker's fellow Democrat - Bob Menendez - is allowing his campaign to be run by a lobbyist for the foreign government of Qatar, one of the worse anti-Jewish culprits in the world and a government criticized by the United Nations and Amnesty International for its relaxed attitude towards modern slavery - human trafficking and the exploitation of children. 

 So why has Tom Malinowski used the image of a staunchly pro-Israel Senator in his campaign?  Is it because he knows that now that Senator McCain is dead and buried the Senator won’t be able to correct Malinowski’s misinterpretation of him? 

 Senator John McCain would never have time for a Louis Farrakhan or a Linda Sarsour or a Cory Booker holding a stupid anti-Israel sign like that or the antics of a Bob Menendez.  But Malinowski’s use of McCain’s death isn’t the only thing wrong with his campaign commercial.  He brags about standing up to dictators.  He sucked at standing up to dictators.  Hey Tom, occupying an office that is supposed to stand up to dictators, but sucks, isn’t the same as standing up to dictators.

 Just like Tom sucked at standing up to human traffickers.  Especially after his boss, Barack Obama, wanted to pass the union-screwing, working class eviscerating, job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP).  Malinowski’s State Department willfully ignored the deplorable records on modern slavery of a number of nations and simply said that they were okay to compete with American working men and women.  It was shameful. 

That’s Tom Malinowski… shameless (but pretty).

Sen. Cory Booker is “inconsistently” anti-Semitic… but enough to worry us.

New Jersey’s junior United States Senator is breaking the rules of the Senate for the purposes of partisan politics.  Releasing confidential documents in the manner of a Chelsea Manning – except that he knows that he won’t be prosecuted for it because he is a powerful politician.  Which kinda makes him a pussy.

No amount of media ass-licking is going to change that.  No, Senator Booker is no “Spartacus” like in the movies or on cable TV.  That Spartacus was a slave, not a Roman Senator.  That said, he might be trying to fashion his own “Spartacus” movement.  Who and what was the Spartacus movement?

Officially called the Spartacus League, it was founded during the First World War by a group of Marxist revolutionaries.  They dropped the charade in 1919 and formally changed their name to the Communist Party of Germany.  Through violent street demonstrations (note the blood in the illustration above) they helped to bring down the Social Democrats and Centrists of the Weimar Republic and pave the way for the National Socialists of you know who…

Which brings us to one of the great inconsistencies of Senator Cory Booker.  That being, when he is in front of a Jewish audience, he couldn’t be more sympathetic and, in appearance, pro-Israel… but with anyone else, a different mask appears and you get antics like this…

Calling for the end to the border wall and other fortifications that protect Israel against terrorists is like calling for a second Holocaust.  It is not enough that Cory Booker’s international allies have driven Jews out of every country they control, now he wants to tear down Israel’s protective barrier and allow them to march in to commence a pogrom of terror, torture, rape, and murder.

And to make matters worse, thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer, now we know that Booker's fellow Democrat - Bob Menendez - is allowing his campaign to be run by a lobbyist for the foreign government of Qatar, one of the worse anti-Jewish culprits in the world and a government criticized by the United Nations and Amnesty International for its relaxed attitude towards modern slavery - human trafficking and the exploitation of children. 

So why are Democrat congressional candidates Mikie Sherrill, Tom Malinowski, and Andy Kim silent on this?  Is their silence an indication that they fear offending leftwing anti-Semites like Linda Sarsour of the Women's March?  All three have posted positively about Sarsour, who has embraced the radicalism of Islamic extremists like Louis Farrakhan and Siraj Wahaj.  Sherrill, Malinowski, and Kim were silent too last year, when Linda Sarsour called  for "Jihad" against the elected government of the United States of America. 

Mikie Sherrill is running for Congress in District 11 (against Republican Jay Webber). 

Tom Malinowski is running in District 7 (against Republican Leonard Lance). 

Andy Kim is running in District 3 (against Republican Tom MacArthur).

We need to pay as much attention to what Sherrill, Malinowski, and Kim refuse to talk about as we do to what they talk about. 

As for Senator Booker.  The best way to understand him is to remember Jack Nicholson’s answer to this question…

Stay tuned...

BlueJersey's Melli joins firm subpoenaed in Mueller's Russia probe

You probably read today that Mercury Public Affairs has hired Juan Melli as a Vice President.  Melli is the founder of BlueJersey.com, a former associate editor and columnist for David Wildstein's PolitickerNJ.com, and communications manager for Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

Last year, Mercury Public Affairs was the subject of a subpoena in the on-going investigation into Russia's meddling in the United States presidential election in 2016.  According to the Washington Post, former FBI Director and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller obtained the subpoenas seeking information about work Mercury had done for a pro-Putin political party in the Ukraine:

"The investigators asked Mercury for information about their public relations work at Manafort’s behest for a Brussels-based organization called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which pushed for improved relations between Ukraine and European countries. The Brussels group primarily advanced the interests of a Russia-friendly Ukrainian political party that had been a client of Manafort’s before he joined the Trump campaign.

Mercury, which has prominent Republicans among its senior partners, had worked on the Ukraine lobbying project with the Podesta group, led by Anthony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, who led Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign."

The full article can be access below:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/washington-lobbying-firms-receive-subpoenas-as-part-of-russia-probe/2017/08/25/55e547de-89c2-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html?utm_term=.f43579514869

Melli joins several other members of the New Jersey political establishment at Mercury Public Affairs.  These include Mo Butler, United States Senator Cory Booker's campaign consultant, former chief of staff, and "longtime advisor"; Michael Soliman, United States Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations Robert Menendez's political advisor and former State Director; and Michael DuHaime, Governor Chris Christie's campaign consultant and someone who has worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.

Once upon a time, there were campaign managers who came up through the ranks alongside the politicians whose careers they helped to manage.  In Great Britain, they call them election "agents" and this is how they once operated in this country too -- wedded to the ups and downs of a particular political personality, often finding a job in the bureaucracy in between campaigns. 

From these manager/agents came the first campaign consultants.  Regional or statewide at first, but with the centralizing power of the national committees and national money there soon came to be the "national" consultant -- recommended by one of the party committees or put in place by them.  We recall a list, circa 1994, that the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) gave out, with the names of those "recommended" media consultants and pollsters on it. There were about a dozen names in all.

But as more money washed into DC and was funneled into campaigns, that changed.  Consultants proliferated and firms became larger.  Following the money, a few either merged with or morphed into public relations and lobbying (government relations) operations.  Why not?  Corporations paid big for access to politicians and there is nobody politicians love more than the person who got them elected.

It was only a matter of time that things went global.  And that is why these New Jersey political operatives became members of an international firm representing the interests of quite a few unsavory foreign governments.  Mercury Public Affairs is itself a subsidiary of an even larger international firm that handles the image-making for Russian President Vladimir Putin, receiving credit for, among other accomplishments, getting Putin's face on the cover of Time magazine -- as the "Person of the Year" for 2007.

Mercury Public Affairs began in 1999 as a decidedly Republican shop with connections to the RNC and politicians like John McCain and Mitt Romney, around 2013 it embarked on a mission to "diversify" -- meaning making the firm "more bipartisan and full-service."  Mike DuHaime joined the firm in 2009, first as a "managing director" but swiftly rising to partner.  Michael Soliman joined Mercury in 2013 and became a partner this year.  Mo Butler joined as a "managing director" in 2016.  Mercury Public Affairs has 10 partners and 160 employees.  Omnicom purchased Mercury in 2003.

Mercury Public Affairs has 18 offices worldwide -- including London; Mexico City; Washington, DC; New York; and Westfield, New Jersey.  The New Jersey offices (a satellite operates out of Trenton) of Mercury are the haunt of Messrs. DuHaime, Soliman, Butler, and other connected operatives like newspaperman Darryl Isherwood (former top political reporter for the Star-Ledger and editor of PolitickerNJ), and "Christie campaign vet" Mark Mowers. 

In January 2015, Michael Soliman registered with the United States Justice Department, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as a person representing the Embassy of the State of Qatar.  You must have read about Qatar in the news...Amnesty International has accused Qatar of being complicit in human trafficking and modern-day slavery.  Yes, slavery.  In fact, in March of 2016, the United Nations gave Qatar one year "to end migrant worker slavery" or face an international investigation. 

Qatar is just one of freedom's garden spots represented by Mercury Public Affairs.  Remember the controversy in Uganda, when the President of that country decided that homosexuality was a crime that should be punishable by death?  Well, the law he wanted passed was "moderated" in December 2013, substituting life imprisonment for the death penalty.   In 2015, Mercury was brought on to provide public relations, lobbying, and media monitoring services with regards to the Office of the President and the Ugandan government in general on subjects beginning with "human rights" and ending with "good governance."  For which the contract calls for Mercury to be compensated at the rate of $50,000 per month, with $150,000 up front.

Mercury also represents individuals.  Folks like Khalid bin Saqr Al Qasimi, who in 2003 led an anti-American demonstration in which he personally burned an American flag.  For its work, Mercury pocketed a $30,000 monthly retainer, plus expenses.

In January 2016, Mercury Public Affairs partner Morris Reid negotiated a contract with Amsterdam & Partners, an international law firm with offices in London and Washington, DC.  The document is marked "confidential and privileged" but is public information under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  In August of 2015, Amsterdam & Partners signed a contract with the Turkish Ambassador to the United States to provide legal services related to a "matter of importance" to the embassy.  The government of Turkey paid Amsterdam a retainer of $50,000 a month.

While the contract stipulates that the greatest security and confidentiality be observed, under the terms of the contract between Amsterdam and Turkey, third parties may be hired "as the Firm and the Client agree in writing are necessary to further the Engagement."  And so, in March of 2016, Amsterdam hired Mercury to perform work on behalf of the Turkish government for $20,000 a month -- above and beyond what was being paid to Amsterdam by Turkey.  It is in the contract between Amsterdam & Partners and Mercury Public Affairs that we learn what all this cloak and dagger is in aid of:

The Amsterdam-Mercury contract references an "investigation into Fethullah Gulen and his organization in the United States."  So who is Fethullah Gulen?

Gulen has been in the news since the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.  Gulen is a religious leader from Turkey, and a one-time political ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Erdogan is the increasingly authoritarian and Islamist President of Turkey.  He has been repeatedly in the news for purging the judiciary, jailing journalists who write unflattering reports, and successfully intimidating the opposition.  Erdogan had a law passed to allow the government to ban websites and he has promised to "rip out the roots" of Twitter.  He has even attempted to censor speech in other nations, in 2015 Turkey demanding that Germany prosecute a poet who had written some verse critical of Erdogan.

Erdogan and Gulen had a falling out over allegations of political corruption by Erdogan in 2013.  Gulen's books were banned.  First, he was indicted on charges that a Turkish judge threw out, but then was indicted a few months later for treasonable offenses that carried the death penalty.  Gulen fled Turkey, came to the United States, and was convicted in absentia.  According to Wikipedia, Gulen was one of the first Muslim leaders to condemn the attacks on September 11, 2001, writing a "condemnation article" in the Washington Post, the next day.  He wrote:  "A Muslim cannot be a terrorist, nor can a terrorist be a true Muslim."

Gülen teaches a Hanafi version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursi's teachings. Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy.  He has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organizations.

Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures."

The government of Turkish President Erdogan has attempted to extradite Gulen back to Turkey to face punishment, but the government of the United States hasn't cooperated.  In the hours after the coup attempt, Erdogan was quick to blame Gulen, while Gulen put forward the theory that Erdogan had staged the coup himself in order to consolidate power.

http://www.asianews.it/files/img/TURCHIA_-_USA_-_Fethullah_Gulen.jpg

The Associated Press identified Amsterdam & Partners (the firm Mercury is working for) as "lawyer(s) for the Turkish government" and quoted Robert Amsterdam:  "There are indications of direct involvement (in the coup attempt) by Fethullah Gulen."  Amsterdam added that he and his firm "have attempted repeatedly to warn the U.S. government of the threat posed (by Gulen)."  Amsterdam said that "according to Turkish intelligence sources, there are signs that Gulen is working closely with certain members of military leadership against the elected civilian government."

Why does Mercury Public Affairs want to be a part of extraditing a moderate cleric to satisfy the rage of an Islamist dictator?  The close relationships with powerful figures in American politics that many of Mercury's partners and employees enjoy is a matter for deep concern. Given who Mercury's relationship with American politicians and the confidential relationships they have with them, shouldn't some clients be out-of-bounds?

Wouldn't it be better if American political consultants stuck with helping to elect the best candidates to serve the American people?  With all this money from foreign powers floating around, at what point does a political advisor to an elected official in America find himself in an existential conflict of interest?

Don't let the status quo block tax cuts and job creation

The Republican Tax Cuts & Jobs Act passed by the House of Representatives and advancing through the Senate will free up an enormous amount of capital for new investment and job creation.   Many struggling businesses -- especially younger corporations -- will benefit immediately and start looking for talented employees to fill the demand.  The taxes those new employees pay will help fund the social safety net that is so important to many in New Jersey.  And just as important, employment frees people from government dependency so that more resources can be directed to those in dire need.

Of course, there are those who don't want the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act to succeed.  The status quo suits them just fine.  They are beneficiaries of the current crony capitalist system, in which winners and losers are not so much chosen by government, as by the globalist corporations that spend billions lobbying government.  The dominant media corporations that decide what you read, hear, and see are some of the biggest global corporations in the world.  They have every reason to want to starve the new enterprising forms of media coming from younger competitors.  And so do their allies in Congress -- like Josh Gottheimer and Cory Booker.  These media "darlings" want to keep rewarding the corporations who reward them and so they are trying to make the argument that the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act is "anti-business".  Sure it is... if you are a crony capitalist insider.  But if you are an honest business trying to make it in the open market, the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act represents some breathing space -- fresh air and the opportunity to grow your business and employ your fellow Americans.

The Tax Foundation calls the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act "a big step forward toward comprehensive tax reform".  As the nation's oldest pro-business, taxpayer watchdog, the Tax Foundation has seen a lot of false hopes in its day and isn't quick to hop on a bandwagon.  After careful analysis, they have endorsed this legislation and offer this long list of positive details about the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act:

"The bill makes a number of noteworthy changes and would, according to our Taxes and Growth Model, increase GDP, raise wages, and create more jobs.

Below is a summary of the major provisions of the House package:

• Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets:  Consolidates current seven income tax rates into four, while retaining the top marginal rate of 39.6 percent and including an income recapture provision which phases out the effect of the 12 percent bracket for high earners.
• Standard Deduction:  Increases the standard deduction to $12,200 for single filers, $18,300 for heads of household, and $24,400 for joint filers.
• Itemized Deductions:  Retains the state and local property tax deduction, capped at $10,000, while eliminating the remainder of the state and local tax deduction, except for taxes paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or business; limits the mortgage interest deduction to the first $500,000 in principle value.
• Child and Family Tax Credits:  Increases child tax credit value to $1,600, with the phaseout for joint filers beginning at $230,000, while creating a new $300 per-person family tax credit for those not eligible for the child tax credit, to expire after five years.
• Treatment of Pass-Through Income:  Caps the pass-through rate at 25 percent and adds a lower minimum rate, with anti-abuse rules.
• Corporate Income Tax:  Cuts the tax rate to 20 percent, effective tax year 2018.
• Capital Investment:  Increases the Section 179 small business expensing cap from $500,000 to $5 million, with the phaseout beginning at $20 million, and maintains current depreciation schedules for real property.
• Tax Treatment of Interest:  Caps net interest deduction at 30 percent of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).
• Business Credits and Deductions:  Eliminates credits for orphan drugs, energy, private activity bonds, rehabilitation, and contributions for capital, among others.
• International Income:  Moves to a territorial system with base-erosion rules.
• Deemed Repatriation:  Enacts deemed repatriation of currently deferred foreign profits at a rate of 14 percent for liquid assets and 7 percent for illiquid assets.
• Estate Tax:  Increases exemption to $10 million, indexed for inflation, with repeal after six years.

(Source:  The Tax Foundation)

Democrat Cory Booker says Art makes people unhappy

United States Senator Cory Booker, the great celebrity-politician himself -- the man who tweets more than Donald Trump and who counts his accomplishments in Facebook "friends" -- is proposing legislation to combat "dangerous" and "evil" art.  Using the argument that if it makes some people unhappy, then government has a duty to destroy it, the "honorable" is channeling Fahrenheit 451...

Senator Booker, a Democrat, has suggested removing every piece of art connected with the Democrat Party from the period before 1863.  Prior to 1863, slavery was legal in America and the Democrat Party was the slavery establishment's political face.  Indeed, the Democrat Party's platforms supported slavery --while EVERY Republican Party platform explicitly OPPOSED slavery.  So all the Democrats must come down!

Why?  Because we cannot cope with our past and we mustn't have a remembrance of it.  People's feelings could get hurt...

While we are not big fans of the Democrat Party, we do respect art, and we are concerned with government-sponsored pograms aimed at cleansing public spaces of art that has been labeled "degenerate" or "evil" or "inappropriate" or "politically incorrect."  We agree with Diego Rivera, who argued that art is never inappropriate.

Senator Booker's legislation to destroy works of art is particularly chilling, because it provides government sponsorship for what had heretofore been acts of violence by private individuals or mobs -- rather in the way that the Russian Tsars once encouraged pograms against their Jewish minorities.  It also creates a basis on which to further the persecution of other forms of "objectionable" art -- and not just the plastic arts, but literature, music, and theatre. 

Why not burn every copy of books that glorify the Confederacy?  Lee's Lieutenants, by Douglas Southall Freeman, would be a great place for Senator Booker to begin his campaign of book burning... err, pardon us... social cleansing.  From there, he could move on to Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.  The need of burning is apparent to politicians like Senator Booker and the books to burn will offer endless employment.

Democrat Cory Booker's war against art

So is this how it will be from now on?

Every few years some new fashion -- or new regime -- will dictate that all the art previous to it (or some subset thereof) will be subject to ideological cleansing for the purposes of re-education.  Statuary -- the plastic arts -- should not simply be objects interpreted by philistine politicians and ideological groups for the convenience of their propaganda battles. 

Art exists apart from such concerns.  Art is its own thing -- a communication between the artist and the person experiencing the art.  Often, art is meant to disturb, to engage the mind with many considerations.

But instead of erecting new art -- in proximity to the old -- to show what was and what is (which will also be, soon enough, what was), as a kind of progression, the fashion now is to rip it down, hide it, or destroy it.  This formula has been notably  practiced by ideological groups like the Taliban and ISIS:

And here is the Islamic justification for destroying art:

This is the direction our nation is heading?  This is what we are choosing?  This is who we are now?  Are you proud?

The artist who conceived the statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his horse, Traveler, was a New York City native by the name of Henry Shrady.  As a sculptor, he is best known for the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial on the west front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.  As the few of us remaining who read American history know, General Grant was the Union General who defeated General Lee and concluded the war against the Confederacy.  He later became President of the United States.  So does anyone really believe that the artist was trying to "celebrate" the ideology of the Confederacy when he designed the statute of General Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia?

The statue of General Lee had not been completed at the time of Henry Shrady's death, and so a second artist was employed, Leo Lentelli, who brought his own ideas to the project, altering the work somewhat.  Lentelli was a sculptor and teacher of sculpture at the Art Students League and Cooper Union, in New York, and the California School of Fine Arts, in San Francisco.  He had studied art in Bologna and Rome, and had emigrated to the United States at the age of 24.  Some of his best-known work is in Rockefeller Center, Steinway Hall, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, in New York.  One wonders what of his other work will be persecuted.

There is an artist behind every piece of work targeted, for ideological reasons, and slated for destruction or suppression.  How can we expect a shallow, celebrity-seeking politician like Senator Cory Booker to understand the connection between an artist and his work?

Could Booker -- who has existed his whole life in the corrupting avarice of Wall Street, followed by the venal corruption of municipal politics, followed by the high arrogance of the United States Senate -- how can we expect him to understand?  Has Senator Booker the imagination in his mind and the craft in his hands to fashion even a single, beautiful object? 

Ah, but he does have the cunning to know how to gain political advantage by destroying it.  And that appears to be enough these days.

"Round and round and round we go... in a dance to the music of time... endlessly repeating the past's errors... in bliss, ignorant, forgetfulness."