In defense of Sue Altman and the American right to protest

Policy by policy, there is not a great deal that we would agree on, but what happened to Sue Altman at the hands of the Trenton Establishment is disgraceful. Whatever her views and opinions and whatever you think of them, Sue Altman has the right to voice an opinion, to speak out and challenge the powerful, and to protest the conduct of a taxpayer-funded hearing, about taxpayer-funded programs, by taxpayer-funded elected officials, using taxpayer-funded resources.

Sue Altman didn’t “milkshake” anyone. Her band of leftists didn’t attempt to charge the panel and take over the microphone. At no point did they threaten violence. As part of an exposition of feeling on both sides, they booed – or some of them did – and this became sufficient “cause” for Committee Chairman Bob Smith to send men with guns to remove them. In doing this, Smith behaved like the very worst of the British government during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. He should be ashamed of himself.

And it was clear that they were targeting Sue Altman, the leader of the opposition in the room. A note of thanks to InsiderNJ – specifically to Max Pizarro and Fred Snowflack – who were on the scene to report the details of Smith’s outrageous behavior.

Jay Lassiter nailed it when he said this is all about “corporate welfare”. Yes, corporate welfare – crony capitalism – the economic engine of choice in nations like the formerly “Red” China, or National Socialist Germany, or Fascist Italy. It is not the Free Market. It has nothing to do with the American ideal so often preached, so rarely achieved. Corporate welfare, crony capitalism, is simply Establishment corruption, codified and enforced. It kills freedom and enslaves what remains.

From her left-wing perspective, Sue Altman understands this as well as any free-market libertarian. It is one of those issues that brings reformers of all political persuasions together, as noted by Ralph Nader in his memorable book, Unstoppable, written in 2015.

What happened yesterday is also one of those events that sorts out just who is who. We note with sadness that Senator Loretta Weinberg, someone who once at least tried to embrace reform, issued a craven statement to the media that praised Committee Chairman Smith and the crony capitalist Establishment. So now we know where she is.

Whatever her faults on this policy or that, Sue Altman is a brave woman who is doing the taxpayers of New Jersey a great service by demanding transparency and providing scrutiny to the operations of what are, after all, taxpayer-funded enterprises. Where most fear to go, she has gone. Now that she knows what they are capable of, now that she has suffered the rough attentions of their men with guns, we hope that she will continue undaunted.

Godspeed.

Hey Fred… It is called getting “Frelinghuysened”

By Sussex County Watchdog

InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack can’t think of a single Republican who was targeted by the Left and then driven out of office?  Well, we can.

Was there a nicer gentleman than Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen?  The Antifa Democrats targeted him and upset the old guy so much that his doctor told him to give it up.  They tormented a man whose public service began in the jungles of Vietnam and drove him out of office.  And it didn’t end – even after he agreed not to run again.  Remember how the Antifa Democrats held a party and mocked him, even as he closed his office?   

Two of these Antifa Democrats are now running for the Assembly – Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger.  They and their comrades showed up to the old gentleman’s office on its last day open – to “celebrate” by acting like dirtbags.  Well good for you.  You showed all the world what measure of class and grace you possess – obviously the kind of folks who get their jollies by pulling the wings off flies.  

Well, nobody is getting Frelinghuysened in Sussex County.  Antifa can hold its breath and kick and scream and all they are ever going to get in Sussex County is a sympathetic flip of the bird and the sincere advice to suck it. We give as good as we get and will keep on and on… until all the participants are dust.

God always saves a remnant.  Here, in Sussex County, we are that remnant.

We remember who we are.  We remember that America is a Republic.  That we are a nation of laws.  We have due process.  We have the Bill of Rights.  We do not succumb to the emotional howls of lynch mobs.  We do not honor vendettas or fatwas.  We don’t give in to terrorists.  We don’t let them have their way.  We are… Americans. 

Which brings us to Fred’s silly comparison between the NAACP’s Jeffrey Dye, who held a taxpayer-funded state Labor Department job, and the Sussex GOP’s Jerry Scanlan, who is a volunteer county college trustee.  Dye lost his taxpayer funded job for (as reported in InsiderNJ) having “authored some Facebook posts that were anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic.”

In the dismissal of Jeffrey Dye, we hope that the Murphy administration followed the law and there were work rules that addressed Dye’s actions.  We hope that Dye was afforded the due process that is the right of every worker when facing the often arbitrary power of an employer.   

The two great protections of the working class are the Bill of Rights and the right of workers to collectively organize.  If it ever becomes routine that an employer can simply fire someone when any old mob of people claims that he or she did something that gave “offense” then employers will have a ready tool to sweep away every protection that the working class has. 

In the case of Jerry Scanlan, the Board of Trustees of the Sussex County Community College failed to create a written policy to address the private use of social media by trustees, faculty, administration, and staff.  Scanlan broke no SCCC rules and did not use SCCC property.  He has no charge to answer for.  The Board’s only real course was to ask him very politely.  This they failed to do (and ultimately they placed the college in legal jeopardy).

Nobody would wish to live in a country in which the opinions of any old screaming mob constitutes the law.  Or a country in which laws are made up to appease the mob and then applied retroactively.  That would be a vigilante nation, a lawless nation. 

That might happen in other places… but not here.

HATE: InsiderNJ writes that Bible-based Christianity is “bizarre”.

Fred Snowflack is an idiot.  That is the only way to explain the InsiderNJ operative’s statement that denies the central tenant of all religions, which is that the religious belief they offer is the one and true way to salvation. 

Who goes to the church of “maybe this is the right way”? 

Are the people who own InsiderNJ too stupid to understand that this is how religions work or do they just hate the very concept of religion?  Perhaps in the Graham family what they worship is money and power and ass?  Hey, that is okay, but maybe you should employ open-minded people who understand that not everybody shares the same view.

Apparently at the church of the sacred orgasm – or whatever equivalent Mr. Snowflack attends – they have never heard of the “lake of fire” – also known as something called “hell”.  How is it that a man as old as Fred Snowflack has never encountered Dante’s Divine Comedy?  That he has somehow gone through life without ever coming across the concept of hell… even in the movies? 

Or maybe Snowflack knows exactly what the Christian pastor he smeared meant but pretended he didn’t so that Snowflack could appear “cool” and “oh so cosmopolitan”?  Face it Fred, you are neither.  You are just a persnickety old puritan.  You can’t help sticking your little old pecker into a story.

Snowflack attended a meeting of the Sussex County Community College Board of Trustees on Tuesday night to… well, “report the news” wouldn’t be quite accurate.  Fred makes up his stories beforehand and then fills in the blanks with his own brand of witty opinion.  Of course, one man’s wit is another man’s hate.

And Fred Snowflack shows us what he “hates” every time he posts a new story.  Of course, being a servile creature, Fred’s hates mirror those of his masters – the family of insurance vendors who own the InsiderNJ blog. 

When inconvenient facts pop up – like the poor job Sussex Democrats did in turning people out for the meeting or that half those present spoke up for and supported Sussex GOP Chairman Jerry Scanlan – Snowflack inflates the first by counting orifices and simply ignores the second.

Real journalists never describe things using subjective terms.  Real journalists might report that Mr. X or Ms. Y called something “hate” but real journalists don’t simply assign unprovable subjective terms to what is being reported on.  That isn’t newsworthy reportage, it is just opinion having a go at cross-dressing in order to look like news.  But here is Fred Snowflack…

“…after (GOP Chairman) Scanlan’s sexist and homophobic tweets, they (trustees) took the only action they could.”  Applying lines like “sexist” and “homophobic” doesn’t belong in a news report, it belongs on a piece of political campaign mail.  As for “the only action they could” – a reporter would report what a participant said.  In this case, Snowflack is the participant.  He’s become part of the story. 

Why is the Graham family content to pay for such poor and unconvincing work? 

Snowflack writes that (GOP Chairman) Scanlan “retweeted a series of offensive messages”.  Why the judgment?  Once again, Fred Snowflack has stuck his pecker in the story.  Wouldn’t a proper reporter write, “messages that some have found offensive”?  Why does Fred need feel the need to burden us with his pecker?  He should be an observer, not a participant. 

Then Snowflack makes the claim that neither he or Bill Curcio, or Howard Burrell, or Tyler Morgus or Michael Spekhardt have ever used or considered using the words “whore” or “bitch” or “lesbian” or “hag”.  Snowflack seems to believe that these words possess such power that their use turns the user into someone who must be shunned by all “good” society.  What a quaint puritan concept!  Besides which, it is a lie. 

It is a great pity that someone hasn’t invented a convenient boardroom polygraph machine.  Something with a single prod, neat and tidy.  In this way, before handing down such a ridiculous pronouncement, SCCC Chairman Bill Curcio could have inserted it into the anus of each and every board member, while the SCCC counsel asked them whether or not they had ever uttered any of those grave words.  After which, they could adjourn the meeting and all resign.

Think Snowflack’s writing couldn’t get weaker, check this out… “This became your proverbial hot potato for college trustees, who are not normally entwined in such controversies.”  “Proverbial hot potato”?  Maybe he meant “pecker”?

Well, there have been a few other “hot potatoes” that we can bring up from memory, like the time a Trustee was caught voting on SCCC contracts while taking monetary payments from the company being hired by the college.  Maybe – in the mind of a guy like Fred Snowflack – such conduct doesn’t rise to the level of a “hot potato” or a “re-tweet” or even a “hot pecker”, but it doesn’t sound very ethical to us.  But what are ethics when you work for government contractors yourself?

And now for the final insertion of the Snowflack pecker into the story… “But freedom of speech doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The trustees also had the right and the freedom to say that Scanlan’s tweets were incompatible with a college environment.”

What’s wrong here, aside from the insertion of the pecker, is that somehow Snowflack misses the fact that the trustees didn’t merely give their opinion, they labeled someone and punished him absent a written policy and outside the written rules of their organization.  Here, in America – in this country – we don’t punish people because other people think they should be punished.  It would be better that people go unpunished than to allow them to be punished at the whim of others.

Bill Curcio, Howard Burrell, Tyler Morgus, Michael Spekhardt, and the other members of the SCCC Board of Trustees failed to create a policy to deal with the private misuse of social media by trustees, faculty, and staff.  It is legally, morally, and ethically wrong to come up with an ad-hoc punishment, absent a written policy, simply because some people demanded it.

Even if the demand for punishment was popular (which, in this case, it is not), in America we don’t punish people simply because other people hold an opinion that they have done something wrong.  That is an evil precedent. 

The courts have ruled that calling someone a racist is every bit as damaging as calling someone a pedophile.  When Oberlin College tried to label someone a racist the college ended up getting hit with a $44 million judgment. 

We expect to see legal action taken against Sussex County Community College over the trustees’ institutional failures and unprofessional, irrational handling of this matter.  With spending out of control and enrollment declining, it will be a very high price to pay for making a fashion statement.

Hey Star-Ledger’s Julie O’Connor… this is who you are…

We all know who Julie O’Connor is.  She writes those lousy editorials about people when Tom Moran gets too bored to do it.  You know those editorials.  The ones that tell you more about the kind of day the writer is having than about anything actually going on in the world.

Julie O’Connor is part of the problem in corporate journalism today.  Here a colleague of Julie O’Connor is examined rather closely by a panel of the non-corporate/ non-neo-con Honest Left – on the Jimmy Dore show.  Enjoy…

Received opinion… (aka corporate opinion)

Amazing isn’t it?

InsiderNJ breaks ethics rules (changes GOP press release posted on their website)

For the second time in two weeks, the InsiderNJ blog has adulterated a press release issued by an elected Republican from Northwest New Jersey.  This is unethical and non-journalist (read political) conduct, according to the Society of Professional Journalists and a clear breach of journalistic ethics.   

As one longtime editor noted:  “It is one thing to write a story based on a press release, but to change the content of a press release in order to place that release in a bad light is highly unprofessional.”  He added:  “A press release belongs to the party issuing it.  The story that comes from it is a different matter.”

Is this a case of political bias against Republicans or is it about advancing an agenda of greed? 

InsiderNJ is owned by John F.X. Graham.  Graham is an insurance vendor to government entities and has been sniffing around Northwest New Jersey recently looking to get his snout in the trough.  Of course, with John F.X., his snout is not enough – he’ll want to get all four trotters in there too. 

Unhappily for John F.X. he’s been less than successful in greasing the locals – despite having good operatives in that part of New Jersey, courtesy of Fred Snowflack and the far-flung escapades of the one and only Jay Lassiter.  So is this a case of pique… or a warning shot by Fairview Insurance Agency? 

Time to break out the OPRAs…  Yeah, you could write a book about the Graham family and Fairview Insurance.  Maybe someone will.

In December 2017, the Observer wrote about John F.X. and his operation – the Fairview Insurance Agency – in a “special report” about “How Insurance Brokers Reap Public Funds Without Disclosure.”  It makes for interesting reading:

Insurance brokerages that make political donations are declining to disclose large amounts of money received indirectly from public entities. 

One of the biggest goldmines for contractors in New Jersey is selling insurance plans to public entities, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers across the state.

But an Observer review of dozens of public documents shows that in some cases, it’s difficult or impossible to get a complete accounting of the money going back and forth between insurance brokerages — some of which are deep-pocketed campaign donors — and the public entities that award lucrative insurance contracts.

For instance, Fairview Insurance Agency Associates is one of the largest political donors in New Jersey, giving more than $120,000 to various candidates and committees in 2016, the ninth-highest among businesses in the state, according to the state’s campaign finance watchdog agency.

The Verona-based brokerage is also a big contractor, raking in at least $1.1 million through public contracts or agreements across New Jersey in 2016.

Under state law, the firm is required to report annually all of its political donations and public contracts to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, provided it gets at least $50,000 in public contracts and makes at least one political donation of any amount. Curiously, however, some of the money Fairview gets indirectly from public entities is then reported to ELEC as $0.

The effect is that, to the average observer reading ELEC reports, Fairview would appear to have made much less from public entities and institutions than it actually got — directly and indirectly — in a given year.

Observer reviewed ELEC disclosures for five companies, only three of which were required to itemize their contracts and donations.

A review of six ELEC disclosure forms, 29 invoices, four contracts and eight resolutions by school boards and local councils revealed a loophole in state law that allows brokerages such as Fairview to not report to ELEC tens of thousands of dollars, or more, that they receive as a result of working for governments or public entities.

In 93 cases, three brokerages reported receiving $0 from public agreements in 2016 on their disclosure forms filed with ELEC...  In one case, Observer found that Fairview was paid $54,000 indirectly from Jersey City’s school board but later disclosed $0 to ELEC.

It works like this. Brokerages — which sell insurance plans to local governments — are often paid commissions or fees by third-party companies. In this scenario, the actual contract does not go to the brokerage, but to the third-party company, while the brokerage still gets a cut of the business.

In some cases, the dollar amount of these fees or commissions can be traced back by filing public records requests with local governments. Some public entities that answered such requests from Observer provided copies of the original public contracts, which in turn detailed the actual fees or commissions paid to insurance brokerages that were reported to ELEC as $0.

In other cases, there is no mechanism to piece together what a third-party company paid to a brokerage in commissions. Some public entities did not disclose or could not say how much their brokers were paid indirectly by their contractors.

In March 2015, the Jersey City Board of Education passed a resolution to award Fairview a $54,000 contract to be the school district’s prescription insurance broker for fiscal year 2016.

Fairview did not end up receiving an actual contract. The school board struck a deal two months later with Express Scripts to manage its prescription benefits plan, and in that contract, it directed Express Scripts to pay Fairview $4,500 per month on its behalf, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Jersey City school board. The school district essentially paid someone else to pay Fairview.

In the end, Fairview reported that it received $0 in 2015 and 2016 from its work for the Jersey City Board of Education, according to its annual reports filed with ELEC. The firm noted that the amounts it disclosed “do not include commissions received from the insurance carriers.” (Observer, December 6, 2017)

Campaign contributions flowing one-way, huge contracts flowing the other… minimal to no transparency. That’s New Jersey.

John F. X. Graham owns both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ (he holds titles of founder and publisher, respectively).  Michael J. Graham is Chief Operating Officer of both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ.  Ryan Graham is the Director of Business Development for the Fairview Insurance Agency and the Associate Publisher of InsiderNJ. 

That’s it folks… John F.X.’s grease machine has its own media mouthpiece with which to skew perceptions.  And that’s a handy thing to have in an age of hollowed out local coverage and a dearth of what was once called “investigative journalism.”  The press is now routinely used to punish the whistleblower, the taxpayer advocate, citizen activist, the underdog.  It’s easy to see why.

John F.X. has been called “a top Democrat fundraiser” by newspapers like the Bergen Record and the Newark Star-Ledger.  In addition to Hillary Clinton, John F.X. raised money for John Kerry in his 2004 presidential race, and he’s been a big giver to United States Senator Bob Menendez.  In fact, it was John F.X. who pushed the idea of Menendez on a national ticket as vice president:

In January 2008, the Jersey Journal along with other media outlets reported that “John F.X. Graham, one of Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Co-Chairs, thinks that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez would make a great choice if Clinton wins the Democratic Primary… Graham fired off an email this morning to Clinton Campaign Manager Terry McAuliffe listing politicians who would make good vice presidential material, including the choices most often brought up:  Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Joe Biden.  But Menendez, a Clinton campaign national co-chair, would be the “most intriguing” choice, Graham wrote.”

“The name Richardson does not sound exactly Latino,” wrote Graham.  “The Latino voting block is becoming the most influential in this election, especially with the immigration and other economic issues confronting our prosperity.  For lack of a better term, he is the Latino Barack Obama with the experience.” 

Why would John F.X. think that encouraging people to vote along racial or ethnic lines is good public policy?  Has he not heard of the former Yugoslavia? 

Finally, John F.X. made his pronouncements while Senator Menendez was the subject of an FBI investigation.  Not that something like that matters when you are making a fashion statement.

Yes, so it seems that InsiderNJ can also be considered an outpost of the far-flung Clinton Empire.  Ahhhh, corruption at its most tasty. 

As far as the money goes, national contacts and a national reach does have its advantages.  We found dozens of John F.X.’s insurance agency’s outposts around the country.  All making him money – but northern New Jersey and Essex County in particular is his base.  It was reported in Politico (November 24, 2014) that Essex County Democrat Party boss Joe DiVincenzo’s son worked for John F.X.’s insurance agency.  He also held a full-time public job as well. 

So it was no surprise that the most corrupt political machine in the state – the Essex County Democrats – inducted John F.X. into their “Hall of Fame” in March of 2015.  InsiderNJ editor, Max Pizarro wrote the panegyric, which we suppose was less messy than the alternative. 

Now can we ask this again?  What are these people doing handing out the rankings on New Jersey journalists?  Shouldn’t some organization, like the Society of Professional Journalists, be doing it?  Or the Columbia School of Journalism?  Or anything but the god-damned grease machine itself!

Ten years ago, the authors of The Soprano State – two old-school investigative journalists – joined with journalists like Josh Margolin to decry the “corruption tax” that added to the cost paid by New Jersey taxpayers on everything to do with government.  Could they have guessed that, ten years later, not only would the tax be more imbedded and less transparent, but that the very news agencies responsible for exposing and reporting on it would now be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the same grease machine responsible for the corruption?

New Jersey… you can’t make this stuff up.

Could Fred Snowflack pass a lie detector test to prove his moral superiority?

It’s bad enough Fred Snowflack writes for a blog owned and operated by a government contactor – an insurance operation no less – part of that grease-machine for which New Jersey is so famous.  Back in the day, when Snowflack was employed by actual newspapers, those journalists had a phrase when describing what you got from the grease-machine… they called it the “corruption tax” that made everything your tax dollars paid for more expensive.

But Fred doesn’t criticize the folks he works for these days.  These days, he argues against the Bill of Rights.  Snowflack claims that any time some Internet mob decides somebody has done anything they consider to be “offensive”, the mob has the right to have that person fired.  And Fred doesn’t seem to think this kind of extra-judicial mob “justice” will have a chilling effect on Free Speech??? 

Hey, if somebody broke the law… charge him.  If somebody broke the rules… discipline him (or her).  But if we are really going to demand someone’s head every time somebody writes or says or even “re-tweets” something somebody else finds offensive… then we better have pretty darn perfect people to start out with.  Because the Internet mob can be fickle about who it destroys… just ask former United States Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota). 

We think it time to break out the polygraphs.  Lie detector tests for everyone! 

Every member of the Board of Trustees of Sussex County Community College (SCCC) should be made to take a lie detector test.  They should be asked every question under the sun to cover every possible kind “offensive” behavior that could be imagined at some later date by some Internet mob.  From adultery and bad words to excessive drinking and the veracity of how they file their taxes… have they ever lusted after one of the SCCC students (even in their mind, because thought crime is the real crime, didn’t you know).

We should make Fred Snowflack take it too… and the monsters he works for.  It would be a blast…

Speaking of monsters.  There’s an old saying among machine politicians in Philadelphia.  It goes like this, “If you say you’re the boss, and nobody says you aint the boss, then you’re the boss.”

John F.X. Graham probably heard it back in the day, when he was prowling around amongst the ward healers in that sainted city of brotherly love.  Back when “ethnic” meant second or third generation Irish or Polish or Italian and individual neighborhoods developed their own dialects (yes, people really did talk like Rocky back then).

John F. X. moved to New Jersey where he followed the yellow brick road of selling insurance to government entities.  Unlike South Jersey’s George Norcross, John F. X. wasn’t really interested in building a political machine.  He was content with a money machine – the old-fashioned kind, the grease machine that uses campaign contributions to lube the representatives of the taxpayers, so that their money pumps out in a nice, steady stream.

In December 2017, the Observer wrote about John F.X. and his operation – the Fairview Insurance Agency – in a “special report” about “How Insurance Brokers Reap Public Funds Without Disclosure.”  It makes for interesting reading:

Insurance brokerages that make political donations are declining to disclose large amounts of money received indirectly from public entities.

One of the biggest goldmines for contractors in New Jersey is selling insurance plans to public entities, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers across the state.

But an Observer review of dozens of public documents shows that in some cases, it’s difficult or impossible to get a complete accounting of the money going back and forth between insurance brokerages — some of which are deep-pocketed campaign donors — and the public entities that award lucrative insurance contracts.

For instance, Fairview Insurance Agency Associates is one of the largest political donors in New Jersey, giving more than $120,000 to various candidates and committees in 2016, the ninth-highest among businesses in the state, according to the state’s campaign finance watchdog agency.

The Verona-based brokerage is also a big contractor, raking in at least $1.1 million through public contracts or agreements across New Jersey in 2016.

Under state law, the firm is required to report annually all of its political donations and public contracts to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, provided it gets at least $50,000 in public contracts and makes at least one political donation of any amount. Curiously, however, some of the money Fairview gets indirectly from public entities is then reported to ELEC as $0.

The effect is that, to the average observer reading ELEC reports, Fairview would appear to have made much less from public entities and institutions than it actually got — directly and indirectly — in a given year.

Observer reviewed ELEC disclosures for five companies, only three of which were required to itemize their contracts and donations.

A review of six ELEC disclosure forms, 29 invoices, four contracts and eight resolutions by school boards and local councils revealed a loophole in state law that allows brokerages such as Fairview to not report to ELEC tens of thousands of dollars, or more, that they receive as a result of working for governments or public entities.

In 93 cases, three brokerages reported receiving $0 from public agreements in 2016 on their disclosure forms filed with ELEC...  In one case, Observer found that Fairview was paid $54,000 indirectly from Jersey City’s school board but later disclosed $0 to ELEC.

It works like this. Brokerages — which sell insurance plans to local governments — are often paid commissions or fees by third-party companies. In this scenario, the actual contract does not go to the brokerage, but to the third-party company, while the brokerage still gets a cut of the business.

In some cases, the dollar amount of these fees or commissions can be traced back by filing public records requests with local governments. Some public entities that answered such requests from Observer provided copies of the original public contracts, which in turn detailed the actual fees or commissions paid to insurance brokerages that were reported to ELEC as $0.

In other cases, there is no mechanism to piece together what a third-party company paid to a brokerage in commissions. Some public entities did not disclose or could not say how much their brokers were paid indirectly by their contractors.

In March 2015, the Jersey City Board of Education passed a resolution to award Fairview a $54,000 contract to be the school district’s prescription insurance broker for fiscal year 2016.

Fairview did not end up receiving an actual contract. The school board struck a deal two months later with Express Scripts to manage its prescription benefits plan, and in that contract, it directed Express Scripts to pay Fairview $4,500 per month on its behalf, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Jersey City school board. The school district essentially paid someone else to pay Fairview.

In the end, Fairview reported that it received $0 in 2015 and 2016 from its work for the Jersey City Board of Education, according to its annual reports filed with ELEC. The firm noted that the amounts it disclosed “do not include commissions received from the insurance carriers.” (Observer, December 6, 2017) 

Campaign contributions flowing one-way, huge contracts flowing the other… minimal to no transparency. That’s New Jersey.

The problem is… the Fairview Insurance Agency owns the news agency (InsiderNJ) that hands out the designations as to who is who in New Jersey media.  And so we come to the quote used earlier…

“If you say you’re the boss, and nobody says you aint the boss, then you’re the boss.”  It is a scam, perpetrated by a bunch of b.s. artist insurance salesmen.

John F. X. Graham owns both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ (he holds titles of founder and publisher, respectively).  Michael J. Graham is Chief Operating Officer of both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ.  Ryan Graham is the Director of Business Development for the Fairview Insurance Agency and the Associate Publisher of InsiderNJ. 

That’s it folks… John F.X.’s grease machine has its own media mouthpiece with which to skew perceptions.  And that’s a handy thing to have in an age of hollowed out local coverage and a dearth of what was once called “investigative journalism.”  The press is now routinely used to punish the whistleblower, the taxpayer advocate, citizen activist, the underdog.  It’s easy to see why.

Now don’t get us wrong, just because John F.X. is all about the money… and the money… and the money… and the money… That doesn’t mean he’s not above playing the part of the noble, the enlightened, crony capitalist.  Hey, didn’t some notorious mob boss put a roof on a church?  Doesn’t Johnson & Johnson make up for failing to warn women that their product could cause uterine cancer by being oh so woke on LGBTQ?  It pays to have fashionable connections and to assist those connections in the higher causes of fashion.

John F.X. is a friend of Hillary.  Yes, that old wind bag.  You could forgive him being a friend of Bill because, heck, who wouldn’t want a night out on the town with Bill Clinton?  He’d make a Saturday night seem like a month of weekends.  But Hillary?  You know that’s just fashion.

Nevertheless, John F.X. has been called “a top Democrat fundraiser” by newspapers like the Bergen Record and the Newark Star-Ledger.  In addition to Hillary Clinton, John F.X. raised money for John Kerry in his 2004 presidential race, and he’s been a big giver to United States Senator Bob Menendez.  In fact, it was John F.X. who pushed the idea of Menendez on a national ticket as vice president:

In January 2008, the Jersey Journal along with other media outlets reported that “John F.X. Graham, one of Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Co-Chairs, thinks that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez would make a great choice if Clinton wins the Democratic Primary… Graham fired off an email this morning to Clinton Campaign Manager Terry McAuliffe listing politicians who would make good vice presidential material, including the choices most often brought up:  Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Joe Biden.  But Menendez, a Clinton campaign national co-chair, would be the “most intriguing” choice, Graham wrote.”

“The name Richardson does not sound exactly Latino,” wrote Graham.  “The Latino voting block is becoming the most influential in this election, especially with the immigration and other economic issues confronting our prosperity.  For lack of a better term, he is the Latino Barack Obama with the experience.” 

Why would John F.X. think that encouraging people to vote along racial or ethnic lines is good public policy?  Has he not heard of the former Yugoslavia? 

Finally, John F.X. made his pronouncements while Senator Menendez was the subject of an FBI investigation.  Not that something like that matters when you are making a fashion statement.

Yes, so it seems that InsiderNJ can also be considered an outpost of the far-flung Clinton Empire.  Ahhhh, corruption at its most tasty. 

And it looks as though John F.X. is quite a big deal.  Even Wikileaks picked up loads of correspondence between John F.X. and his fellow Clintonistas.  Here is an example:

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As far as the money goes, national contacts and a national reach does have its advantages.  We found dozens of John F.X.’s insurance agency’s outposts around the country.  All making him money – but northern New Jersey and Essex County in particular is his base.  It was reported in Politico (November 24, 2014) that Essex County Democrat Party boss Joe DiVincenzo’s son worked for John F.X.’s insurance agency.  He also held a full-time public job as well. 

So it was no surprise that the most corrupt political machine in the state – the Essex County Democrats – inducted John F.X. into their “Hall of Fame” in March of 2015.  InsiderNJ editor, Max Pizarro wrote the panegyric, which we suppose was less messy than the alternative. 

Now can we ask this again?  What are these people doing handing out the rankings on New Jersey journalists?  Shouldn’t some organization, like the Society of Professional Journalists, be doing it?  Or the Columbia School of Journalism?  Or anything but the god-damned grease machine itself!

Ten years ago, the authors of The Soprano State – two old-school investigative journalists – joined with journalists like Josh Margolin to decry the “corruption tax” that added to the cost paid by New Jersey taxpayers on everything to do with government.  Could they have guessed that, ten years later, not only would the tax be more imbedded and less transparent, but that the very news agencies responsible for exposing and reporting on it would now be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the same grease machine responsible for the corruption?

New Jersey… you can’t make this stuff up.

Fred Snowflake on Deana Lykins: 900 words and not a mention of Lykins’ bankruptcy?

Fred Snowflake is a used-to-be journalist who now writes propaganda for one of the biggest slime-ball government vendors in New Jersey.  His boss’ latest project is Deana Lykins.

Deana Lykins is a lawyer-lobbyist and member of the One Percent.  She has a big house, fancy automobiles, and a wealthy lifestyle… but that didn’t stop her from spending herself into bankruptcy court.  She recently announced her candidacy for Assembly, running as a Phil Murphy Democrat.

In August of 2014, the candidate filed for bankruptcy (case #14-26076) in federal court and reported a monthly household income of $23,576.00 (that’s every month).  That’s more than the yearly income (per capita) of the average resident in a town like Sussex Borough ($20,887). 

From the bankruptcy court filings, the debt appears to be consumer or lifestyle based… with a number of credit card companies listed as creditors, as well as tax authorities.  Property listed included a large, well-appointed house, as well as a BMW, Land Rover, and a Chrysler Sebring.

Candidate Lykins is well-known in Trenton, where she worked for the Democrats in the Legislature before turning into a lobbyist for the insurance industry.  What skills she has to offer are ominous – especially in the area of keeping spending in check and balancing budgets – but Lykins would be a safe vote in support of the spending and debt agenda of Democrat Governor Phil Murphy and the rest of the Trenton Democrats. 

In the furtherance of the agenda of his boss (the slime-ball government vendor who is supporting lawyer-lobbyist Lykins), Fred Snowflake went so far as to LIE.  Yep, a really BIG LIE.  Snowflake made a false claim against a Republican, calling him “a colorful sort who caused a commotion awhile back by posing with the Confederate battle flag.” 

No, it was the banner of the Hank Williams Jr. Country & Western Band.  Now Fred Snowflake isn’t such a stupid SOB to really believe that the Hank Williams Jr. Country & Western Band Banner was around back in 1861-65 during the Civil War.  Yep, this is just Fred being a handjob… lying about someone to make his boss happy. 

We’ll make a bet with old Fred Snowflake.  If Fred can find a photograph or documentation that any Confederate military unit ever marched to war under the Hank Williams Jr. Country & Western Band Banner, we’ll publicly kiss his ass.  And if he can’t – and he won’t – we expect in fairness that Fred Snowflake publicly kiss his own ass.  At the State House will do.  In the middle of a legislative session.  Give the other handjobs something to Tweet about. 

In the meantime, if Fred or any of the other handjobs want to write about flags… well we have some suggestions for them…

This 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.  Look familiar?

Liar Mikie Sherrill is no Josh Gottheimer. Newcomer goes back on her word. Twice.

What’s wrong with Democrat Mikie Sherrill?

First, she told the voters of the 11th District that she wouldn’t support the deeply unpopular Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.  

Now, the media is reporting that Mikie Sherrill is going back on her word.  According to Roll Call, less than two weeks after being elected, she was already playing politics:

Democrats Who Ran Anti-Pelosi Campaigns Show Signs of Cracking

Some of the newly elected Democratic House members who said on the campaign trail they would not support Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for speaker have already shown signs of cracking as Pelosi ramps up the pressure for them not to divide the party before it even takes control of the chamber in January.

Rep.-elect Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat who said during her campaign that the party needs “new leadership, and it starts at the top,” declined to affirm that statement after meeting with Pelosi on Friday.

“I’m sorry, I got to go,” Sherrill told reporters waiting outside the minority leader’s office. She directed reporters to her press aide.

In an interview on Oct. 11 on local TV, Sherrill blasted her Republican opponent for trying to tie her to Pelosi at a debate.

“I don’t support Nancy Pelosi. I put out a commercial saying that I don’t support Nancy Pelosi,” Sherrill said.

The New Jersey Democrat is one of a handful of freshman Democrats who have softened their opposition to the caucus’s likely choice for speaker in January.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/new-democrats-ran-anti-pelosi-campaigns-show-signs-cracking

Remember those expensive political advertisements Mike Sherrill used to win over voters?  

That’s Mikie Sherrill promising to “stop the partisan politics” – but once again, she’s gone back on her word.  The ink isn’t dry on her election victory, and she is already targeting a local Republican legislator she should be looking to work with to get the job done for her constituents.

Instead of working across party lines, Mikie Sherrill is heading up a political campaign for the state Legislature.  It was announced last week that Sherrill will serve as the Chairman of the campaign of two Democrat candidates for the state Legislature.  How is that ending partisan politics?

From: Lisa Bhimani
Date: November 19, 2018 at 1:08:22 PM EST
Cc: 
Subject: Our campaign kickoff Monday 11/26!

Hi friend -

Darcy Draeger and I would like to invite you to the formal launch of our campaign for Assembly in the 25th Legislative District. We are thrilled that Mikie Sherrill, Congresswoman-elect from NJ’s 11th District, will be attending as a special guest and has agreed to chair of our campaign. 

Please join us Monday, November 26th at 1:30pm at the Brookside Community Center in Mendham. Please see the below for more information. 

We'd love to see you there. 

Best,

Lisa and Darcy

More and more it looks like Mikie Sherrill won her seat dishonestly – by lying to the voters and deceiving them as to her real intentions.  

That should come as no surprise to NJTV’s top journalist Michael Aron.  During the campaign, Aron asked Sherrill’s spokesperson to give the media a little more on Mikie Sherrill than the “Navy pilot – Prosecutor – Mom” routine.  Sherrill’s spokesperson smiled at Aron and said: “That’s all you’re ever going to get to know.” Well maybe during the campaign, but now that she’s in office, the bark is going to get peeled off that tree.  It can’t help but be.

Mikie Sherrill’s failure to keep her word on bi-partisanship is in stark contrast to the record of fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer, who has maintained the gold standard of bi-partisanship in the neighboring 5th congressional district.  You wouldn’t catch Congressman Gottheimer pulling a stunt like Sherrill’s in LD25 – and that’s after he’s been re-elected!  

Of course, this didn’t stop the vendor owned InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflake from engaging in the usual handjob snark about whether Sherrill should be endorsing a Republican instead of Bhimani and Draeger.  If bi-partisan is really and truly your thing, why endorse anyone? Just work with what is. But trust a handjob not to get it (everything is either/or, black/white with them… very anal).

The same NJ media that covered up for Clinton, tries to do the same for Menendez

Remember how the newspapers tried to discredit the source for the claim that Bill Clinton had seduced Monica Lewinsky in the White House?  Remember how the media told us that Linda Tripp was a “liar” and that she used “right wing” media outlets to peddle her "meaningless" allegations?

All part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton assured us.  And NOW – the National Organization for Women – stood by their man, and so did legions of Democrat women politicians.  They all assured us that Bill Clinton would NEVER act so inappropriately.

Yep, the media was right on that!  We all know today that Bill Clinton DID NOT have sex with Monica Lewinsky, right???

And as more and more evidence piled up, the media just dismissed it.  When other women came forward and said they were raped.  The media trashed them, called them trailer park trash, said it was all a plot to damage the good name of William Jefferson Clinton.  They advised us to Move On…

One New Jersey newspaper published an editorial with the title:  "GOTCHA" POLITICS HIT A NEW LOW WITH STARR'S SEX INVESTIGATION. 

Another New Jersey newspaper did an editorial that simply said:  TIME TO END IT.

Well, it’s déjà vu all over again!

On Wednesday, there was United States Senator Bob Menendez and, like Bill Clinton once upon a time, he was surrounded by NOW and a bevy of female Democrat office holders whose political fortunes (for better or for worse) are tied to the Senator’s.  There was Bob Menendez himself, doing his best… “I did not have sex…” imitation of Bill Clinton.  And there was the media, once again failing to read what they wrote last time, talking about “gutter” politics and “right wing blogs” and trashing the women, and the prosecutors, and the GOP. 

Hey Tom Moran, Fred Snowflake, Hand of Hand, Moe of Moe, and all those media mavens who want to shake their tallywhackers at us to make it so…

Guys, you bullshit us once.  Then – along comes Brett Kavanaugh – and you went back on your bullshit and said the opposite of everything you said when it was Bill Clinton.  Now (and it’s just been a few weeks for Christ sake!) you want to go back on everything you just said about Brett Kavanaugh and tell us there’s a new set of rules – and why?  Because it’s about Bob Menendez???

Fellas, keep your bullshit.  You have the collective credibility and moral authority of an unwiped ass.  Nobody is buying it besides those phonies from NOW.

Fred Snowflake tries to make excuses for Menendez and the underaged girls.

We remember when Fred was the editor for a legit newspaper – a real journalist.  Then he went corporate and ended up writing for a blog that shills for a Democrat vendor – yes, a greaser greasing the grease machine of contributions and contracts – a guy who lives so far up Bob Menendez’ ass that he wanted him to be Vice President instead of Joe Biden. 

Writing from the perspective of a Left Wing Blog, Fred tries to dismiss something because he claims it was written in a “Right Wing blog” and fails to see the irony in doing so.  It’s kind of pathetic.

Hey Fred, BelieveWomen!  Women made the accusation against Bob Menendez and just because those women are darker-skinned than Dr. Christine Blasey Ford or don’t have her economic and educational “privilege” – and maybe they don’t speak English, so what – that doesn’t make them liars, does it?  What’s wrong with you, Fred, are you some kind of racist?

Oh, you say they say they got their stories wrong?  After what?  After some corrupt criminal billionaire calls up the local Establishment he’s paid into down there and sets the “man” on them?  And the “man” down there don’t do due process, Fred.  Read up on it sometime, Fred, they have death squads down there.

And how about those lovely young ladies from Eastern Europe who the Honorable Member from New Jersey helped traffick into the United States for his old-assed buddy to play with?  Are you going to argue that they just hold hands?  Huh, Fred?  No Fred, it’s  a crime against nature that’s what that is.

Fred tries to dismiss what the FBI said and President Obama’s Justice Department said (that’s right – President Obama’s Justice Department – not Trump’s) about the scumbag behavior of Bob Menendez.  But Fred doesn’t examine the documents, he just waves his tallywhacker and expects all that documentation to magically disappear.

Documentation like this…

And this…

menendez Doc 2 by Sussex Watchdog

 And don’t forget this…

Yeah, it all comes down to hypocrisy, don’t it Fred?  Bob Menendez brought this upon himself the day he wanted to play “butter-doesn’t-melt-in-my-mouth” at the Kavanaugh confirmation.  The old Fred, the journalist, would have got it.  The new Fred, the shill for the greaser vendor and Menendez fundraiser, not so much.  Hey, things change. 

On Getting People to Vote, Fred Snowflack has some words of wisdom.

Fred Snowflack is a wise old owl.  A career journalist of the old school, card carrier of the Society of Professional Journalists, an exceptional editor, and the type of old-fashioned liberal that every small community once benefitted from -- be it town or neighborhood.  His traditional liberalism, long out of fashion today, was tuned to Professor Karl Polanyi's warning that... "Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation.  Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed."

We are fortunate that Mr. Snowflack still has a venue for his writing.  The balanced opinions he once offered in the pages of Gannett publications like the Daily Record are now available on InsiderNJ.com.  Yesterday's column by Snowflack, was evidence (if any was needed) that he has lost none of his abilities to get to the heart of something and touch it with a needle.  Writing about the Women's March rally in Morristown over the weekend, he offered this insight:

" Are we seeing a Democratic version of the Tea Party?

Perhaps.

That thought crossed my mind last weekend as I covered the Women’s March in Morristown and read about similar marches all over the country.

I came across one quote in particular from a Bergen County woman who attended the march in Manhattan. She said that until the election of Donald Trump as president, she and her circle of friends spent much of their TV time watching “reality shows.”  Now, they watch news programs, or if you prefer, “real reality shows.”

This is important for politics now and going forward. 

Follow politics for a while and you quickly realize that a key to winning elections is not convincing those who disagree with you to come over to your side. That’s unlikely to happen, especially in these very polarizing times.

The key is to somehow get those who agree with you to actually vote.

This is critical at a time when voter turnout is considered good if it reaches 50 percent. The more “non-voters” you can energize, the better it is for you.

His full column is here:  https://www.insidernj.com/anti-trump-political-movement-search-name-catchy-tea-party/

Wow!  Now there is a man who gets it! 

The key to winning elections is to motivate people who generally don't vote, but who would consider voting for your party. 

That's contrary to the mantra coming from some GOP types -- like defeated gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno.  They claim that only a "moderate" can win statewide.  This is, of course, simply an opinion and an opinion that ignores the fact that the only Republican who has won statewide in the last twenty years has been Pro-Life, Pro-Second Amendment, and opposed to Same-Sex Marriage.

This unreason is widespread and it gets even worse.  Indeed, in the case of the Bergen County Republican Organization (BCRO), the claim is made that only a "moderate" can win in a congressional district that voted for Donald Trump. 

In these very partisan times, merely having an "R" next to your name -- leave out supporting Donald Trump or Chris Christie -- is enough to preclude any significant support from voters who self-identify as Pro-Choice on Abortion, Pro-Gun Control, and Pro-LGBT.  If these are your first tier issues, what floats your boat, you are not voting Republican in 2018.  Period.

Despite this, there is a full court press to mint Republican candidates who intentionally suppress key parts of the GOP base.  Like the BCRO's Pro-Abortion John McCann.  In elections that increasingly depend on identifying and turning out anyone who will even consider voting Republican, this is a disastrous trend. 

Of course, these left-of-center Republicans tend to be popular with the dregs of the GOP's Whitman-era glitterati --  cocktail-party liberals and crony capitalists who still think they run the NJGOP -- and who are increasingly uncomfortable in the knowledge that they make up just a thimbleful of actual Republican voters. 

Unfortunately for them, most voters are not looking to transfer more wealth and power to the one-percent, while infantilizing various "groups" deemed worthy of protection. 

Working class Republican voters and working class Democrat voters are really not that different.  They care about being able to have the means to life.  They want jobs, the opportunity to start a small business; to be free from the worry of foreclosure; an education system that balances costs with results; a safety net that hasn't all been spent before they need it, and a justice system that looks on them a free citizens and that keeps safe the places where they live, work, and shop. 

The needs of working people are pretty straightforward.  If it were an ice cream shop it would be plain vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.  Of course, the oligarchs of the Democrat Party can't provide that -- so they advertise a dozen flavors other than vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry -- while the "My Party Too" Whitman Republicans have placed out a sign that says, "Closed for business, we've run out of ideas."

Why this is so was the subject of a study conducted by Princeton University.  Take the time to listen to this video.  It could be an eye-opener:

Instead of trying to stand-out and apart from the "usual" Republican through the tired and ultimately unconvincing trope of "a different kind of Republican" when it comes to abortion and LGBT rights, the next generation of Republican candidates could act boldly and stand out as pledged to ending modern slavery.  If you need to know how bad it is, just read the newspapers.  Just last week, the Star-Ledger ran this...

"Authorities say a teenage girl found walking along Interstate 295 in Mercer County last week was a victim of human trafficking and had escaped from a motel, where she was forced into prostitution...

An investigation led to the arrests of Ashley Gardener, 29, and her partner, Breon Mickens, 26, both of Trenton.

Mickens and Gardener had transported the teenager to multiple hotels against her will and forced her to engage in prostitution, police said. 

Gardener allegedly forced the victim to engage in sexual activity with multiple men and allegedly collected the money paid by the clients. She also placed sexually suggestive ads on Backpage.com with photos of herself and the victim, police said.

The ads offered adult entertainment and listed a phone number police say belonged to Gardener."

Or you can listen to Ashton Kutcher's testimony before Congress...

According to the U.S. Justice Department, as many as 300,000 Americans under 18 are lured into the commercial sex trade every year.  The Internet is the vehicle for 76 percent of the transactions for sex with underage girls. 

The average victim is between 11 and 14 years old.  These victims come from all walks of life -- from every race, social, and economic background.

The problem is made worse by America's fluid borders.  According to the United Nations (UNICEF), 2 million children are trafficked in the global prostitution trade. The U.S. State Department reports that from 600,000 to 800,000 people (mainly women and children) are bought and sold across international borders every year and exploited for slave labor and prostitution.

Human Trafficking has surpassed the sale of illegal arms and is set to surpass the illegal sale of drugs.  The FBI reports that human trafficking is on the rise in all 50 states and represents a multi-billion dollar criminal industry. 

New Jersey is a "hub for human trafficking," according to the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.  In September, 14 people were arrested in a child-porn and human trafficking operation in Monmouth County.  In October , the FBI announced that it had uncovered and arrested 42 child sex traffickers in New Jersey.  The Star-Ledger reported that the 42 were arrested on charges that included sex trafficking, child exploitation and prostitution.  A total of 84 children were rescued during the operation.  At the beginning of December, 79 suspects were arrested on a host of charges that included sexual assault, using the Internet to send inappropriate images to children, and child pornography. 

And with schools requiring young students to have access to the Internet, it is no longer about the parent.  The government-run education system supplants the parents and requires the child to be connected to the Internet.  For many children, it's like requiring them to walk to and from school on a dangerous, traffic-filled highway.

There was legislation in Trenton to addresses this growing criminal enterprise aimed at our children.  It was a bill championed by Republican State Senator Steve Oroho, and it attracted substantial bi-partisan support.  Despite having enough legislators committed to passing this legislation -- either as co-sponsors or supporters -- the Democrats who run both chambers of the Legislature killed it.

They listened to objections from the porn industry, who have adopted a "no questions asked" attitude on where their profits come from.  Porn is legal and the corporations who profit from it and their allies are the enablers of human trafficking.

This state legislation has companion bills in nearly every state and in the United States Congress.  Republicans could be its champion.  Instead of taking on the self-defeating label of "Pro-Choice on Abortion Republican", Republicans could be the face of the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act and offer a constitutional way to prevent predators from using the Internet to sexually exploit children.  Republicans could be leaders in championing the technology to defeat child sex traffickers.

Yes, we know it is outside the Whitman-era, "My Party Too" box.  But think about it.