Is Sen. Weinberg empowering Trenton’s bad sexual habits towards women?

By Rubashov
 
On Sunday last, the Star-Ledger ran an expose on the bad sexual behaviors of those in Trenton who make and administer our laws.  On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-37) put out a press release claiming shock, writing that she was “saddened and disheartened” to learn of the cases detailed by the Star-Ledger – concerning twenty women who were “groped, propositioned, harassed and even sexually assaulted.” 
 
As Senator Weinberg has held political office in New Jersey since 1975 – and has been a legislator since 1992 – we find it remarkable, indeed unbelievable, that Sunday is the first she’s heard of behavior that has long been openly practiced in Trenton and in other venues of power around the state.  Anyone who has observed Trenton for any length of time (and there are those of us who have watched at close quarters for some decades) knows about the sexual merry-go-round that operates there.
 
And it’s not just women who have been victimized.  After all, didn’t the revered and feted former Governor Jim McGreevey assign one of his male staffers the task of keeping his First Lady sated?  This is not meant in any way as a negative commentary on the obvious physical attractiveness of the then Mrs. McGreevey, a former reporter for the Record, but such an assignment is somewhat exotic and should constitute a form of harassment. 
 
And it’s not just men who have victimized women.  During the administration of Governor Christine Todd Whitman there were situations, one notable in which a senior female administration figure was accused of sexually harassing and propositioning a young female staffer.  That staffer received no thanks and less support for reporting said allegations, and the matter was quickly extinguished.
 
One could fill a book with the promiscuity and downright bizarre sexual practices displayed by, mainly men, who seem at times to be making up for some drought suffered during high school.  There is the story of the legislator who installed a family member as an intern at the State House, only to have her become the prey of a more senior legislator.  Now this legislator was old school, stormed into his colleague’s office, taking him by the throat, and threatening to – let us say – deball his colleague.  When his more senior colleague reminded him of the State Police officer on duty nearby, the legislator suggested that he call the officer in, and the media, for a press conference about why the senior legislator was being deballed.  There was no police, no press conference, just heartfelt apologies and accommodations.  Pity.  He needed deballing.
 
You want to talk about Weird New Jersey?  This state is home to elected officials who have got up to such things as accessing child porn on a legislative office computer, urinating on a crowd of his own supporters, stalking women while impersonating law enforcement, being drunk at a swingers convention, requiring a state house employee to accompany one to a New York City sex club, placing a daughter’s college roommate on the public payroll in order to make her a paramour, and conspiring to kidnap and eat his female victims.  These are just a handful of the dozens and dozens and dozens of such stories. 
 
We suppose it should come as no shock that now they’re trying to screw working moms out of employment and force children to comply against their will and that of their parents.  These politicians are beyond shame.  They are crazy.  Stone cold nuts.  And if their constituents knew even half of it, they would never stop throwing up.
 
Senator Weinberg has been around long enough to know all of this.  We found it particularly hypocritical of her to condemn the New Jersey State League of Municipalities and the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce for what she called their “see no evil responses.”  In fact, the same can be said of Senator Weinberg – and not just concerning what goes on at some annual event – but about what happens every day, day in, day out, in Trenton.
 
Senator Weinberg is part of the power structure in Trenton.  So how many of those in that power structure sleep with staff members who they have the power to fire at will?  How many of her colleagues have sexual dependents on their payrolls?  Would the taxpayers approve of paying for this?
 
The military doesn’t allow such fraternization.  Neither do enlightened corporations.  What message does it send?  What tone does it set – when powerful people are allowed to hire paramours or groom them at the workplace? 
 
This is where the rot begins.  Everyone knows what is going on, everyone sees it, people are rewarded, predators are lauded and further empowered – and nothing is said.  And Senator Weinberg is somehow surprised when it goes outside the Trenton workplace and occurs at the social gatherings of such people?  Don’t start at the fringes – clean it up at the source!      
 
If Senator Weinberg is serious about what she put out in her press release, she might wish to start with her Democrat colleague in the nearby 32nd District…
 

This has been out in the public domain since 2011 – nearly a decade – and it happened just down the road from where Senator Weinberg lives!  And she’s putting out press releases in 2019 suggesting that this kind of misogynistic behavior is news to her?  We have to ask… are you for real?
 
And why haven’t the members of Congress who represent Bergen and Hudson Counties spoken up about this State Senator?  Why haven’t we heard from Congressmen Josh Gottheimer (D-5), Albio Sires (D-8), Bill Pascrell (D-9), or Donald Payne (D-10)?  These men have all been quick to blame political opponents for indiscretions but are mute when it comes to their political allies.  Don’t they understand that nothing will ever change that way?    
 
There are many serious people in politics and public policy.  You have people like Sue Altman on the Left and Regina Egea on the Right.  But there are a lot more jumped-up, wannabe political celebrities.  And like all celebrities, they think they are special.  They think taxpayers’ money is their money.  They think the voters are their subjects – to be bossed, mandated, manipulated, and ordered about.  They think people are put on earth for them to consume.
 
The institutional misogyny that pervades the Trenton Establishment will never be adequately addressed by a pillar of that Establishment.  Senator Weinberg has too many deals in place and, as a member of the legislative  leadership, she’s part of the problem.  One need only be reminded of how she single-handedly prevented the bi-partisan Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act from even getting a hearing in committee – in spite of this legislation having enough co-sponsors of both parties to ensure its passage.
 
It’s time for ordinary voters – women and men – to insist that their elected officials practice some humility and recognize that they are servants of the public, not masters.

John McCann: "I got to stop drinking in the morning"

Yep, that's what candidate John McCann said as he -- the candidate who hopes to take on Democrat Josh Gottheimer -- stumbled about, mistaking a rural Republican Sheriff for an urban Democrat Mayor.  That was his excuse, "...drinking in the morning."  No kidding.  It is in his video, posted on YouTube, about twelve minutes into his speech.  Well, if that's what the candidate says... we got to go with it.

Candidate John McCann is a shambolic mess.

He launched a website the other day and who does it feature?  Yep, a leftist anti-Second Amendment mayor who blocked a gun range from being built in her town.  That's  what this idiot led with.   Amazing!  McCann's event was hosted by a member of the notorious Zisa family... yep, the liberal niece of far-left Democrat Loretta Weinberg's former running mate, up front, running the event for him.   Remarkable.

When he's not comparing himself to his mentor, the liberal Democrat-turned Republican-turned Democrat Arlen Specter, McCann is surrounding himself with the detritus of Christie "My Party Too" Whitman's administration -- some who have had the uncanny ability to remain in state employment during the regimes of liberal Democrats like Governors Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine.  How did they manage to stay when so many loyal Republicans were fired?  Doubtless they will remain unaffected by the incoming administration of Phil Murphy.  How do they do it?  

As a college intern (or "fellow" as he puts it) John McCann claims to have been responsible for ending Hillary Care... yep, all by himself.  You see, he got out his crayons and came up with... wait for it... a graph.  That's right.  A graph.  And just like the typical self-important, overblown junior academic, he takes credit for the hard work of all those Senators and Congressman and Rush Limbaugh and talk radio and the medical professionals and all those thousands of conservative activists and all the reams of studies and research and opinion pieces and thousands of graphs of all those conservative and libertarian think tanks -- not to mention the Republican legal staffs of both the House and the Senate.  Nope, not them... it was "me" says McCann.  Yeah, sounds a little whacky to us too.

He also steals credit for coming up with the 2 percent cap on property taxes, despite a plethora of newspaper stories discussing caps as low as 1 1/2 percent nearly a decade before he claims to have thought of it.  Now we're getting into Al Gore territory here.  What's next?  Will he take credit for inventing the Internet?  Or maybe he's the last survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn?  Who knows?  Perhaps John McCann is a time traveler?  Or maybe it's just that he can't sort out the truth from fiction?

McCann actually mocks people who get involved in politics because they believe in something.  He's publicly eschewed right wing and left wing -- instead he came up with a new way to describe people like him:  The Chicken Wing of the GOP.  And what does the Chicken Wing stand for?  It stands for getting paid.  It is no big deal for a member of the Chicken Wing of the GOP to be employed by a Democrat office-holder.  The Chicken Wing exists to make its members some dough and they don't let principles or things like party loyalty or right and wrong get in the way of that. 

McCann's candidacy seems to be designed by the Democrats and run by the Democrats to do nothing but screw up the Republican primary.

How so?  Remember the Democrats' reaction to Steve Lonegan's announcement?  They attacked him from the DCCC in Washington, DC, and from Gottheimer's home base in Wyckoff and they have kept on attacking him -- in emails, press releases, fundraising letters.  That's what you do when you face an opponent you are afraid of. 

And what do the Democrats make of John McCann?  Not a word.  Not even a barely suppressed yawn.  Why should they?  As the Record noted in its opening story about him:  "John McCann, the attorney and longtime right-hand man to Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino." 

That's Michael Saudino -- the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  McCann is his right-hand man.  That's right, he is one of them.

Ethics complaint to be filed against ELEC's Jeff Brindle

The "hit piece" was published on a website that was once the domain of David "Wally Edge" Wildstein.  That's before he sold it to Jared "to Russia with love" Kushner.  Yes, that Jared Kushner, the son of Governor Jim McGreevey's number one bagman and son-in-law of the sitting President of the United States, whose obscure and anything-but-transparent  business and financial dealings have led to a string of controversies.

Under the editorship of the late Peter Kaplan, the Observer newspaper was once a genuine instrument of reform in New York City.  But Kaplan left after Kushner bought the newspaper.  Later, Kushner would install establishment GOP political consultant Ken Kurson as editor.  Kurson, who ran political campaigns in New Jersey (in particular, Northwest New Jersey),  would transform the newspaper into a web-only publication that ruthlessly pushed the Kushner political agenda. 

And so Mr. Jeff Brindle, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, chose a most irregular venue for expounding on the benefits of campaign finance reform.  Of course, Mr. Brindle's arguments were not for the benefit of the general public or even the more specific electorate.  What Mr. Brindle presented in yesterday's Observer was a carefully crafted, opposition-research fueled, hit piece. 

Mr. Brindle argues that there should be more disclosure requirements covering organizations that spend money that could indirectly affect the outcome of an election.  We agree.  It is important to know the people behind organizations that have at their disposal mass amounts of cash and who seek to use that cash to influence the political process.  The Observer Media Group, for instance, which regularly endorses candidates and pushes a policy agenda (dare we say "lobby"?) that directly benefits the bottom line of its owners.

Or take Advance Publications -- an $8 billion corporate media giant owned by some of our region's richest -- and most politically liberal -- billionaires.  These guys hate labor unions, of course, because it means less for them and more for the people who work for them.  So they have successfully conducted a long-march through their work force.  First they came for the teamsters, then the printers, then the writers, and finally, the salesmen.  The billionaires who own Advance have a political and economic agenda.  They endorse candidates for public office and inject their opinions into elections.  And they have been so successful at lobbying that they have won for themselves a special state-mandated subsidy, directing millions in advertising to their businesses each year -- under penalty of the law.  Well, you know what they say:  Money comes to money.

In his "hit piece" in the Observer, Jeff Brindle takes aim at a group that has spent just over$275,000 on advertising in Northwest New Jersey.  Mr. Brindle hints strongly of a labor union connection with this group.  Now ask yourself, Mr. Brindle, why would working people, organized as a union, feel the need to become involved in the political process?  Perhaps they have heard about Advance Publications??  Maybe, just maybe, they seek to have some small measure of control over their personal economic well-being???  We're just guessing here... but maybe the great George Carlin has the answer...

What the Executive Director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission leaves out of his discussion is his agency's own special "little rich boy" loophole that allows the very rich mommies and daddies of wannabe politicians to fund their campaigns for public office.  Look, rich people been cleaning up the lives of their more useless offspring for as long as any of us can remember.  Generally, when it comes to employment, daddy provides young Doofwhistle with a job at which he will not hurt the company or its employees... too much.  A bankruptcy here, a bankruptcy there -- it's all part of the fun of being a (very rich) parent!

But now -- thanks to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission -- young Doofwhistle can be shoved-off on the taxpayers.  Daddy can use his millions (or billions) to get his young incompetent elected to public office, where he will receive a salary (sometimes even with benefits) and make laws and run things and generallyJe help our civilization down that long road of post-democracy.

That's right!  Under NJELEC's "little rich boy" loophole, if a candidate still lives at home with his parents, their money is treated as if it was the candidate's own money.  We shit you not. 

D. Use of Personal Funds  Use of a candidate’s personal funds on behalf of his or her campaign must be deposited into the campaign depository and must be reported as either contributions or loans to the campaign in the same manner as all other contributions or loans. If the candidate intends to be reimbursed fully or partially for personal funds used on behalf of his or her campaign, then the funds must be reported both as a loan and as an outstanding obligation to the campaign if still outstanding at the end of the reporting period. Once a candidate’s personal funds are reported as contributions, the funds cannot be later characterized as loans and be repaid to the candidate. There is no limit to the amount of personal funds a candidate may contribute or lend to his or her own campaign (except for publicly funded gubernatorial candidates). See Gubernatorial Public Financing Program Manual for more information.  Also, a corporation, of which one hundred percent of the stock is owned by the candidate, or by the candidate’s spouse, child, parent, or sibling residing in the candidate’s household, may make contributions without limit to a candidate committee established by that candidate, or to a joint candidates committee established by that candidate.

We all remember how Hank Lyon won a seat on the Morris County Freeholder Board in 2011.  He used NJELEC's "little rich boy" loophole to get a late infusion of cash from a corporation controlled by his father. 

That infusion of corporate cash was improperly reported.  A judge overturned a close election, a lawsuit followed, another judge overturned the first decision, while an appeal wasn't pursued after the opposing candidate received a gubernatorial appointment.   Lyon's campaign still owes a huge amount of money to this corporation -- $75,966.66 -- according to Mr. Brindle's own New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.

Per NJELEC's "little rich boy" loophole, this large infusion of corporate cash is only legal while Freeholder Hank Lyon and his father reside in the same household (according to corporate records, Lyon's mother resides in Texas). 

And now it's happening again.  Freeholder Hank Lyon recently found himself before a judge again, accused -- once again -- of violating New Jersey election law.  Lyon, who is a candidate for the state Legislature in next week's Republican primary election, could face serious ethical and legal issues in the weeks and months ahead -- and could endanger the seat (even handing it over to a liberal Democrat) if a court finds that, as in 2011, he violated the law.

Hank Lyon has long chaffed at the idea of his political career simply depending on "daddy's money."  He's worked to appear to be outside his father's shadow, going as far as lying on his official Freeholder biography:

"He is a lifelong resident of Morris County, specifically the Towaco section of Montville Township, where he was a member of the Montville Housing Committee.  He now lives in Parsippany."

Lyon even pictured his new home in legislative campaign advertising, with the words:  "Recently bought his first house, pictured above."  But if Hank Lyon no longer lived at home with his father, then how is he still using his dad's corporate money and keeping to the law? 

In February 2016, Freeholder Lyon did purchase a residential property in the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany-Troy Hills.  However, Lyon never occupied the property.  Neighbors claim to have no idea who lives at 45 Manito Avenue.  Mail has piled up and apparently gone unanswered.  Repairs and renovations have been pursued in a more or less desultory manner.  Then, on April 3, 2017, Lyon executed a mortgage on this property -- borrowing $125,000. 

According to Mr. Brindle's New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Freeholder Hank Lyon loaned his legislative campaign $35,000 on May 12th and $83,000 on May 16th.  His campaign then purchased $99,997 in cable television advertising that began airing on May 19th.

The mortgage stipulates that the borrower (Freeholder Lyon) "shall occupy, establish, and use the Property as Borrower's principal residence within 60 days after the execution of this Security Instrument."  This Saturday, June 3rd, those 60 days are up.

When Freeholder Hank Lyon moves in three days' time, the loan his father's corporation has with him will go sour.  It was only allowed while Freeholder Lyon made his father's home his principle residence.  Freeholder Lyon should have paid off the loan that will clearly place him outside normal, ethical, campaign finance limits.  Instead, he borrowed more to finance another campaign for political office.

Now this drama is taking place in one of those legislative districts Mr. Brindle mentioned in his hit piece.  Shouldn't the Executive Director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission -- maybe, just maybe -- be writing about this money too?  Shouldn't Mr. Brindle be demanding that his agency end its "little rich boy" loophole?  And if NJELEC can't do it, then shouldn't he be writing columns suggesting that the Legislature do it?

It's not like this isn't a growing problem.  We now have a candidate for Governor -- yes, for the job of chief executive of the state -- running around with nearly a million dollars to spend on a political campaign, courtesy of NJELEC's "little rich boy" loophole.  Do we really want elected officials whose main qualification for office is their ability to fan daddy's ass?  Like... aren't things kind of f'ed up enough all ready?

As the Executive Director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Mr. Brindle's choice of opinion venues was highly questionable.  But it is what he wrote -- and his obvious bias against some and blindness towards others -- that should earn him a review.  And to that end, we have been made aware that someone intends to provide him with such a forum at which he can answer those questions.