Goldstein a Democrat first. Supported Eliot Spitzer even after corruption.

By Rubashov

Trenton has a very selective memory. That’s why a blog, run by the “Mastermind” of one of the worst political scandals in memory, can express horror at someone having an opinion not in line with that conjured by Trenton pollsters, and then trot out someone like Steve Goldstein as a corrective.

When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was mired in scandal, the Trenton blog PolitickerNJ (funded by Jared Kushner) trotted out Steve Goldstein to defend the embattled New York Governor. Goldstein lavished praise on Spitzer, reminding readers: “I was Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary in his successful 1998 campaign for New York State Attorney General.” Indeed.

Well, not even the pollsters could save Spitzer. The infamous “Client 9” resigned from office. And despite his Princeton-Harvard background and “Sheriff of Wall Street” reputation (not to mention all that polling) Spitzer could not win a victory and return to public office. Even his wife left him.

Nothing is ever “settled” in politics.

Steve Goldstein is a Democrat operative and the founder of a political lobbying organization called Garden State Equality. GSE has morphed from a group concerned with issues like same-sex marriage into a government vendor that uses political pressure and vendor money to lobby government for even more taxpayer money.

Like so many good ideas that turn into scams, GSE succumbed to mission creep once they achieved the goal of same-sex marriage. The current controversy they’re embroiled in has to do with teaching children a new, unfunded mandate from Trenton, called the LGBTQ+ curriculum. And everyone in New Jersey who pays property taxes is going to foot the bill.

One of the controversies surrounding the new curriculum is how it presents such sensitive issues as anal sex – and to what age groups. Now a clinical presentation, run by a group like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would focus, at least in part, on the spread of specific diseases associated with this manner of sexual activity (not to mention the wear and tear on muscles not particularly designed for the purpose).

Unfortunately, Trenton’s political class handed the job to its allies and campaign underwriters – Garden State Equality. This is the corrupt Trenton Establishment all over, isn’t it? Take a serious issue – turn it into a scam for the boys to make money from.

The central question in this debate is who owns your children. Are they part of a million individual social organisms, called families – or does the government own your kids?

Governor Phil and Tammy Murphy certainly act like government owns your children. They don’t hesitate inserting the government between child and parent on the most sensitive of levels.

New Jersey enjoys a great diversity amongst its millions of families. Whether agnostic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or any of the thousands of permutations possible, it has been the role of each individual family to pass along its moral values and manners, generation to generation. This, above anything else, preserves the idea of diversity.

Phil and Tammy, who had the opportunity to pass on their moral values and manners to their children, now wish to take that opportunity away from you. They want conformity. On that most personal issue of sexuality, they wish to cut out the parent, and to bring in a lobby group looking for a payday – Garden State Equality.

Hey GSE, it is not our fault that you won and did not have the dignity to declare victory and fold your tent. You became addicted to the money and the power. You will never return to the private sector because of this. You will never mind your own business and seek to live and let live. For you there can only be crisis and turmoil and the endless froth of campaigning… because that is how you are paid.

If Phil and Tammy want to cut out the parent, at least they should be prepared to pick up some of the expenses of raising a child.

Government certainly doesn’t pay for your children. From the child poverty and food insecurity figures in New Jersey, we know that government doesn’t care enough to feed them. From the foreclosure figures, we know that government doesn’t care enough to house them. And we damned well know that government doesn’t give a hang about ensuring they have adequate health care.

So, we suggest a compromise. If government wants to cut out the parents and impart its moral values and manners to the next generation – then government owes the parents of that next generation a tax cut to cover the raising of that generation. The government’s generation. Generation “G”.

Finally, why has Steve Goldstein gone so prudish? Why is it such a big deal to him to call anal sex, anal sex? Or oral sex, oral sex? The legal term for that – and Goldstein can ask Spitzer about it – is “sodomy”.

The legal definition of sodomy includes any sexual penetration aside from vaginal intercourse, including oral and anal sex. Neo-Victorians like Steve Goldstein appear to want to banish such coarse and realistic definitions from our language and replace them with saccharine formulations that make references to “love”.

Love may become part of it. But more generally it flourishes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Any honest person will acknowledge this.

Be honest, humans are attracted to these practices because we derive pleasure from them. It isn’t so much a case of “love is love” but rather, “pleasure is pleasure”. An attachment may follow, or it may not, or it may and then be broken. These are deep waters that no lobby group-turned government vendor can adequately plumb. Leave it to the families. Preserve diversity.

Douglas Murray Explains The Internal Politics Of The LGBT Community.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer

No GOP Platform: Kushner and Stepien got their way.

By Rubashov  

The Republican Party Platform – the platform that grew out of the Reagan movement – died today.  It has ceased to exist.  It is no more.

Conservatives saw this coming.  Over the Memorial Day weekend, John Robert Carman posted a story from the website Axios, regarding “secret talks to overhaul the GOP platform.”  The Axios article – which was picked up by a number of national publications – details the efforts of Jared Kushner and Bill Stepien in minimalizing the Republican Party platform from its current 58 pages down to a one page document with ten bullet-points.  

According to those present at the on-going meetings held “in the Secretary of War Suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the West Wing of the White House”, Kushner wants words like “freedom” removed from the platform, as well as statements of principle like: “We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.”

You can read the full Axios story here:
https://www.axios.com/republican-platform-jared-kushner-56cb19ee-d6c7-409e-93e5-088eebd82825.html

Jared Kushner is the President’s son-in-law.  Bill Stepien is his campaign manager.  Various apologists have argued that Kushner and Stepien are simply attempting to “dumb down” the platform to “make it more relevant” to people accustomed to social media like Twitter.  Maybe, or perhaps something else is going on.
 
Jared Kushner has not been a registered Republican for very long.  The scion of a wealthy Democrat family, his father was the fundraising muscle behind Democrat Governor Jim McGreevey.  He got caught up in the corruption and went to prison.
 
Kushner wasn’t a registered Republican when his father-in-law was on the ballot in the primaries and General Election of 2016.  He became a registered Republican only in 2018.  Before that, he was a major fundraiser for the Democrat Party and promoted the candidacies of some very socially liberal Democrats. 

Bill Stepien owes his political redemption to Kushner, who assisted him after the Bridgegate scandal in which he was dismissed by Governor Chris Christie.  He is a talented political operative. 
 
Stepien is not a movement Republican, or movement conservative, or movement anything.  He is singular in his focus – and that focus is always on the candidate who employs him.  When he worked for Governor Christie, the NJGOP steadfastly refused to support the platform of the Republican Party.  The argument put forward was that having ideas on paper and committing to them got in the way of the politics of power.  One wonders what America would be like if gentlemen like these had written – or rather, not written – the Constitution and Bill of Rights. 
 
Of course, this had its downside.  The 2013 re-election campaign Stepien ran for Governor Christie was successful, but that 20-point win did not result in a movement victory.  The Republican Party did not gain ground in the Legislature.  The victory was singular, contained, it went no further than the top-of-the-ticket.
 
Stepien’s method of campaigning runs like this:  We did a poll. The voters say they like cheesecake.   Our donors are not adverse to cheesecake, so we can safely say we like cheesecake.  It was summed up very well earlier this year, by a former executive director of the NJGOP, who rejected the idea of arguing for the Second Amendment and who found it “ridiculous” to fashion language and arguments with which to defend this Constitutional right. 
 
So now the Republican platform is simply a man.  Where once there were ideas, now there is a photograph that may be conveniently pointed to.  Kushner and Stepien have won.  They got their way.  Now here is the full sum of what you need to know about the Republican Party in 2020…

Here is the full edict, released today, announcing the demise of the Republican Party Platform.  You can judge for yourselves as to the tone and the excuses made.  Does it sound as authoritarian to you, as it does to us?  A sadden day.  
 
  RESOLUTION REGARDING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM

  WHEREAS, The Republican National Committee (RNC) has significantly scaled back the size and scope of the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte due to strict restrictions on gatherings and meetings, and out of concern for the safety of convention attendees and our hosts;
 
WHEREAS, The RNC has unanimously voted to forego the Convention Committee on Platform, in appreciation of the fact that it did not want a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement;
 
WHEREAS, All platforms are snapshots of the historical contexts in which they are born, and parties abide by their policy priorities, rather than their political rhetoric;
 
WHEREAS, The RNC, had the Platform Committee been able to convene in 2020, would have undoubtedly unanimously agreed to reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration;
 
WHEREAS, The media has outrageously misrepresented the implications of the RNC not adopting a new platform in 2020 and continues to engage in misleading advocacy for the failed policies of the Obama-Biden Administration, rather than providing the public with unbiased reporting of facts; and
 
WHEREAS, The RNC enthusiastically supports President Trump and continues to reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration, as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today; therefore, be it
 
RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda; RESOVLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
 
RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration; and
 
RESOLVED, That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.
 

"Every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered...History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

George Orwell
(Eric Arthur Blair)

Public shaming is bullying. Treat it the same.

The attempt by the powerful -- in the form of the corporate media and the dominant political class -- to force others to conform to their social values or face the loss of employment, economic security, and status is textbook bullying.  In the case of Assemblyman Parker Space, it is clear that the Republican holds tastes in music and is of a socio-economic class different from that of the dominant establishment class. 

Space is a country boy, a blue-collar farmer, a Trump supporter, and a believer in traditional values.  This makes him a target for establishment bullying.  As for the establishment's complaints that Space used a five-letter word in private conversation, this is simply a case of rank hypocrisy by individuals who use the same words and far-far-worse in private and in public, as evidenced below.

Again and again, we are told that in America, we are a nation of laws.  But this is being steadily eroded by corporate media and their puppets in the political class.  With the connivance of establishment political figures the corporate media are attempting to create an extra-judicial method of determining everything from whether or not you can hold a job or operate a business to serving in public office.

Under this informal, extra-judicial system, the accusers do not need to produce proof of their accusations, neither does the accused have the opportunity to refute the charges made in any legal setting.  In this bullying culture, corporate media whips up a frenzy of bullying -- mobbing -- in order to indict, convict, and punish someone. 

The accusers simply need to "feel" that someone has done something for reasons that they disapprove of.  Of course, these "feelings" must conform to the social norms of the establishment.  Conforming to establishment norms allows some people to believe that they have the right to fire someone from his or her job, or put someone out of business, or overturn the will of the voters.

This is a form of technological vigilantism -- a post-modern lynch mob -- with elements of religion to it.  For "apologize... apologize... apologize," read "repent... repent... repent."  And it was specifically warned against by prescient writers like George Orwell, with the neo-religious fervor whipped up in a shaming exercise very like the two-minutes hate he describes in his great work, 1984:

Think of it.  Political figures like Democrat Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg actually suggested that they could reach into another person's soul to determine evil there, adjudicate on said evil, and then demand that the will of the voters be overturned and said person be stripped of public office.  Mind you, the office-holder in question -- Assemblyman Parker Space -- is one of the most popular elected officials in New Jersey, as determined by the number of votes he receives, and gets more votes than any Republican legislator in the state.  So it does take a particular kind of philosophy, distinctly undemocratic, to suggest such a thing.

Also remember that no laws have been broken.  Unlike Senator Robert Menendez or Assemblyman Neil Cohen or Assemblyman Raj Mukerji or any one of a hundred New Jersey Democrats who actually broke the law, but who nevertheless enjoyed and enjoy the steadfast support of fellow Democrats, Assemblyman Parker Space did nothing even remotely illegal.  Fashion was breached perhaps -- the fashion held by some elites in a few, well-to-do enclaves -- but no laws were broken.  For the moment, our Bill of Rights and our First Amendment are holding firm -- but for how long?

If the media can use extra-judicial shaming to deny employment, ruin a business, or overturn an election, then they will have successfully undermined the Bill of Rights without recourse to a legal challenge before the United States Supreme Court.  It is a subversion of the law, and the imposition of punitive sanctions, through the use of fashion and media technology.  Through the use of it, America will no longer be a nation of laws, but rather a nation of fashions, manipulated by a corporate media controlled by the likes of Jared Kushner, the Newhouse brothers, and the corporate racists at Gannett News.  A bullying culture in which anyone who wishes to work, own a business, or hold office will have to conform to the establishment norms of the bullying class.

Public shaming is the road to Fascism

We are told that in America, we are a nation of laws.  But increasingly, we are not.  With the connivance of political figures like Senate Democrat Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg and Assembly Democrat Executive Director Mark Matzen, the corporate media are attempting to create an extra-judicial method of determining everything from whether or not you can hold a job or operate a business to serving in public office.

Under this informal, extra-judicial system, the accusers do not need any proof -- as we recognize that term in our legal process -- to indict, convict, and punish someone.  The accusers, who are generally the media and political figures like Weinberg, simply need to "feel" that someone has done something for reasons that they disapprove of.  It can even be as simple as saying that you are personally "tired" of someone, as was done in a recent Star-Ledger column.  Just being "tired" of someone makes some people believe that they have the right to fire someone from his or her job, or put someone out of business, or overturn the will of the voters.

This is a form of technological vigilantism -- a post-modern lynch mob -- with elements of religion to it.  For "apologize... apologize... apologize," read "repent... repent... repent."  And it was specifically warned against by prescient writers like George Orwell, with the neo-religious fervor whipped up in a shaming exercise very like the two-minutes hate he describes in his great work, 1984:

Think of it.  Political figures like Weinberg and Matzen actually suggested that they could reach into another person's soul to determine evil there, adjudicate on said evil, and then demand that the will of the voters be overturned and said person be stripped of public office.  Mind you, the office-holder in question -- Assemblyman Parker Space -- is one of the most popular elected officials in New Jersey, as determined by the number of votes he receives, and gets more votes than any Republican legislator in the state.  So it does take a particular kind of philosophy, distinctly undemocratic, to suggest such a thing.

Also remember that no laws have been broken.  Unlike Senator Robert Menendez or Assemblyman Neil Cohen or Assemblyman Raj Mukerji or any one of a hundred New Jersey Democrats who actually broke the law but who, nevertheless, the Weinbergs and the Matzens dutifully stood behind, Assemblyman Parker Space did nothing even remotely illegal.  Fashion was breached perhaps -- the fashion held by some elites in a few, well-to-do enclaves -- but no laws were broken.  For the moment, we still have our Bill of Rights and our First Amendment.  But they are working on it.

If the media can use extra-judicial shaming to deny employment, ruin a business, or overturn an election, then they will have successfully undermined the Bill of Rights without recourse to a legal challenge before the United States Supreme Court.  In their minds, that is the beauty of what they are trying to do.  It is a subversion of the law, and the imposition of punitive sanctions, through the use of fashion and media technology.  Through the use of it, America will no longer be a nation of laws, but rather a nation of fashions, manipulated by a corporate media controlled by the likes of Jared Kushner, the Newhouse brothers, and the corporate racists at Gannett News.  Pleasant thought?

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. 

Did Kushner make the Trump-Christie marriage?

Chris Christie                                                                                                         David Wildstein

Well, let's examine the connections.  When Chris Christie and David Wildstein were kicking around Livingston High School, a young real estate entrepreneur eight years older than Christie was beginning to make a name for himself.  This was Charles Kushner, who was raising a family in the same town Christie was growing up in. 

Wildstein was elected to the Livingston town council and served from 1985 until 1988.  He was Livingston's mayor in 1987-88.  Wildstein launched his PoliticsNJ website in 2000, and operated it in conjunction with his political consulting business.  Wildstein ran an opposition research shop under the political tent of the late Bob Franks, playing a prominent role in Franks' 2001 gubernatorial primary against the eventual Republican nominee, Bret Schundler.

The 2001 election saw the rise of Jim McGreevey and Charles Kushner -- now a major fundraiser for the Democrat Party and for McGreevey in particular.  Both would fall from grace.  McGreevey lurched from scandal to scandal, while Kushner was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering.  Kushner's son, Jared, who had participated in his father's fundraising, was not part of the criminal proceedings.

When David Wildstein needed capital to launch PoliticsPA, PoliticsNH, and a host of other websites, he went to Jared Kushner.  Wildstein's venture proved to be a money pit, maintained at a loss by the Kushner family.  Wildstein ended up selling PoliticsPA to a group of Harrisburg lobbyists, while his other websites withered and fell away. 

By now Wildstein was clearly part of the "Christie project" -- that wait for the "coming man" -- that seemed to obsess so many in the NJGOP.  Wildstein's website would often scoop stories that had all to do with the U.S. Attorney's Office and with reshaping the political landscape -- like when statewide contender Jim Treffinger, the Republican County Executive of Essex County, was arrested and publicly displayed in manacles.

In 2009, Jared Kushner married Ivanka Trump, daughter of real estate mogul Donald Trump.  Two weeks later, Chris Christie was elected Governor.  Wildstein was given a fat patronage job in the new regime and Jared Kushner took over the website that Wildstein had used on Christie's behalf.  A new editor for the website, Darryl Isherwood, was chosen.  He has since joined the political consulting firm of Governor and Presidential candidate Christie's top strategist.  The new boss is Ken Kurson, a New Jersey GOP establishment political consultant who co-wrote Mayor Rudy Giuliani's book.

It appears possible that Donald Trumps' son-in-law would have the kind of contacts to begin a conversation.  But who knows?  Perhaps they'll tell us.