Pallotta wins in CD05. Sussex County’s Kelly Hart does it again!

By Rubashov

It’s hard to win when the establishment sets its face against you. After his upset victory in the 2020 primary and his narrow defeat to Democrat incumbent Josh Gottheimer in the November election, you would think the party grandees would rally around Frank Pallotta, clear a path for him, and start him on his way for a 2022 re-match. That would have made sense.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, some party leaders nursed the wounds they had received in the primary, when Pallotta beat the Bergen County “line” for his upset win. Others were unhappy that Pallotta hadn’t gone with an “insider” consultant and had Sussex County’s Kelly Hart run his campaign. Many thought Pallotta too conservative – too honest and open about it. And for others, the Jersey operatives at the NRCC included, Pallotta just wasn’t one of the boys.

So, the establishment went out and recruited a very plausible candidate in Nick DiGregorio and raised a lot of money – that they spent on internecine battle to defeat another Republican, namely Frank Pallotta. How this made sense to them, we cannot figure out, but it did serve as an emotional balm to some and an economic benefit to others. We don’t think it did the party any good.

Nick proved to be a formidable candidate and a strong campaigner. He had a wonderful back story, but his establishment handlers suppressed his policy positions, not allowing him to communicate with conservative voters. They believed they would prevail using the blunt force of money, the party “line” in Bergen County, the Jersey operatives at the NRCC, and establishment muscle in Trenton. Nick pulled away endorsements that Frank had previously enjoyed – with a final blow delivered by a legislator yesterday, the day of the election!

The establishment had failed to learn the lesson from last year’s result in LD03. It was there that Steve Kush pulled an upset win by fashioning a campaign that went around establishment filters and engaged directly with the electorate. Of course, this doesn’t always work. It doesn’t work when the electorate is asleep. But the electorate isn’t asleep, is it? It is very, very agitated.

Kelly Hart fashioned a similar win yesterday in CD05, using grassroots networks the Trenton establishment, and especially the Trenton blogs, continue to discount. Strong showings by outsider candidates across New Jersey are an indication of an electorate that is wide awake and open to hearing a conservative message. Even in the CD03 primary, Steve Kush was able to take a very wounded candidate to a respectable showing.

“It is very reassuring that the conservative base wields so much muscle,” said Steve Lonegan, the father of the modern conservative movement in New Jersey, “This should be a wake-up call for the NJGOP establishment.”

Hopefully, the establishment accepts Frank Pallotta’s win and rallies behind him. Nick DiGregorio already has. Let’s hope others follow his good example. We hope to be hearing more from him.

In contrast, Matt Rooney at Save Jersey penned a particularly dickish attack on the Republican nominee – the day after the election. Why is Rooney acting the sore loser when he wasn’t supposed to have a side? Didn’t he hold himself out as someone impartial enough to moderate a debate between Nick and Frank? Apparently not.

For all those Trenton bullies who got owned yesterday.

Is Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney rewarding the candidate who pays him?

By Rubashov

In the 2021 Republican gubernatorial primary, Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign team did everything they could to make sure their candidate faced more than one traditional conservative in the primary. It was a good thing for Jack that they did, because Ciattarelli didn’t get a majority of the Republican votes in the primary. The majority was split between two traditional conservatives: Pastor Phil Rizzo and Hirsh Singh.

When they are able to, candidates always attempt to set the table in a way that best suits them and provides an advantage. It is usual and customary, as Congressional candidate Nick DeGregorio’s campaign team knows firsthand.

That hasn’t stopped said campaign from crying foul over a mailer sent out by the campaign of Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-05). DeGregorio’s campaign has invested heavily in paid advertising on the Save Jersey news blog, so it was no surprise to anyone that the blog’s editor/owner – the guy cashing those checks – was open to doing a hit on behalf of DeGregorio.

We’re not kidding about those advertisements. DeGregorio ads are all over Save Jersey. You can’t read a page of Save Jersey without needing to make your eyes jump over intrusive campaign ads stuck in the middle of columns to break up the flow. And it’s not just Nick. Other ads are there, all strangely the same, only the candidates’ pictures change – all posed like people who think they’re pretty. Very pretty.

Now are you ready for that hit? Here it comes…

Is Gottheimer opening his war chest to select his own GOP opponent?
May 7, 2022 - Matt Rooney
The GOP’s 2020 NJ-05 nominee (Frank Pallotta) is taking another bite at the apple in 2022, but despite having already done this once before, his fundraising has been abysmal. At the end of Q1, he had a little more than $80,000 cash on hand.
Three-term Democrat incumbent Josh Gottheimer had $13 million.
So it hardly needs to be said that eyebrows were raised this weekend when Republican voters opened their rain-soaked mailboxes and found a Gottheimer campaign mailer (see below) attacking Pallotta, declaring that the under-funded Pallotta is “too much like Trump” and citing a no-longer-current 2020 endorsement from the former president. Why would a Democrat want to tell Republican primary voters (who generally like President Trump) that his opponent is too Trumpy?
Is Gottheimer really opening up his ample war chest to soften up a possible November rival who doesn’t have the cash to respond?
Or is the Democrat congressman trying to “help” Republicans pick the candidate he prefers to face in November?

Of course, candidate Nick DeGregorio has an idea about what’s going on, and what with all those ads his campaign is paying for, Save Jersey is more than happy to turn the floor over to Nick – unquestioned and unabated:

“It is clear who Josh Gottheimer wants to win this Republican primary – and it’s not the guy who served his country in four tours overseas and is now calling on him and others to sell off their stock portfolios to clean up Washington,” said De Gregorio in a statement shared with Save Jersey.

Hold on there! Nick, we’re all very grateful for your service, but do you really have to use it so much? Are you the sort of guy who will buy his wife a bouquet of flowers tomorrow and then remind her about it for the next year? We don’t think so. We think you are better than that.

Most veterans we know – especially those who have seen combat – don’t like to go on and on about it. Hey, everyone is different. Maybe you find it cathartic to talk about your experiences. You have certainly made it the centerpiece of your campaign. Then again… maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s your campaign – and the folks running your campaign have not served – so maybe they are doing a disservice to you? Just a thought.

“For years, Democrats like Josh Gottheimer talked ad nauseam about Russian interference in our elections. Now Josh, who consistently presents himself as a bipartisan, common sense Democrat who’s above the fray, is using liberal special interest money to wage his own Putin-style disinformation campaign to confuse Republican primary voters about who the true conservative leader in this race is. It’s dead wrong — and if Josh is the statesman he claims to be, he will immediately stop any spending in the CD5 Republican primary.”

“A Putin-style disinformation campaign”? In exactly what way, Nick? And why didn’t you ask that question, Matt?

And as for labeling yourself, “the true conservative leader” – Nick buddy, you were a no-show and totally dissed the state’s conservative leaders – grassroots activists, Second Amendment leaders, people like Steve Lonegan and Right-to-Life’s Marie Tasy – and in contrast came running when Pro-abortion leaders wanted you at an event.

Nick, until you take on the simple challenge of filling out the New Jersey Right to Life and National Rifle Association questionnaires, can you really, in all seriousness call yourself a “conservative”? Right now, at this moment, you’re an unknown when it comes to your position on many important issues. And that is why we are skeptical of you. Sorry, buddy.

“I also call on my opponent, Frank Pallotta, to immediately disavow Gottheimer’s attempt to put his thumb on the scale in this race.”

Nick, to disavow something is to “deny any responsibility or support for it”. That’s the definition. Why would anyone need to disavow something unless responsible in the first place? Nick, do you go about disavowing every crime that takes place in your neighborhood? Nick, are you disavowing the allegations of anti-Asian nonsense by a candidate on your ticket? Or the alleged anti-Asian campaign mailers your consultants cooked-up? Of course not, why would you?

Nick, are you are accusing both Congressman Gottheimer and your fellow Republican of a crime – because if your fellow Republican needed to disavow something, it would be because a federal crime had been committed. Is that what you are doing Nick? And you, Mr. Attorney/ Editor/ Owner, are you riding that horse too?

Nick, the only “thumb on the scale” in this race is the county party lines that are illegal everywhere else in America. The idea that any party organization gets to corrupt the official taxpayer-paid-for ballot by structuring that ballot by presenting a list of party “approved” candidates is Soviet in nature and would not be allowed in any United Nations sponsored election anywhere in the world. Nick, that’s Soviet, as in there’s your Russian connection for you.

Heck Nick, your current supporters appear to have tried to sell the line to your opponent – before you eventually got it. And why didn’t Matt cover that? Not cool to speak ill of another attorney?

Why didn't Save Jersey cover this?

Will Save Jersey disavow this??? LOL

Some possible explanations that should be explored by Save Jersey...

(1) Polling. This was a three-way primary until recently. A poll commissioned by one of those three candidates provided results that might account for why this is now a two-way primary:

IF THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY ELECTION FOR CONGRESS WERE HELD TODAY, FOR WHOM WOULD YOU VOTE?

FRANK PALLOTTA
Definitely 19.0
Probably 7.0

NICK DEGREGORIO
Definitely 8.0
Probably 2.5

FRED SCHNEIDERMAN
Definitely 2.0
Probably 1.2

Would it be unheard of to attack the candidate leading in the polls?

(2) Historically, Frank Pallotta is a self-funder. Congressman Gottheimer is aware of this, as is Nick DeGregorio’s campaign team. DeGregorio’s lead campaign consultant was Frank Pallotta’s lead consultant – not in the primary – but in his loss to Congressman Gottheimer. Might this be an attempt by Gottheimer to give Pallotta a taste of what’s to come, thereby inducing him to forgo a substantial investment?

For while Nick has shown some prowess as a fundraiser. To date, his fundraising would be more impressive in the context of a legislative race – not a race against someone with the resources of a Josh Gottheimer.

Frank Pallotta has never been a good fundraiser. But he’s been a good check-writer. And he does have the potential to drop a million dollars or more into this race. Perhaps that is the point of Gottheimer’s mailer?

We don’t know. Neither does Matt Rooney. So shame on him for suggesting something illegal. Frank Pallotta has done nothing to deserve such a disservice (unless you view not hiring the “right” consultant a capital offense).

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
George Orwell

NJGOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt: 20 reasons to Vote Republican on Tuesday

Over on the New Jersey Globe website, editor David Wildstein assures us that New Jersey is still a two-party state, with the caveat that the GOP might not be one of those two parties. Wildstein’s words must be taken seriously, for whatever his faults, he has a laudable record as a campaign manager and operative. He even managed to get elected himself.

Under Governor Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican Party functioned as a kind of cult of personality. If you were around for earlier GOP administrations, you would have recognized the difference. So far as legislative seats are concerned, this didn’t work all that well even while Christie was Governor.

Post-Christie, New Jersey Republicans have suffered from a crisis of identity. This has been exacerbated by two things. The first, of course, is Donald Trump – the face of the national Republican Party. Many New Jersey Republicans don’t know how to explain him or fit even the positive aspects of his hegemony into a local narrative. They got out of the habit of having big vision ideas or policies – so that they can’t even effectively change the subject.

This brings us to the second… the rise of South Jersey Democrats as a kind of opposition party to the Democrats of Governor Phil Murphy. As they did with the so-called “Clean Elections” gambit, they pose as “reformers” who are “pro-business” and “pro-taxpayer” – with watchwords like “efficiency”. In reality, they are an old-world political machine, fueled by crony capitalism and soft corruption (at the very least). Their model is the one-party state, with a relationship between political power and business that resembles something out of Red China… or National Socialist Germany.

But at least they have ideas and policies, many of which are attractive to business, so they occupy an alternative ground to the Murphy Democrats’ collectivist and confiscatory impulses. On social issues they are equally disreputable. Their refusal to post the Human Trafficking & Child Exploitation Prevention Act for a vote shows that they monetize anything to please a supplicant corporate interest. Just keep the money flowing… and suffer the children.

Which brings us to a post over the weekend on Matt Rooney’s Save Jersey website. In it, NJGOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt provides an outline of why voters should choose Republican candidates over Democrats this coming Tuesday.

It really is a good list, and Matt did a great service publishing it. With due acknowledgement to Matt and to Chairman Steinhardt, we are re-publishing it below:

State Republican Chairman Doug Steinhardt

#20: New Jersey Has The Worst Foreclosure Rate In The U.S.
Phil Murphy and Democrats have had full control of the state house for 2 years now. Their liberal agenda has produced the highest foreclosure rate in the country. New Jersey is too expensive, and Phil Murphy, who said “If … tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state,” is too aloof, for hard working families to afford their homes. This is the danger of one-party rule in Trenton.

#19: Governor Murphy Tried To Steal Money From Firefighter Burial Fund
The NJGOP is proud to fight alongside New Jersey’s first responders, especially after their Governor tried to pay for his laundry list of liberal handouts by stealing $33 million from the Firemen’s Association burial fund. And even though his screwball scheme failed, Phil Murphy’s last second retreat can’t erase his blatant disregard for the hard working men and women who risk their lives to protect our lives. New Jersey voters should be shocked and appalled, but then, hey, this is the same Governor who, last week, said, “If … tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state.” You shouldn’t be our Governor either, and your Party’s policies are killing our State.

#18: New Jersey Has The Lowest Mainland US GDP Growth
Governor Murphy’s job-killing regulations and ever-expanding tax burden is leaving New Jersey’s economy hobbled and lagging behind the rest of mainland America. While the US economy is booming, New Jersey is failing. Trenton needs business-minded conservatives to bring a common sense check to Governor Murphy’s unbalanced budget.

#17: Phil Murphy Blew The Amazon Bid
Just weeks after New Jersey Democrats passed Phil Murphy’s billion plus dollar tax hikes, Amazon passed on New Jersey and put its HQ2 in New York and Virginia. Governor Murphy’s liberal lunacy cost thousands of well-paying jobs and a chance to revitalize our state’s biggest city. But this is the same Governor who maintains, “If … tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state.”

#16: Phil Murphy’s Online Sales Tax
Phil Murphy calls New Jersey a high tax for high value state, but Democrats are squeezing out what little value is left. If it walks, talks, ships, shoots, rides, drives, eats or roots, New Jersey’s daft Democrats devise a devilish way to tax it. Under the Murphy Administration, New Jersey residents now pay an internet sales tax. But, this is the same Governor who says, “If … tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state.”

#15: NJ Transit Fail
If a good executive keeps the trains running on time, Phil Murphy isn’t – good. New Jersey Transit is rated among the least reliable nationally. And even though Governor Murphy has the power to change it, he can’t. That’s because he’s more interested in liberal headlines than commuter wait times. People spend more time commuting than they do with their families. The system is so bad that even Democrats are investigating Murphy’s abject failure.

#14: Hiring Corrupt Officials
We should be throwing corruption out of government, not welcoming it back in. When Governor Murphy hired into his administration a former public official convicted of taking bribes, he called it the new normal. Never! The bar should never be so low. At a time when we should be building the public’s trust in government, Phil Murphy is tearing it down.

#13: Sky Blue Soccer Scandal
Governor Murphy preaches public equality, but fails miserably to practice it privately. As the owner of a women’s soccer team, Phil Murphy oversaw a team that was so badly treated that the Star Ledger equated the player’s conditions to a sweatshop. These professional women were housed in impoverished conditions, played without simple resources, like locker-room showers, and refused payment on their medical bills. That’s not stronger and fairer, that’s weaker and poorer.

#12: Legal Aid For Illegal Immigrants
The NJGOP will not ignore Governor Murphy while he scoffs at federal immigration laws for the sake of his personal political agenda. He has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into state sponsored legal aid for illegal immigrants while hardworking, middle-class New Jersey residents miss another opportunity for tax relief. But this is the same Governor who says, “If … tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state.

#11: So-Called Free College
Phil Murphy’s promise of free college tuition is the classic political bait and switch. He dangles the feels-good carrot of “free education”, then beats New Jersey’s already battered taxpayers with his tax hike stick. Two years of free tuition for a lifetime of tax increases isn’t a bargain. It’s another bad deal that New Jersey can’t afford. Then again, all this is from a Governor who said, “If tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your State.” That’s not leadership Governor. It’s what millionaires say to the middle class.

#10: Sanctuary State
Phil Murphy can’t pay for his progressive platitudes with the health, safety and welfare of New Jersey families. The Governor and the Attorney General should encourage cooperation between law enforcement agencies at all levels. Instead, they weaponize the Attorney General’s office and are taking aim at our County Sheriffs. Millions of innocent New Jerseyans depend on law enforcement to keep them safe from predators, drug dealers and violent criminals, but Phil Murphy will ignore them for a progressive headline.

#9: Worst Employment Rate In The Region
America’s economy is booming and our neighboring states are thriving, but New Jersey lags behind. Evidence continues to mount that New Jersey is teetering on the edge of an economic meltdown, but Governor Phil Murphy is stuck in a tax and spend trance. He is oblivious to, or simply ignores, the State’s affordability crisis and the crippling effect it’s having on New Jersey families. That was on full display at Rowan College in October, when the Governor let slip, “If tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your State.” If you want more blind, political indifference, elect more Democrats this November, but if you want honest answers to the State’s real problems, vote Republican.

#8: Largest out migration of retirees, businesses and residents
Governor Murphy’s radical, liberal policies aren’t just emptying wallets, they’re emptying nests. More jobs and people are leaving New Jersey than any other State in America. Millionaire Phil Murphy is so disconnected from New Jersey’s working and middle classes that he let slip that, “If tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your State.” Trenton’s Democrats share Phil Murphy’s callous indifference, so if you want honest answers to the State’s real problems, elect Republicans.

#7: Highest property and income tax rates in the US
Phil Murphy inherited a state with high taxes, but he campaigned on a promise for a stronger and fairer New Jersey. In reality, his radical tax hikes and progressive platitudes make us weaker and poorer. His solution is to tell working and middle class families, who can’t afford his high tax agenda, to move. But why move when we can vote? We need leaders in Trenton who will have the courage to reduce the size of state government and create real tax relief. On November 5, vote Republican.

#6: Ride Share Tax
Ride sharing has revolutionized urban and suburban transportation. Innovative new companies like Uber and Lyft provide safe rides home, affordable transportation for people who don’t own a car, and help stop drunk driving. So, how does Governor Murphy reward successful new businesses providing valuable services? He taxes them! That’s Phil Murphy’s New Jersey. If you don’t like it or can’t afford it, he says you’re welcome to leave. Don’t like the choices? Vote Republican instead. We can do better.

#5: Second Amendment Attacks
Governor Murphy’s political obsession with appeasing the radical, anti-gun lobby can’t come at the expense, or from the pockets, of New Jersey’s law abiding citizens for simply exercising their Second Amendment right to own a firearm. In his haste to punish legal gun owners, he’s proven unwilling and unable to deal with the scourge of gun crime, opting instead to criminalize lawful gun ownership. Taxes, fees and laws must have a rational nexus to a legitimate government purpose, and not just be a back channel to pay for feel-good, liberal giveaways. No Governor is empowered to choose which constitutional rights matter and which don’t and where Phil Murphy will trample long standing rights in his quest to replace them, the NJGOP will fight alongside grassroots Republicans to defend those rights.

#4: Shore Rental Tax
This year, among Governor Phil Murphy’s multitude of new taxes, he signed a tax on Jersey Shore vacation rentals. The NJGOP called on the Governor to refund to the moms and pops who were forced to pay it, the money he was so quick to take. In response, he ignored us, and them. It seems this was just another Democrat money grab that hit hardest in communities still recovering from Superstorm Sandy.

#3: Second Most Miserable State
The most miserable state in the Union is California. Governor Murphy has said he wants New Jersey to be the California of the east. So, it’s no surprise we’re number two. Under Phil Murphy, New Jersey is the second most miserable state in America. People in New Jersey are struggling with affordability. We have the highest foreclosure rate, and one in four families goes hungry. So, when our Governor says that, “If tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state,” it hurts. New Jerseyans need hope for a better tomorrow, but they won’t find it in our state’s Democrat Party. This year, vote for the party that still has New Jersey pride and honest answers to our state’s real problems. Vote Republican.

#2: Corporate Business Tax
New Jersey has the worst business climate in America. We lead the nation, not just in the outmigration of residents, but in the outmigration of jobs. We’ve suffered the exodus of leading corporations, like Honeywell and Gerber, who uproot and run for low cost states like North Carolina and Virginia. We even lost the bid for Amazon’s HQ2. When Governor Murphy hikes the corporate business tax by over $1 billion it signals to business owners that they can’t count on New Jersey for stability, predictability or affordability. But then this is the Governor who said, “If tax rate is your issue … whether you’re a business or an individual … we’re probably not your state.

#1: Rain Tax
A rainy day fund used to be what responsible government collected for emergencies. Not anymore. Not in New Jersey. And not under Governor Murphy. Today, it’s just another Democratic property tax and Trenton money grab. Instead of feeding your families, Phil Murphy’s rain tax scheme drains money from your pockets and pours it into Trenton’s coffers, to feed Murphy’s liberal agenda. None of that should come as a surprise, since the Governor let slip that, “If tax rate is your issue … we’re probably not your state.”

Please visit the Save Jersey website here: https://savejersey.com/2019/11/vote-republican-new-jersey-assembly-election-results-november-5th-doug-steinhardt/

What happens after Tuesday will determine whether this is a first step on the road to an actual party platform… or if it was a one-off, albeit a very strong and persuasive one. Stay tuned…

Bramnick has a message. Will NJ Republicans follow?

Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick recently released this most excellent video.  Bramnick starts by detailing what Republicans are against…

But then, more importantly, Bramnick lays out three solid policy positions that points New Jersey Republicans in the direction of what we should be for…

(1) Cap State Spending at 2% (just like local government spending is capped).

(2) Cut the State Income Tax by 10% (make NJ more competitive w. other states).

(3) Full Deduction of Property Taxes on the State Income Tax (a move that takes the property tax issue away from Democrats like Andy Kim, Mikie Sherrill, and Josh Gottheimer).

In the video, Bramnick is engaging, folksy, and compelling.  So finally, here is the core of something to move the Republican Party forward.  So why isn’t everyone banging the same drum? 

Two days after Bramnick’s video went up on Youtube, the NJGOP – the State Republican Party – blasted out its weekly newsletter via email.  There was some very good stuff in there.  Unfortunately, the Assembly Republican Leader’s video was not part of the newsletter.  An oversight that should be corrected at the earliest opportunity. 

On Thursday, the Garden State Initiative – a free-market, pro-business think tank – held a meeting about the state of New Jersey’s economy and how it can be improved.  All the experts present agreed that the business climate went south after the Democrats gained control over the Legislature, nearly two decades ago.

That said, the most prominent plan for recovery featured at the gathering was the one put forward by Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat and so a leader in the party responsible for the downturn in the first place.  As with legislation protecting the Bill of Rights (specifically the 2nd Amendment) and culturally traditionalist social legislation (like the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Protection Act), the Senate President will always be handicapped in how much he can accomplish by his need to appease the far-Left of his party’s caucus.  In the end, Sweeney will go as far as Leftist Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg allows him to go – and is anyone under the illusion that this Marxist-lite fellow-traveler is pro-business or pro-taxpayer?

In a column published on his Save Jersey news website, Matt Rooney brilliantly dissected the Trenton Democrats last week…  

We hear a lot about the “working class” from Trenton, but each and every policy and budget are designed to put the screws to taxpayers in favor of keeping these rich guys and their power structures chugging right along.

What I’m saying is that Democrats’ lofty rhetoric doesn’t match their reality. On either side of this fight. New Jersey’s true form of government is a blend of socialism and oligarchy (with a sprinkle of kleptocracy for good measure).

So why aren’t pro-business and pro-taxpayer forces pushing the Republican Plan put forward by Bramnick and making its three points the basis of not only the recovery of our party’s fortunes, but those of the state’s taxpayers?  Why aren’t they pulling together behind the Bramnick plan, then building on it, to tackle the obvious divide between the haves (those municipalities who bathe in money, courtesy of the Abbott decision) and the have nots (those who pay the highest property taxes in America)?   

As New Jersey 101.5’s Dennis Malloy recently noted, the public frustration over property taxes and government in the Garden State is stifling:  “Being the state with the highest property taxes in the nation used to be the number one issue in almost any campaign for public office in New Jersey. Lately, (crickets)! Why? …most people have given up hope that it will ever be normal or fair or affordable to most people. There is no one on the horizon with the guts to be honest about it and promise to fix it…” 

And yet, in the midst of this frustration, there are thousands of brave souls who are spending their time and energy – both in and outside social media – to address the oppression of their neighbors and fellow taxpayers.  Too often, they find themselves on their own, without the assistance or direction from the Republican Party, the business community, or even established figures within the state’s conservative movement. 

Take the grassroots effort to Recall Governor Phil Murphy, as an example.  This effort is in the process of training hundreds of volunteers in the basics of one-on-one political outreach that could be harvested in future GOTV operations.  But is anyone providing them with any real assistance?  Listen to this appeal from one of the most effective recall leaders, Bill Hayden of Sussex County:

https://www.facebook.com/raidenhayden/videos/10214053859525724/?notif_id=1557702128406942&notif_t=live_video

In May 1940, the allied armies of France, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands faced the threat posed by a newly re-armed Germany.  One of the great myths about the Fall of France is that the Germans had more tanks.  They did not.  In numbers, weaponry, and armor-protection, the German tanks were outclassed by those of the French Army and its allies.  So why did the Germans so easily over-power the superior tanks of the French?

The French used their tanks piecemeal and fought actions individually.  Many were not even equipped with radios.  The Germans fought coordinated actions, in which not only individual tanks within a unit fought in support of each other, but entire units worked in concert with other units to achieve a particular goal.  It wasn’t hardware that won the battle, but tactics – how the hardware was used. 

The three major units of New Jersey’s Republican Party – the State Committee (NJGOP), the Senate Republican Majority (SRM), and the Assembly Republican Victory (ARV) – do not work in concert or present a unified message or vision.  From there is gets worse.  Each county, each candidate, each club marches to its own beat.  And the party is barely on speaking terms with the movement conservatives who make up its base and constitute its most loyal voters.  Working together could amplify a message and make it punch through to distracted voters.  But instead of amplification, we have a cacophony of murmurs, each from its own silo.   

Jon Bramnick has offered a simple, three-point way forward.  Everyone should amplify it.  That would make a start at working in concert.

At Thursday’s meeting, Garden State Initiative President Regina Egea said voters should ask every politician how they intend to lower the cost of living and the cost of doing business.  The Bramnick Plan provides the answers.

Matt Rooney calls out the Democrats on their hypocrisy

This is a must read from Matt Rooney – one of New Jersey brightest Republican stars (and, hopefully, a future candidate for public office).  Rooney is a South Jersey attorney and editor of the Save Jersey news website.  He often teams up with NJ 101.5’s Bill Spadea both on radio and on Fox’s Chasing News program.

Rooney’s latest column is titled, As rich white guys battle for control, N.J. Democrats’ rhetoric doesn’t match their reality.  In it, Rooney makes these important points:  

For all the progressive/woke/social justice warrior BS we hear from New Jersey Democrats these days, their party’s power structure is remarkably simple and boils down to two mega rich white guys (Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Norcross, a labor leader turned insurance industry titan) battling over the Garden State’s Iron Throne.

Power, money, tax credits, crony capitalism, special legislation… even loyalty oaths.

…My issue here is one of intellectual integrity. The public sector unions are powerful, you bet, but the NJEA couldn’t touch Steve Sweeney (the Senate President and the Norcross-led machine’s top elected asset) in the 2017 election.

Diversity gets a lot of lip service from the Left in this state, but New Jersey’s most powerful Democrat decision-makers (Murphy, Sweeney, Norcross, Assembly Speaker Coughlin) are all older white dudes. We hear a lot about the “working class” from Trenton, but each and every policy and budget are designed to put the screws to taxpayers in favor of keeping these rich guys and their power structures chugging right along.

What I’m saying is that Democrats’ lofty rhetoric doesn’t match their reality. On either side of this fight. New Jersey’s true form of government is a blend of socialism and oligarchy (with a sprinkle of kleptocracy for good measure).

They may disagree with one another on tax credits and a small handful of other issues, but Leftist economic policies supported by both sides of the Murphy-Norcross divide haven’t helped the Middle Class in this state. New Jersey’s women, minority communities, and millennials are being left out of the economic BOOM sweeping the rest of the country as a direct result of the aforementioned bad decision and sometimes self-serving business decisions of the Democrat power elite which has dominated the legislature (and therefore Trenton) for almost two full decades.

Helping the Middle Class = lowering property taxes. None of these guys are talking about that. Ever wonder why?

Yes, why indeed?

You can read Matt Rooney’s entire column here…

https://savejersey.com/2019/05/as-rich-white-guys-battle-for-control-n-j-democrats-rhetoric-doesnt-match-their-reality/

Cirucci and Rooney are heroes for defending Kate Smith

If New Jersey Republicans want to look around for inspiration, they need look no further than Dan Cirucci.  He is a businessman and public relations executive who manages his own blog (http://dancirucci.blogspot.com/). 

In less than 700 words, Cirucci reminded us of who Kate Smith was and of her service to America.  In the process he exposed the hypocrisy and wrongheadedness of those who have made Smith the latest victim of what has come to be a hate-based campaign to destroy the reputations of dead people who, of course, cannot explain or defend themselves. 

Matt Rooney, who published and promoted Dan Cirucci’s column on the Save Jersey website, should be applauded for doing so.  He is the founder and editor of the Save Jersey news site.  You can read the full Cirucci column there: 

https://savejersey.com/2019/04/yankees-flyers-kate-smith-god-bless-america-songs/

What has become known as the “new” Democrats are using ideological “purity” as a means to impose their strict hegemony on society.  They have created a parallel legal system in the court of public opinion, that uses shaming, shunning, and economic blackmail to punish “offenders”.  They are the authors of an undemocratic, unaccountable, extra-legal “code” that is applied to punish without such constraints as written laws, ethical transparency, logic, or justice.     

It appears the goal of these “new” Democrats is to destroy every cultural vestige of the America that freed the world from tyranny and built the world’s greatest economy.  They are seeking to replace Mom and Apple Pie, with Ass and Debt.  “Get your kink on and run up your credit cards (follow your leaders!)… debt slavery is the future!”

The “new” Democrats are really nothing more than old-style authoritarians, pursuing their long-dead targets with an intensity and passion worthy of Victor Hugo’s Inspector Javert.  It was Javert, with his obsession to hunt and punish “offenders”, who mocked the notions of redemption and the duality of man.  Today’s “new” Democrats are on no less a suicidal mission because, as Robespierre himself was to learn, nobody is ever pure enough to escape the guillotine. 

After all, when racism is extended to include racialism and petty bigotry, who can be exempt from the term “racist”?  We are marketed to from birth by the economic, academic, media, entertainment, and government Establishment to think in terms of the silly silos of race, ethnicity, gender, age, and religion.  In confusing the terms racist and racialist, every pitch or accommodation based on race becomes itself an act of racism.

So here’s to Dan Cirucci and Matt Rooney for standing up to la Terreur of our modern day.  May its time be short.

“If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of society.”

-       Maximilien Robespierre, butcher and murderer, ideological father to the “new” Democrats

Republican Assembly Leader takes on cop-killers

The “new” Democrats have gone nuts… they’re sounding more and more like those crazy, Soviet-era, New Age socialists from the 1970’s.  Forget pragmatic “centrists” like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Democrat millennials have embraced their grandparents’ politics… it’s like Jim Jones all over again. 

Remember Rev. Jim Jones?  He was the woke, hip, socialist, New Age, Pro-Green, Pro-Ass, spiritual/political leader so near and dear to the Democrat Party of the 1970’s.  Jones even campaigned with First Lady Rosalynn Carter and was appointed to high office by the liberal Democrat Mayor of San Francisco…

Of course, Jones and his “People’s Temple” ended very badly.  But make no mistake about it, Jim Jones was the original Social Justice Warrior…

We’ve been thinking a lot about this, in light of the so-called “People’s Summit”, a gathering in Washington, DC, that opened with remarks from an officer of the NAACP who led the crowd in a chant that honored a convicted cop-killer.  Now once-upon-a-time, the NAACP was a respected, mainstream civil rights organization, but apparently they’ve gone off the deep end too… or at least one of their officers has.  Here’s the story as it was reported:

As the event began on Monday, there were a series of opening remarks from participants and organizations, and Jamal Watkins of the NAACP led the crowd in a chant.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

These possibly familiar words are from convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard). In this famous quote, Shakur is herself referencing Karl Marx, who famously wrote “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

The event’s organizers and sponsors include Planned Parenthood, the SEIU, the Sierra Club, and CPD Action, part of the Center for Popular Democracy, the community organizing group that effectively replace ACORN.

Former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member Shakur was convicted in the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. She escaped and fled to Cuba where she was granted asylum. In 2013, the FBI under President Barack Obama named Shakur to the Most Wanted Terrorists list, the first woman to ever make the list.

Shakur’s words are often recited at protests, including Black Lives Matter marches and the 2018 “March for Our Lives.”

The Women’s March under the leadership of Linda Sarsour faced controversy in 2017 for celebrating Shakur’s birthday in a tweet.

Eventually the organization was forced to make a statement, saying in a series of tweets that the “Women’s March is a nonviolent movement. We have never and will never use violence to achieve our goals” and that Shakur’s “resistance tactics were different from ours. That does not mean that we do not respect her anti-sexism work.”

Shakur “took a militant approach,” the organization tweeted. “We do not. That does not mean we don’t respect and appreciate her anti-racism work.”

As reported on Matt Rooney’s Save Jersey website, New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan stepped up in defense of his murdered compatriot:

“It is an affront to every man and woman who wears the badge that someone would choose to evoke the words of a convicted cop killer and fugitive from justice at a political conference,” said Callahan. “The men and women of the New Jersey State Police will never forget the sacrifice made by Trooper Werner Foerster on May 2, 1973 nor will we forget that the person convicted of his murder remains a fugitive for nearly 40 years. We will remain steadfast, both in the pursuit of Joanne Chesimard and in the preservation of the memory of Trooper Werner Foerster, Badge #2608.”

And Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick launched his own broadside at Democrats who want to make a hero out of a cop-killer:

This year there are a bunch of woke Democrats – all long on emotional rhetoric, with solutions that reek of socialist banality.  All A.O.C. wannabees running for Assembly… like Darcy Draeger and Lisa Bhimani in LD25, Deana Lykins in LD24, Stacey Gunderman and Lisa Mandelblatt in LD21, and Laura Fortgang in LD26.   

Assembly Republicans – led by Jon Bramnick – are standing against their tragic emotional appeals that have failed so horribly in the past.  It is imperative for conservatives to stand with the Republican Leader in this effort.  Jon Bramnick, whose very platform is “reason” – whose watchwords are probity and human decency – must defeat this emotional onslaught from a terrible past. 

Think the People’s Temple can’t happen again?

Think the emotions expressed at the People’s Summit were a fluke? 

The emotion-driven contagion of socialism stalks our nation again.  Rational Americans of all political parties must join together to drive it back into the past, where is should remain as a nightmare remembered. 

Crazy “new” Democrats honor cop-killer at summit

The post-2016 “new” Democrats who got involved in politics after Donald Trump was elected President keep surprising us with just how nuts they really are.  And there is a fey, lack-of-recognition in their own craziness – like a guest who shows up at dinner with a bag of their own excrement… and thinks nothing wrong in doing so. 

On Monday, eight Democrat candidates who are running for President of the United States of America – and countless other Democrat candidates at all levels of government – showed up for a summit in Washington, DC, that opened with remarks from an officer in the NAACP who led them in a chant that honored a convicted cop-killer.  Now once-upon-a-time, the NAACP was a respected, mainstream civil rights organization, but apparently they’ve gone off the deep end too… or at least one of their officers has.  Here’s the story as it was reported:

Top 2020 Democrat candidates are taking the stage this week at the 2019 ‘We The People Summit’ in Washington, DC. As the event began on Monday, there were a series of opening remarks from participants and organizations, and Jamal Watkins of the NAACP led the crowd in a chant. 

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.” 

These possibly familiar words are from convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard). In this famous quote, Shakur is herself referencing Karl Marx, who famously wrote “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

The event’s organizers and sponsors include Planned Parenthood, the SEIU, the Sierra Club, and CPD Action, part of the Center for Popular Democracy, the community organizing group that effectively replace ACORN.

Former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member Shakur was convicted in the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. She escaped and fled to Cuba where she was granted asylum. In 2013, the FBI under President Barack Obama named Shakur to the Most Wanted Terrorists list, the first woman to ever make the list.

Shakur’s words are often recited at protests, including Black Lives Matter marches and the 2018 “March for Our Lives.”

The Women’s March under the leadership of Linda Sarsour faced controversy in 2017 for celebrating Shakur’s birthday in a tweet.

Eventually the organization was forced to make a statement, saying in a series of tweets that the “Women’s March is a nonviolent movement. We have never and will never use violence to achieve our goals” and that Shakur’s “resistance tactics were different from ours. That does not mean that we do not respect her anti-sexism work.”

Shakur “took a militant approach,” the organization tweeted. “We do not. That does not mean we don’t respect and appreciate her anti-racism work.”

The #Resistance continues to quote Shakur’s words, and did so today on the stage at the event where most of the declared 2020 Democrat candidates are speaking, including Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey (where the State Trooper was murdered), former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA), and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

Will any of them offer a similar disclaimer?

As reported yesterday on Matt Rooney’s Save Jersey website, New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan stepped up in defense of his murdered compatriot:

“It is an affront to every man and woman who wears the badge that someone would chose to evoke the words of a convicted cop killer and fugitive from justice at a political conference,” said Callahan. “The men and women of the New Jersey State Police will never forget the sacrifice made by Trooper Werner Foerster on May 2, 1973 nor will we forget that the person convicted of his murder remains a fugitive for nearly 40 years. We will remain steadfast, both in the pursuit of Joanne Chesimard and in the preservation of the memory of Trooper Werner Foerster, Badge #2608.”

Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick launched his own broadside at the “new” Democrats:

On Saturday, Governor Phil Murphy was up in Sussex County to promote the candidacy of two Democrats who are running for the Assembly, Deana Lykins and Dan S. Smith.  Lykins, is an insurance industry lobbyist, and Smith, the city attorney of Orange (Essex County), was also an officer in the NAACP – just like the “new” Democrat who led the Marxist cop-killer’s chant on Monday. 

We wonder if Mr. Smith has anything to say about this sorry incident???

Why NJ Republicans are falling behind other states.

How come Republicans do better there than here?  That’s a frequently asked question… and is just as frequently noted.

New Jersey Republicans have lost Republican legislators throughout the Christie years.  Whether we hold the Governor’s office or not, we lose.  Why?

Could it have something to do with our message and who it’s aimed at?

As a comparison, let’s look at neighboring Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania went blue before New Jersey did… but went red in 2016 – providing the electoral margin that gave Donald Trump the presidency. 

In Pennsylvania, both parties play to their base.  As a result – according to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer analysis – blue areas are getting bluer and red areas redder.  What that means is that even when the top of the ticket loses – as it did in 2014 and 2018 – Republicans in the Legislature hold their majorities in BOTH chambers of the Legislature.  Take a look at the map of Republican representation in Pennsylvania’s Legislature in 2008.  Red is Republican and Blue is Democrat…

Now here is Republican representation in Pennsylvania’s Legislature ten years later – in 2018:

In contrast, both parties play to the Democrats’ base in New Jersey.  As a result, the situation is quite different for the GOP in New Jersey… “in retreat” would be a kind way of putting it. 

According to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, 70.6 percent of Americans self-identify as “Christian” – with 25.4 percent belonging to  Evangelical Protestant denominations, 14.7 percent Mainline Protestant, and 20.8 percent Roman Catholic.  With most Evangelical denominations, there’s over a 40 percent spread in favor of Republicans when it comes to voting habits.  So it follows that it would make sense to at least keep in touch with these voters and turn as many out to vote as possible.  And that’s exactly what happens in Pennsylvania.

But not in New Jersey.   

Transgender people only make up about 0.6 percent of the U.S. population—and of that already slim minority, just two percent of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey said they were Republican.  Too often, this is who the GOP targets its message towards in New Jersey.

Don’t believe us?  Then read this statement from the Bob Hugin for United States Senate campaign:  “Bob Hugin strongly supports equality and opportunity for the LGBTQ community and will be a leader on these issues as senator.  If President Trump wants to roll back equality and opportunity for the LGTBQ community, Bob Hugin won't hesitate to stand up to the president.”

Can anyone point to a similar campaign statement made on behalf of the Pro-Life community?  Or the Evangelical community?  Or traditional values Christians of any kind?  All of these groups are far more inclined to vote Republican and are far greater in numbers than 0.6 percent.  But instead of making the most of what would come to them naturally, the GOP in New Jersey too often finds itself trying to expand that 2 percent of 0.6 percent… and hoping it will become a wave.

How else can you explain the fact that New Jersey was the only state delegation in America to send a transgendered person to the 2016 Republican National Convention?  And this is NEW JERSEY, where the party establishment selects carefully chosen insiders to run as delegates to the Republican National Convention.  In this case however, the candidate didn’t even need to run and instead was selected as a special, add-on delegate. 

How many Evangelical pastors got to go to the 2016 Republican National Convention as part of the New Jersey delegation?  How about some real diversity?

Hey, if a transgendered person can swallow the RNC platform, she or he is more than welcome in our big tent… but don’t throw out everyone else just to make it comfortable for her.  That doesn’t get you a big tent, it gets you the sack… you lose elections.

The transgendered person who got to go to the 2016 National Convention is a well-known activist for LGBTQ causes and is active with the LGBTQ Victory Institute Candidate & Campaign Training program for 2019.  The Victory Institute is in the process of training dozens of liberal candidates to take on traditional Republicans throughout the country.  In a recent news story, this LGBTQ activist/ RNC delegate had this to say about traditional Republicans:

“As a Republican, I’m disappointed.  I’m disappointed at how a minor offshoot of the Republican party—one that's very bent on religious freedom—is really directing our current administration to take away the liberty, freedom, and equality that millions of Americans who just happened to be LGBTQ currently enjoy.”

Traditional Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Evangelicals are not “minor offshoots” of the Republican Party.  It’s the majority of America.  It’s a majority that enjoys its religious freedom and holds it dear.  It is a majority that does not want to see its daughters made to shower with anatomical males.  It is a majority that doesn’t like the creep of criminalization occurring in other countries when supposedly free people fail to use the “correct” pronoun to describe someone.

Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney recently wrote a well-received call to arms for New Jersey Republicans to rediscover social issues.  As we have seen, the embedded social liberalism and ongoing contempt for Christian conservatives by well-placed Republican operatives in New Jersey will make progress towards Rooney’s goal difficult but not impossible.  There is a lot of work to do.

Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney: It’s time to re-engage on social issues

Matt Rooney, editor of the conservative political blog Save Jersey went on the record yesterday and issued a strong argument for New Jersey Republicans to re-engage on social issues.  Rooney didn’t equivocate:

If I’ve heard it once, Save Jerseyans, I’ve heard it a 1,000-times:

Republicans can’t win in blue (or even purple territory) running as “social” conservatives.

It’s not just Republicans who’ve surrendered the so-called “culture wars” to the insurgent Left. The West’s original conservative institution — the Catholic Church (of which I am a member, albeit a disgruntled one) — can’t even muster the institutional strength to excommunicate New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic-in-name-only, for enthusiastically legalizing abortion up until the moment of birth. That’s not a late term abortion, folks; it’s early murder.

Infanticide. And they think TRUMP is the Nazi?!? Excuse me?

By the way: polling shows the American public overwhelmingly in opposition to the NY law. Meanwhile, Catholics actually commemorate the feast of Holy Innocents every December 28th recalling the massacre of Jewish children by King Herod. It’s going to feel like a rather hallow gesture next year in light of the current leadership’s latest moral failure.

The Church leadership in America and Europe isn’t just cowardly. That’s true to a degree but an over-simplified judgment all the same. Bishops made the same poor political calculation as Republican politicians to their great detriment: “we can’t win young, educated women in blue states unless we stick 100% to economics and taxes.”  

How’s that working out?

I wrote about this phenomenon last January (2018) after Phil Murphy’s landslide here in New Jersey but before the midterm massacre. My conclusion (which is self-evident from the latest results): Republicans are losing suburban voters who could care less about high taxes. They should care! Democrats are unambiguously worse for the economy. Consider, for example, how the U.S. as a whole just created 300k+ jobs under President Trump in the same month that New Jersey LOST thousands of jobs under Phil Murphy. Our worst-in-America property taxes are the stuff of legend. Now New Jersey is poised to tax rain. RAIN! Yet educated suburbanites in Burlington, Somerset, Morris and Bergen counties are trending hard-left.

Most Leftist voters don’t mind high taxes. They’re willing to PAY for their values.

Which values, you ask? Hard to say. A better question is what motivates the new Left, or what they’re against: kids in cages, affronts to “reproductive rights,” and politically incorrect tweets.

Adjudicating who gets to pee in which bathroom (with which set of anatomy) is a bigger priority for these voters than questions of war, peace and prosperity.

Said another way, the Democrats are their “moral” party. Much the same as Nixon successfully harnessed the sentiments of the “silent majority” in ’68.

So yeah, doubling-down on a economics-only “reasonableness” argument will continue to fall on deaf ears. We know this. The proof is in the pudding.

If the Right ever wants to compete with the Left again in places like New Jersey which are at the tipping point of becoming one-party states like California, Republicans and their natural allies need to immediately abandon debunked “conventional wisdom” and reengage the culture wars with renewed energy.

Learn from past mistakes, speak from the heart, and push back HARD against the Left’s vile excesses and overreaches.

Yes, they’re overreaching. Believe it and have confidence in it. I just saw a mainstream poll where roughly 80% of Americans opposed late term abortions akin to what’s happening up north. As a young-ish attorney living in a blue county (Camden), I know plenty of intelligent, moderate, under 40 professional women who  hate Donald Trump, and typically vote for Democrats, but who also aren’t exactly enamored with the Democrats. We can find common ground on the fiscal issues as-is, yet we can’t get them through the door without first crafting and delivering a coherent, compelling argument concerning why we deserve their support on the “other” issues.

They want to know we CARE about people as much as mathematics.

You may find that worldview frustrating, but the problem is also nothing new. Any great leader in the vanguard of a popular movement knows the head and the heart require equal treatment in the public discourse.

The good news? I’ve talked to countless educated younger voters on matters ranging from the NY abortion law to New Jersey’s wacky gender neutral birth certificate law.

Guess what? They think the Left’s positions on these issues are BONKERS and, in the case of the NY law, utterly revolting.

There are other topics, too, like school choice, illegal alien driver’s licenses, free college tuition for illegals, chemical treatments to delay puberty in suspected transgender children, the rights of disabled Americans and the sexualization of school textbooks where Republicans can and should reclaim some ground with these voters in battleground jurisdictions.

But Gretzky was right: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Fire away, GOP, or forever hold your peace in Blue America.

MATT ROONEY is a practicing New Jersey attorney, regular panelist on Chasing News with Bill Spadea, and the founder and blogger-in-chief of Save Jersey.  You can check out his blog here: https://savejersey.com/

The GOP is the natural party of suburban New Jersey.

Matt Rooney is right.  The Democrats’ “unwillingness to end the redistribution of funds from the suburbs to failing urban schools remains the single biggest driver of our state’s nightmarish, neighborhood-killing property taxes.”

The Democrats could – and should – be challenged on their cruel insistence that economically distressed families in suburban and rural New Jersey be made to subsidize rich corporations and wealthy professionals in places like Jersey City and Hoboken.  The tax breaks with which urban Democrat bosses favor contributors to political campaigns are paid for with subsidies from struggling communities throughout New Jersey. 

There is more than enough corporate and professional money in urban New Jersey to cover the education of the children who live there.  If those interested parties were made responsible for the children of their communities the educational systems there would be subject to a greater degree of local oversight and on-the-spot scrutiny by those stakeholders.  Absent that, under the current system of subsidy from afar, those subsidized stakeholders are more than content to allow political corruption to flourish, just so long as they keep getting their discount. 

It is shameful for One Percenters like Phil Murphy, Steve Fulop, Lacey Rzeszowski, and Saily Avelenda to don their pussy hats and try to argue that their tax breaks are about “helping poor children”.  Not when their “philanthropy” is paid for by over-taxed, working class families trying to stay out of foreclosure. There is nothing LIBERAL about screwing over working class families to pay for propping-up corrupt urban political machines. 

As far back as the administration of Governor Jim McGreevey, the Democrats knew that half of the state’s economically disadvantaged children lived outside the over-funded urban Abbott school districts.  More than a decade has passed since the state Supreme Court issued its report on this – and NOTHING has been done to overturn the fundamental unfairness of the state’s system of funding education. 

Since the economic crash of 2008, suburban and rural poverty has grown in New Jersey and throughout the United States.  That’s what the liberal to centrist Brookings Institute has argued in their published studies.  Brookings’ experts also note that, since the 1960’s, most of the nation’s anti-poverty programs have been aimed at the cities.   

Rural and suburban New Jersey lack even the basic infrastructure to help get people back on their feet – on top of which local municipalities are robbed of the property taxes that could help with this.  Everything is taken from them – in the name of the urban poor – but for the use of the One Percent and the corporations they control. 

Corrupt urban political machines, corrupt vendors, rich corporations, and wealthy professionals all make out under the Abbott regime.  The genuinely poor remain trapped in schools that, for all the money spent per pupil, fail to educate their students or prepare them for the working world.  The kids are used as pawns, as an excuse, for the corruption and those getting rich from it.

More than a decade ago a prescient writer by the name of Paul Mulshine argued that the life of every child mattered and that the state needed to provide a uniform baseline of funding.  Instead, the Democrats have ensured that the money continues to miss those poor children living outside the Abbotts, while failing to help those living within the Abbotts. 

The question is, will those currently charged with leading New Jersey Republicans into their next battle recognize these stark facts starring them in the face?  Will they make use of them?  If not for their own political ambitions and those of their party – Republican leaders should be urged to do so on behalf of over-taxed working people, their children, and for the child pawns being used but not served.

New Jersey Republicans face extinction.  Their fighting prowess is minimal.  It has reached the point where any plausible Democrat candidate with a modicum of funding can expect to simply march in and take most of their remaining legislative seats.  Not in Northwest New Jersey mind you, where every Democrat on the ballot was just ruthlessly slaughtered and where the Democrat who challenged Senator Steve Oroho in 2017 lost her school board seat.  This is where the pussy hats run into a phalanx of flannel shirts (and those are the women!).  

In his column (https://savejersey.com/2018/11/n-j-republicans-are-letting-sweeney-appropriate-their-strongest-argument-rooney/), Matt Rooney raises the question of whether Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick is up to the task of fighting the Democrats next year.  Whether he is a “wartime consiglieri” or not.  We hope that he is, but at the present, he appears to be more concerned about how he is perceived within the “bubbles” of Trenton and Westfield (whose median income is double that of Sussex County). 

Assembly Leader Bramnick would do well to break out of this bubble.  “Bubble land” doesn’t understand America.  It is too rich, too privileged, too unconcerned with the basics of shelter and debt to worry about those who are.  Bubble land never understood the rise of Donald Trump.  Never got the levels of pain and disappointment that the eight gray years of Barack Obama brought to those working class people who voted for him in 2008.  They put it down to “racism” when it was really about the threat of foreclosure – of losing… everything.

We urge Jon Bramnick and the other leaders of the NJGOP to embark on an experiment in listening and learning.  Not the usual photo-op in Newark… go to where the new poverty is.  Visit a food pantry in what everyone thinks is a middle class town.  Watch the people who once had a good job, with benefits and a pension, but who now work three without.  Notice the high priced automobiles, now over a decade old.  Drive around and take note of the “for sale” signs.  Visit an encampment of working people who have lost their homes.

This isn’t a time for rallying around a corrupt Establishment that – uses poor people as an excuse to rape working people to make rich people richer.  No matter how you personally feel about the Democrats responsible, these are bad policies and they must be challenged.  The choice must be one of clear-blue-water between the parties.  Again, if not for your own political ambitions and those of your party, do it for the over-taxed working people, for their children, and for the child pawns being used but not served.

Matt Rooney makes the point very clearly:  “Taxpayers want an advocate… not a mediator.”  Amen.

McCann is backed by a convict, calls opponent "loser"

Anyone who has worked for Peter Murphy knows how the guy brags about how much power he has.  He brags, downs a shot of his favorite whiskey, and then brags some more. 

Who is Peter Murphy?  Peter Murphy is the GOP party boss of Passaic County who was convicted of public corruption and served time in prison.  Here's what blogger Matt Rooney had to say about him:

Former Passaic GOP chairman Peter Murphy of Totowa ultimately plead guilty to mail fraud back in 2003 after a lengthy prosecution and conviction(the original result of which the 3rd Circuit set aside and remanded for a new trial), Save Jerseyans, but if the Passaic County Regular Republican Organization’s executive board moves forward with a working resolution on July 22nd, he may very soon be back at helm of that organization. Or running for elected office?

Here’s the bylaws article that they might repeal:

No person shall be qualified to serve as Municipal Leader or member of the Executive Board who is otherwise unqualified to hold elective office or has been convicted of a crime of the third degree or higher, involving dishonesty or moral turpitude or which constitutes a felony in either the State of New Jersey, Federal jurisdiction or equivalent of same in another jurisdiction. All Municipal Leaders or members of the Executive Board shall execute a certified statement that the individual has not been convicted of a crime of the third degree or higher, involving dishonesty or moral turpitude or which constitutes a felony in either the State of New Jersey, Federal Jurisdiction or equivalent of same in another jurisdiction.”

The ultimate result here, as ever, only almost as interesting as HOW we got here in the first place.

The man who derailed power broker?

“We are pleased with the end result here – that Mr. Murphy served a considerable amount of time in prison for crimes which he has finally acknowledged committing as Republican party chairman in Passaic County,” then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie crowed in a November 7, 2003 statement released by his office. “For those crimes, Mr. Murphy has lost his prestige and power, nearly a year of freedom and now is a convicted felon.”

The Passaic County Regular Republican Organization’s executive board went ahead and repealed the bar to convicts serving as their Chairman.

And a few days after doing so, the same Passaic County Regular Republican Organization executive board made John McCann their candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress.

Is your skin crawling yet?

Is Save Jersey playing it straight?

We remember when Save Jersey was created as a vehicle for the election of Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey.  That's the actual origin of the website's name:  Chris Christie was going to "Save Jersey." 

Save Jersey was to be a Lonegan-bashing adjunct to Wally Edge's PoliticsNJ (aka PolitickerNJ and Observer.com).  The Christie people already had the somewhat mercurial David "Wally Edge" Wildstein in their pocket, so Save Jersey's young editor, Matt Rooney, worked slavishly to impress the boss.  The website even went so far as to mock conservative Steve Lonegan's blindness. 

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.  Rooney got out of school and failed to get that social media job at the Governor's office he had his eye on.  Wally Edge left his website, got a political patronage job at the Port Authority, did his BridgeGate thing, and pleaded guilty in federal court.  Chris Christie went from being (in Rooney's eyes) New Jersey's savior and potential occupant of the White House to a liability.  Rooney, along with Kim Guadagno, and an assortment of rats, "jumped ship" and began to attack their former master, the one-time object of their somewhat overly intense affections.

Once upon a time they praised Governor Christie for "reaching out" to secure the support of organized labor, much as Ronald Reagan had done.  Today, they treat anyone in a blue-collar as a pariah.

For the record, the contributors here at Jersey Conservative (except for Professor Murray Sabrin) were uniform in their support for Steve Lonegan in his 2009 gubernatorial battle with Chris Christie.  It is not that we have ever supported the Governor's agenda (although parts have been very worthy of that support), it is just that we abhor the craven, vulgar, opportunistic disloyalty shown towards Governor Christie, by those who once attacked us for not following him.  We marvel at how their intensity has not changed.  They were jerk-offs then and they remain jerk-offs now.

Take Matt Rooney as an example.  A shameless self-promoter, even by New Jersey standards.  He is a lawyer who belongs to a firm that exists in the highly political, you-scratch-my-ass-and-I'll-scratch-yours, world of municipal contracts. 

And we have to tell you, that for all Rooney's protestations about being anti-Democrat Party, he doesn't seem to mind being associated with a law firm that takes contracts from Democrat machine towns in South Jersey.  Hey, didn't someone say "follow the money"?  Okay, let's do that:

Save Jersey's Matt Rooney is a lawyer with the Camden County firm of DeMichele & DeMichele.  According to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, the principals of that firm hold the following public contracts/offices:

We searched for Matt Rooney, but came up with nothing:

But that doesn't jive with what Rooney puts in his lawyer's biography:

Matt Rooney has been a member of the New Jersey Bar since 2011 and the District of Columbia Bar since 2012. A significant portion of his practice concerns matrimonial matters including divorce, custody disputes, support modifications, and domestic violence. Matt also handles personal injury, municipal court, and a variety of other types of litigation. He currently serves as a municipal prosecutor in four (4) different South Jersey communities.

So what gives?  Aren't you the guy who is preaching disclosure?  So how about compliance with Local Government Ethics rules?

Matt Rooney

Photo credit: Madison Mae Photography (2014)

Phone: (856) 546-1350
Fax: (856) 546-1365
Email: matt@southjerseylawfirm.com
LinkedIN: MattRooneyNJ
Facebook: MattRooneyNewJersey
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Practice areas: family law (divorce, child support, domestic violence); municipal court; personal injury; civil litigation; collections

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Matt Rooney has been a member of the New Jersey Bar since 2011 and the District of Columbia Bar since 2012. A significant portion of his practice concerns matrimonial matters including divorce, custody disputes, support modifications, and domestic violence. Matt also handles personal injury, municipal court, and a variety of other types of litigation. He currently serves as a municipal prosecutor in four (4) different South Jersey communities.

http://southjerseylawfirm.com/blog/attorney-profiles/matthew-rooney/