Andy Kim should tell NJ Citizen Action to beat it!

According to a press release issued by New Jersey for a Better Future, a group media accounts claim is tied to New Jersey Citizen Action, they plan to launch a $1 million media attack on Tom MacArthur, a two-term Republican congressman from Toms River.  Of course, this will benefit Andy Kim, the Democrat challenging MacArthur.

To understand who Andy Kim is getting into bed with and what New Jersey Citizen Action is all about, you need go no further than the group's attempt to scam New Jersey's taxpayers through something called the New Jersey Residential Foreclosure Transformation Act, better known as the “Residential Destruction Act”.  This legislation (S-1566/A-2168) was designed to grease the skids for banks to push property taxpaying, working families out on to the streets. 

The “Residential Destruction Act” legislation had the potential to completely and totally change the way New Jersey families live.  It enabled the state to create a corporation to sell bonds in order to purchase foreclosed homes in any neighborhood, slap them with a 30 year deed restriction making them low income subsidized housing, and then turn around and sell or rent the property to recently released criminals, homeless people, sexual predators, and a myriad of others who would never be able to afford to live in these homes. 

In short, this was the largest expansion of State Government ever undertaken by Trenton.  Property values would have been destroyed, once safe neighborhoods would become new hunting grounds for criminals, and the days of neighborhood tranquility shattered from Bergen County to Cape May County.

Support for this legislation came from an alliance of Wall Street banking interests and ACORN-like organizations who service “clients” who would get the homes that would be taken from hard-working taxpayers who fell behind on their mortgage.  Citigroup was one of the interest groups that testified on behalf of S-1566/A-2168 and it has an atrocious record of pushing families out of their homes and onto the streets. 

In fact, there's a federal class action lawsuit that accuses CitiMortgage of illegally foreclosing on the homes of "thousands" of service men and women on active military duty.  This is in direct violation of the Service members Civil Relief Act. 

While our troops were over in Iraq and Afghanistan worrying about how to stay alive, fighting for our freedom, back home these special interest were trying to figure out how to make it so they didn’t have a home to come back to.  It’s disgusting.

The “Residential Destruction Act” passed both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature with strong support from a lot of those same Democrats who Andy Kim calls allies.  Fortunately, it was vetoed by then Governor Chris Christie.

So here is the challenge for Andy Kim:  (1) Tell New Jersey for a Better Future and New Jersey Citizen Action to get out of the Third District and take their schemes -- like the “Residential Destruction Act” -- with them.  (2) Will you publically repudiate the members of your party who voted to make it easier for banking interests to throw working families out on the streets – and to use taxpayers’ money to do it?

(3) Will you repudiate the Wall Street lobbyists and groups like Citizen Action for getting together and supporting this scheme that tried to benefit from the misfortune of others?  Don’t you think it is immoral for your allies in the New Jersey Legislature to have anything to do with making it more advantageous to Wall Street to push families onto the streets? 

This issue isn’t going away Andy.  If you fail to take a stand, we will keep asking questions.

Gas-tax repealers pass Black-Lives Matter bill

Last week, the New Jersey Senate passed legislation that will throw EVERY police officer who has to make the decision to use deadly force in front of a state-appointed special prosecutor.  Under this legislation, a police officer who arrives at a school shooting incident in the nick of time and uses his firearm to stop a would-be mass murderer of children will be presumed to have done something wrong and then tossed in front of a persecutory special prosecutor. 

This legislation -- S2469 -- could not become law without the support of two Republicans, Jennifer Beck and Gerald Cardinale.  Without their votes, the bill would not have passed the Senate.

The premise behind this legislation is that county prosecutors -- just by existing within the borders of a particular county -- have too close a relationship with the police officers of that county and therefore cannot objectively investigate an incident when a police officer makes a mistake or oversteps his or her authority. 

While this might be argued for states that elect their prosecutors, such as Pennsylvania, where police unions are active in that political process; in New Jersey all prosecutors are appointed by the same person -- the Governor.  So whether you are a county prosecutor, appointed by the Governor, or the Attorney General, also appointed by the Governor, you do not run for election and there is no potential for that kind of conflict.

If a county prosecutor is too conflicted to investigate a matter within his jurisdiction simply because he or she lives and works there, then the whole idea of county prosecutors needs to be scrapped and replaced with something like the United Kingdom's Crown Prosecution Service, where attorneys are appointed to prosecute on a case-by-case basis.  But the idea of dragging a police officer in front of a special prosecutor, simply because that officer did precisely what he or she was supposed to do in a deadly situation, is preposterous. 

All this legislation will do is to create a species of state prosecutor whose worth will be determined by the number of police officers' scalps collected and careers destroyed.  It will deteriorate the quality of police organizations  and with that, the safety of every community in New Jersey.

The Assembly might consider a "sensitivity training" amendment for special prosecutor designees.  It would include eight weeks of putting on a police officer's uniform, strapping on a sidearm, and engaging in day-to-day police work like traffic stops and domestic calls.  Call it prosecutors' boot camp.   

Just why two Republican Senators -- Beck and Cardinale -- would cross party lines to vote for this misguided legislation is open to question.  We suggest that it is because they find the contemplation of labor unions and working people disagreeable.  Senator Beck is a career  politician and lobbyist, while Senator Cardinale is a politician with a profession, as well as the owner of a luxury property in the Caribbean. 

According to a press release put out by the ACLU, Beck and Cardinale casts their votes on behalf of that organization as well as Black Lives Matter Morristown, Black Lives Matter Paterson, Black Lives Matter New Jersey, the Drug Policy Alliance, Garden State Equality, New Jersey Citizen Action, and the New Jersey Policy Perspective.  Beck and Cardinale stood with the far-left to screw working police officers and their families.