NJGOP: Controlling the narrative by controlling the data

By Rubashov

Last November, New Jersey Democrats weathered a national tidal wave that swept away Democrat majorities and gave the GOP its first gubernatorial win in Virginia since 2009. New Jersey Democrats maintained healthy majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and Phil Murphy bucked history to become the first Democrat governor to be re-elected since 1977.

But in the fantasyland inhabited by the cabal of consultants who dominate the NJGOP, New Jersey Republicans really won last November. The tide rose high enough for the GOP to pick up a respectable number of legislative seats and local offices… but Republicans still didn’t win control of the governor’s office or a single chamber of the Legislature. And the loss of two longtime Republican counties – Burlington and Somerset – was only more firmly established.

Why then is last November being sold as a “victory”? There are three reasons.

First, the consultants who have spent millions in losing the GOP congressional delegation, key counties like Burlington and Somerset, and dozens of other GOP candidates at the statewide, legislative district, county, and municipal levels have a reputation to maintain. They need something to pitch potential clients and keep existing ones. If you don’t have a victory to pitch, these guys have the talent to come up with a pitch that sounds like a victory – even when it isn’t. Hey, we all know bullshit fuels politics. This is just one example.

Second, Jack Ciattarelli is running for Governor in 2025 and he’s invested in this narrative. He needs to convince existing and potential donors to invest again, so it’s important that the blame not fall on his campaign and consultants. So the story goes: “We didn’t leave any votes on the table, did everything right, achieved something like a victory, and next time…”

Third, these consultants might as well own the NJGOP. They recruited Bob Hugin, made him a statewide candidate, and their latest statewide candidate – Jack Ciattarelli – handpicked Hugin for the job of NJGOP Chairman.

A big part of their narrative is that the Bob Hugin-Jack Ciattarrelli model of campaigning, in particular the turnout model, is the only “viable” way forward (to use their favorite term). Unfortunately, the two times that their model was actually used (2018 for Hugin and 2021 for Ciattarelli), it lost. And that’s kind of the opposite of “viable”.

You might have noticed that in contrast to past years, these consultants are going all out to present an examination of the data. They claim it will show how successful they were in not winning the governor’s office, state senate, and state assembly. The Save Jersey blog just did a post-mortem of sorts and the NJGOP is planning to put together a dog and pony show in March to further “prove” their point.

Some wags have pointed out that all this activity was hastened after the announcement that the GOP legislative leadership would conduct its own post-mortem into what was done and how it failed to capture a single legislative chamber. This is nothing new. Every legislative leadership in every state does it after every election cycle.

But the wags have also pointed out that this is the reason why NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin is withholding access to the data necessary to complete a legislative post-mortem. Yes, it’s the Republican National Committee’s data, granted to each state committee as a resource for legislative and other party leaders to study voter history, conduct post-mortems, create voter turnout models, recruit candidates, and create direct-mail databases.

So why isn’t Bob Hugin and the NJGOP sharing this data with Republican legislative leaders? Could it be that they don't want the legislative post-mortem to happen? Why else would they want the NJGOP to be a one-idea operation?

Hugin and his consultants have the data. They are making selective use of it to create a narrative supporting the theory that the Bob Hugin-Jack Ciattarrelli model of campaigning, in particular the turnout model, is the only “viable” way forward. By withholding the data from competing models – like the one Bill Stepien’s team is working on for GOP legislative leaders – Hugin and his consultants are attempting to abort a potential competition of ideas.

Is this kind of cheating the Big Pharma way? If you fix it so there’s no competition allowed, you can pretty much do what you want and not be held to account for it.

For our part, we don’t like cheating. We think New Jersey Republicans can handle more than one way, in other words, a choice. And we don’t think they will explode just because they have more than one idea to consider.

Don’t cheat. Different perspectives are good things. Don't try to block them from happening. Don't try to stop them. From them, maybe you’ll figure out how to win… for real win. Not fantasy spin win.

What happens when you spin yourself and fail to come to grips with reality.

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

George Orwell

Murphy extremists are fighting to keep control of School Boards

By Rubashov

On Monday, Governor Phil Murphy’s state Democrat machine put out a press release attacking the concept of parents and property taxpayers having a voice in education by running for local school board. Calling it a “troubling trend among candidates running for school boards all over New Jersey” the Chairwoman of the NJ LGBTQ Democrats, Lauren Albrecht, issued the following statement:

“What we’re seeing is a very small but very loud group of individuals who are running for seats on Boards of Education all over New Jersey in a campaign coordinated by, and funded by an extremist and Evangelical agenda, with the singular goal of pushing animosity aimed at LGBTQ+ students and the LGBTQ+ community in general. These candidates, and their backers, have one goal: to fill school boards with fringe extremists whose sole aim is to destroy the progress that’s been made for the LGBTQ community in our state.”

“An extremist and Evangelical agenda”? Is Ms. Albrecht preaching hatred towards specific religious groups? And why does her organization not embrace the “+” in LGBTQ+? Her statement specifically accuses this “extremist and Evangelical agenda” of “the singular goal of pushing animosity aimed at LGBTQ+ students and the LGBTQ+ community in general.” But her group lacks the “+” so, why is that?

Could it be that part of that “+” is “K” for Kink? Is it that Ms. Albrecht understands sado-masochism as a life-style choice, at least for the moment, makes even politically fashionable suburbanites pause? Ms. Albrecht needs to explain just which part of “+” her organization is so uncomfortable with.

This attack by Governor Murphy’s NJ LGBTQ Democrats could be in response to the success of a group, formed by Pastor Phil Rizzo last year, which successfully fulfilled its mission under the leadership of Lafayette school board president Josh Aikens this year. The group, AriseNJ, has recruited more than 400 candidates statewide – representing both major parties, some belonging to no party or third parties – who are bracketed and running together in over 100 school districts.

AriseNJ helps people to run for school board who believe in parental and taxpayer control over education, who embrace the Bill of Rights, and who oppose Trenton authoritarianism in the form of unfunded mandates and curriculum diktats. That is not “extremist” but rather the very idea of democracy for which the Democratic Party is named.

As Ms. Albrecht knows, the Democrat Party has non-profit groups set-up to train and run candidates for school board. They understand the existential importance of this level of government. Unfortunately, the Republican Party does not.

Contrary to Ms. Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats’ assertion that the parents and property taxpayers who now want a say in their children’s education are “well-funded” – the NJGOP is not helping them at all. Quite the opposite.

The Chairman of the NJGOP, Bob Hugin, appears to favor funding a very different agenda. The former Big Pharma executive has busied himself with changing the face of the GOP. Since his 2018 campaign, Hugin appears to have more deeply embraced identity politics.

For example, an independent expenditure committee controlled by Hugin called Women for a Stronger New Jersey spent around $30,000 on direct mail, text-messaging, robo-calls, and social media in an attempt to defeat a conservative State Committeewoman in Mercer County and replace her with what would have been the first transgender State Committeewoman to represent the GOP. The effort ultimately failed, but one can only ask why such resources – scarce in the best of times – would be wasted on such a silly primary, for such a silly cause. $30,000 would be better used to defeat Democrats – or to fund parents and property taxpayers who want a say in their children’s education.

Lauren Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats are pushing for an agenda that interferes with the traditional role of parents – teaching their children how to negotiate their sexuality in the world – and with the traditional role of consumers – the right to choose which product they pay for. Property taxpayers are consumers. They pay for a product. They shouldn’t be forced to pay for a product they don’t like. Not without a way of exercising their right to petition the governing body. No consumer should. Democrats once understood that. Liberals – true liberals – still do.

But liberals are few and far between in the Democrat Party of today. Even Leftists – honest Leftists who don’t buy into the security state or the permanent war machine or bailouts that help Wall Street infinitely more than Main Street or executive orders that throw you out of a job but don’t make sure you have a means to pay for health care – Leftists like that don’t inhabit the Democrat Party. Instead you have Wall Street operators like Phil Murphy and government authoritarians like… also Phil Murphy. That’s your Democrat Party today, which is why they need Trump so much as a hate object to unite them.

Apparently without considering the institutions that founded education in America, Albrecht writes: “These candidates no more belong on Boards of Education than religion belongs in our public schools.”

So, is that the position of the New Jersey Democrats under Phil Murphy? If you believe in God or some form of higher consciousness or even possess a spiritually informed conscience of your own, you have no place on a school board? Do they really believe that education belongs only to those who make money from it? To greed alone? To the education establishment, the fat-paid administrators, the insider vendors (like Garden State Equality), and to all those politically-connected who trouser the green from the grease machine? Everybody else shut-up and just keep paying?

Even more disturbing, given recent moves by the National School Boards Association and the Biden administration to criminalize speech at school board meetings, is this weird threat from Lauren Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats:

“It’s time for our community and allies to identify and expose these extremist candidates (and their backers) who are exploiting this fraught moment for their own brazen political gain with little regard for the support, safety, and academic achievement of New Jersey public school students. It’s time to send a clear message at the polls that again, hate has no home in New Jersey.”

Lauren Albrecht proves Hank Bukowski right again: “The best at hate are those who preach love.”

Here Tucker Carlson exposes the Biden agenda for restricting the right of parents and property taxpayers to petition the governing school boards that tax them:

Will the Biden administration criminalize speech at school board meetings and use the Patriot Act against those who petition a governing body?

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
George Orwell

Jim McGreevey-linked group smears Allen (and Biden) over border.

By Rubashov

Poor Phil Murphy must be getting desperate. He’s got to be to look to Jim McGreevey for a lifeline.

If the former Governor hadn’t employed his novel diversion, does anybody doubt that there would have been a criminal investigation into the part he played in his corrupt administration? Corruption and kink – those were the features of McGreevey’s tenure as Governor. Didn’t the Star-Ledger and The Record do fat exclusives on it? Wasn’t it reported that he assigned one of his own staffers to have sex with his First Lady? Some crazy stuff.

Having taken the same road as Nixon-dirty tricks operative Chuck Colson, the former Governor is now a preacher – lecturing anyone who will listen about right from wrong. Like Colson, Jim McGreevey’s ministry involves prisons, but he can’t seem to stay out of politics. Of course, politics is where the money is… and the attention… and the celebrity (and the former Governor is, and always has been, a supreme narcissist).

On Saturday, the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com ran an opinion column by a director at Jim McGreevey’s organization. This fellow is the vice president of something called the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition. He co-wrote the column with the president of the aforementioned – who is, according to the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com, “very active in the Union City Clergy Association of Mayor Brian Stack.”

Hey, are these guys ward healers… or members of the clergy?

Now if you search the Guidestar website, which rates the reliability of charitable organizations and other non-profits, you will not find the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition. You also won’t find them in a search of the Internal Revenue Service’s website. The group doesn’t appear to be registered with the IRS as a non-profit organization. It’s not even listed as an existing organization – or one that ever existed – with the New Jersey Department of the Treasury’s Division of Revenue. And that’s the Murphy administration!

So, where did this group come from?

From news reports in the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com, it seems the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition was formed during Phil Murphy’s first campaign for Governor. As reported in the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com, Murphy spent heavily on a coalition building effort led by operatives like Al Alvarez and Derek Green.

According to the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com, the Murphy campaign paid Green two million dollars for his efforts. Like Alvarez, Green was rewarded with a taxpayer-supported government appointment. Green became Murphy’s “senior adviser on diversity, faith, urban and regional growth.” Get the picture?

On July 6th, the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition held a press conference in Newark to formally endorse Governor Phil Murphy for re-election. Later that day, the Governor issued a statement accepting their endorsement.

The Star-Ledger/ NJ.com opinion column by the two men who run the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition followed the coordinated Democrat Party talking points that have been pushed by Murphy’s campaign, and by Murphy himself. Coincidence?

On August 9th, Governor Murphy attacked Diane Allen for suggesting that COVID-19 could be brought over the border by undocumented immigration. That’s undocumented – as in nobody got their names, let alone tested them for anything from STDs to COVID!

Murphy said that the idea that unmasked, unvaccinated people, kept in close confinement before being shepherded in tightly packed groups across the border, might pick up the virus along the way was “conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact”. He went on to suggest that even being concerned about the possibility of such a thing was “making people less healthy and putting their lives at risk”.

Murphy’s statements placed him in direct conflict with the administration of President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly extended the closure of the borders with Mexico and Canada due to concerns over cross-border transmission of coronavirus. The ban on all non-essential travel will continue to at least August 21st, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced. The restriction on non-essential travel began in March 2020 “due to the coronavirus pandemic” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

President Biden shares the same concerns as Senator Allen about cross-border transmission of COVID-19. Of course, being able to test those crossing the border is essential to containing the spread of coronavirus and its variants. Illegal border-crossings by undocumented immigrants totally defeats the ability to test, treat, and contain the virus.

Nowhere in their column do the two men who run the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition acknowledge that the borders with Mexico and Canada are currently closed, by the Biden administration, due to concerns about the transmission of COVID-19. People with titles like reverend and pastor shouldn’t openly lie like that. It damages their entire mission (if indeed they still have a mission beyond shilling for powerful people in government).

The leaders of the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition need to watch this video... and then issue an apology to Diane Allen (or make the same accusation against President Joe Biden).

One of the authors identifies as an American Baptist. The other was religiously educated at a seminary run by the Reformed Episcopal Church. We intend to write to both entities for their opinion about the dishonesty displayed by these two “clergymen” and by their use of a political candidate’s talking points in a deeply misogynistic attempt to smear a woman with a record that is clearly at odds with their mischaracterization of her. We will offer to debate the matter with them before both bodies.

And it gets worse. In their column, and on orders from God only knows who, these two deeply compromised men tried to label Diane Allen a “racist” for her words, while ignoring the words and actions of President Biden. Allen and Biden concur and the two cannot be separated.

We also find it strange that people who are ordained by color-blind religious denominations set themselves up as heads of exclusionary organizations that have more to do with voter-segmenting than the message of Christ that “all men are brothers”. Any honest reader of their column will agree that it has very little to do with Christianity and a whole lot to do with the campaign of Governor Phil Murphy and a political hit job. So, why put on your collars to do it?

In our opinion, a group with a name like “New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition” sounds exclusionary and racist. Why shouldn’t a church be open to everyone? Maybe that’s why Mayor Stack had the good sense to give his group a geographic-sounding name – “Union City Clergy Association” – instead of an exclusionary one.

So, who are the racists here?

Being political hatchet men may serve the personal needs of these two men, but we doubt it is the look desired by the American Baptist congregation or the Reformed Episcopal Church. In trading their clerical mantles for the misogynistic garb of political lowlifes, the only thing the leaders of the New Jersey Latino Pastors and Ministers Coalition have smeared is their congregations and the broader church.

Again, this is the beginning. Stay tuned…

“The entire business model of the Democratic Party is to avoid dealing with its own populists’ concerns, so they’ve never seen the Sanders wing of the party as anything but a threat to what they do for a living, which is basically take corporate money and then sell themselves as socially progressive. That’s what they do for a living. That’s their business.”

Matt Taibbi
Journalist and author of Hate, Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

More Dem LGBTQ+ scammers target GOP’s Jack Ciattarelli

By Rubashov

It seems that every Democrat county machine in the state has its own stable of “LGBTQ+” operatives who benefit from the corrupt grease machine of insider-dealing. There is no mystery to this. The movement’s activist class is made up almost entirely of Democrat Party loyalists who anointed themselves as the “face and voice” of thousands of people they have never met or spoken with.

No matter what you do they always return to their party and stab you in the back for having an "R" next to your name. Ask Kim Guadagno and Jenn Beck.

Of course, sometimes the narrative breaks down, like when actual businesspeople (who happen to enjoy same-sex relationships) rebelled in Asbury Park against Governor Phil Murphy’s wanton destruction of everything they had achieved and worked for. It is in moments like this that the “identity” that is imposed on you and that is supposed to inform your every action fails – and the more complicated self that inhabits every human being is revealed.

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 that fully covers 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.

Goldstein. Always a Democrat. No matter what.

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

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”

Robert A. Heinlein

BLM backs the Cuban regime. Will the NJ Legislature end its support of BLM?

By Rubashov

A Newsweek headline asks: Why Is Black Lives Matter Defending the Totalitarian Cuban Regime? Why indeed?

Newsweek continues:

The anti-government protests that have rocked Cuba in the last several days are the most dramatic expression of discontent seen on the island in six decades of communist rule. President Biden has sent a strongly worded message of solidarity with "the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom" against "Cuba's authoritarian regime," praising the protesters' assertion of "fundamental and universal rights."

…Yet not everyone was united in condemnation.

Most prominent among these is the Black Lives Matter movement, whose statement posted yesterday blamed Cuba's economic troubles on the United States embargo and hailed the Cuban regime's "solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent." According to the BLM statement, "The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades." Preposterously, the statement also accuses the U.S. of "undermining Cubans' right to choose their own government."

The "choice," in this case, is a one-party system in which all candidates for political office must be vetted by Communist Party-controlled committees.

Wow. “All candidates for political office must be vetted by Communist Party-controlled committees?” Functions something like the county “line”.

The BLM Movement statement specifically mentioned Cuba’s support for a convicted cop-killer: “Cuba has historically demonstrated solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent, from protecting Black revolutionaries like Assata Shakur through granting her asylum, to supporting Black liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, and South Africa.”

An anti-(American) police organization that supports a foreign police state. An actual police state. The real thing. Not some academic Karen’s imaginings.

Here is some news coverage of BLM’s madness:

BLM… a Ponzi scheme?

A few days ago, a group of corrupt Democrat ward heelers, that included state legislators, put out a statement attacking Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli for his support of the Cuban people in their push for democracy.  Perhaps, now we know why.
 
Last year, a chamber of the New Jersey Legislature passed a resolution explicitly supporting the same BLM (Black Lives Matter) Movement that has now formally lent its name and support to a totalitarian Communist dictatorship. In doing so, BLM has made it abundantly clear that they do not represent Black Americans who are not Communists or totalitarian or pro-dictatorship or anti-democracy.  In short, BLM hardly represents any Black Americans at all. 
 
May they now quickly consign their movement to the waste bin of history.
 
 

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”

Robert A. Heinlein

Interview with Scott Bach, Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs

By Devorah

Threat To New Jersey Gun Owners Medical Privacy with new bill, S-568.

The Democrats have been passing legislation at lightning speed in New Jersey, with limited public interaction (which appears to be intentional). Each legislative bill proposed has been stripping away fundamental rights: God-given, Constitutional, civil rights.

In my interview with Mr. Scott Bach, Executive Director, ANJRPC, I asked several questions relating to the current and pressing concern over the bill S-568, which is set to, yet again, violate the medical rights and privacy of gun owners.

The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs is a statewide organization representing the rights of all New Jersey gun owners. Mr. Bach full legislative alert is posted below following the interview. People interested in reaching Mr. Bach can email him at: defendfreedom@earthlink.net. Here is his response.

What has made it difficult in educating the public that their civil rights are Constitutional and legal; and yet are treated as if the opposite?

"People are being tricked into giving up their rights by those trying to implement a global socialist agenda in which people are subject to the will of the state instead of the other way around. Especially in liberal New Jersey, many folks have swallowed the lie. Our job is to shine light on the subject and wake up as many people as possible to resist that agenda."

Tell us a bit on how you became involved in creating this alert?

"We send out many legislative alerts to gun owners on bills that are actually moving, and this was one of them. The implications of this bill for medical privacy and restoring gun rights to those who have genuinely recovered were far-reaching. It was basically an attempt to nullify what expungement actually means (a fresh start) and create a permanent stigma that can be used to block gun ownership for the rest of someone's life, regardless of their recovery."

Do you feel there is a bias on gun owners? And why?

"The bias against gun owners is blatant, systemic, and far-reaching. To some in government and the courts, the Constitution can simply be ignored when it comes to the rights of gun owners, and a different set of rules applies. Respect for the Second Amendment in New Jersey is gone among bureaucrats."

What is the most pressing thing you would want the public to be informed about for protecting the Second Amendment?

"People must ask themselves why government works so hard to extinguish gun rights. The phony claim that law-abiding citizens are made safer by more gun laws (which criminals ignore) is cover for a deeper agenda, which is to remove citizens' ability to defend themselves and their country against those trying to undermine it."

S-568 is legislation that would inject law enforcement into the process of evaluating whether someone has recovered from mental health issues and should be given an expungement so they can receive NJ firearms credentials. The bill would violate medical privacy laws by disclosing protected information to law enforcement, and jeopardizes millions of dollars in federal grant monies that NJ might be forced to return for blatantly violating such laws.

Medical privacy laws of gun owners must be respected, and personal opinions of non-medical personnel about someone's fitness to own firearms are irrelevant and should not be considered. Records should be expunged based on the opinions of medical professionals only, and the fact that an expungement has been given may not be used as a basis to deny a subsequent application for firearms credential (a longstanding issue that defeats the very purpose of expungements -- to clear someone's record after they have recovered and remove any lingering stigma).

Please tell members of the Senate to either fix or oppose S568. Potential amendments could include (1) excluding law enforcement opinion and speculation from the process, solely limiting law enforcement input to records of pre-existing written incident reports; (2) limiting requests issued to law enforcement so they do not expose that the purpose of the request is connected to medical issues or an expungement related to potential firearms ownership; and (3) clarifying that expungements and expunged records cannot be used as a basis for denial of any firearms permit or license.

“People must ask themselves why government works so hard to extinguish gun rights.”

Scott L. Bach, Esq.

Posters? Dems allow weakest possible response to slavery

by Rubashov

Led by virtue-signaling poseurs like Senator Loretta Weinberg, Democrat legislative leaders have held up addressing the problem of modern slavery.In fact, they don’t even recognize it as a problem and consistently fail to call it by its name – slavery.

New Jersey Democrats openly diss the United Nations, and the work of people like UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, who recently reminded world leaders: “This is 2020. Centuries have passed since the end of the transatlantic slave trade. Yet more than 40.3 million people remain victims of modern slavery — 5 in every 1,000 people in the world… Modern slavery is a blight in our world that we must eradicate.”

Human trafficking is modern day slavery – and yet there are legislators in Trenton and their staffs who not only deny it but enable it by blocking legislation designed to stop human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. Lawyer-lobbyist firms are some of the biggest supporters of the primarily Democrat legislators who react to any common sense restrictions on sexual exploitation as wanting to “take away my porn”.

The Internet is used extensively by human traffickers to ensnare their victims and then to monetize their degradation and suffering. The New York Times recently outed Pornhub, for its role in monetizing crimes like child rape. Two Fridays ago, the New York Times reported:“Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children.”

What is Pornhub? The New York Times points out details that would shock all but the most hardened Democrat legislators and their staffs:

“Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for ‘girls under18’ (no space) or ‘14yo’ leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.”

How does Pornhub monetize the rape of children? Again, from the New York Times:

“After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.”

A 23-year-old university student says that “Pornhub became my trafficker.” She was trafficked when she was 9 years-old and is now studying to be an attorney. She told the New York Times: “I’m still getting sold… I may never be able to get away from this. I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

an inadequate response to the problem uncovered by the New York Times. In response to all this national publicity about modern slavery – human trafficking – and the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children, the Democrat-controlled Legislature did something… they passed a bill to require posters to be hung-up at locations like dressing rooms, restrooms, and restroom stalls at strip clubs, sexually oriented businesses, and massage parlors. This is not a bad thing and it does serve a purpose, but it is an inadequate response to the problem uncovered by the New York Times. A poster cannot stop what Pornhub is up to. The technology employed simply isn’t up to the job.

While blocking other legislation, the Democrats allowed this legislation (S-280) to get a hearing and a vote because now they can say they did something about “human trafficking” (they refuse to join the United Nations in calling it “modern slavery”). Now Democrats can go back to protecting the corporate establishment that is invested in platforms like Pornhub.

In a press statement, S-280's Republican sponsor, Senator Tom Kean Jr., noted: “Human trafficking occurs today across New Jersey in places where many of us would never suspect it, including our own communities. Victims are often lured with the prospect of a job, and then have their passports, money, and identification stolen by their handlers. They’re moved around and forced to work for the benefit of others. It’s imperative that victims and those who may have witnessed exploitation know that help is just a phone call away.

Senator Kean’s press statement specifically stated: “Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that exploits victims for sex, labor, or both.”

His legislation, S-280, requires the New Jersey Commission on Human Trafficking to develop new signs and posters with directions for obtaining help and services to be displayed in places where the victims of human trafficking are most likely to see them. The new public awareness poster would include the toll-free phone number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline, a 24-hour service.

Posters will be placed in workplaces, bars, airports, train stations, welcome centers, truck stops, weigh stations, emergency rooms, urgent care centers, farm labor contractors, job recruitment centers, service areas, rest areas along interstate highways, public transportation, hotels, motels, campsites, and similar places of public accommodation. All of this is good and Senator Kean deserves great thanks for shaming the Democrats into passing this legislation, but the Democrats continue to oppose any measure to address the problems uncovered by the New York Times.

Legislation to shut down Internet-based sex trafficking and slavery does exist and has been waiting for a hearing and a vote. It is called the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. Senator Steve Oroho has championed this legislation for years. Democrats like Loretta Weinberg and Teresa Ruiz have blocked it from getting a hearing and a vote.

To make matters worse, the NJGOP has been AWOL in its support of the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. In advance of Tuesday’s vote for a new NJGOP Chairman, we suggested that Members of the State Committee ask the two candidates for Chairman – Bob Hugin and Mike Lavery – to take a position on the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. For Bob Hugin, it would have been a re-affirmation, because he supported the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act at a bi-partisan event in 2018 to support its passage…

Unfortunately, we have not heard from Mike Lavery, the eventual winner and new NJGOP Chairman. Lavery held the Chairmanship in 2017, and we did not hear from him then on the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. This is something that Mike Lavery needs to correct. Every State Committee Member – and especially those who voted for him – needs to take personal responsibility to ensure that Chairman Lavery and the NJGOP take a clear stand against slavery, against human trafficking, against the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children.

Opposition to slavery is at the very core of who the Republican Party is. It is the very reason it was established. It is important that the New Jersey Republican Party take a stand and do the right thing. Activists can’t do it alone, the entire party should stand up for victims of slavery and sexual exploitation.

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln
First Republican President of the United States of America

After RICO conviction of Opioid maker, Trenton should come clean on Big Pharma connections

By Rubashov
 
On Monday, as Trenton Democrats failed in their attempt to forcibly mandate a Big Pharma product, federal prosecutors in Boston were securing tough sentences in their first Big Pharma conviction in an opioid crisis that has resulted in more than 400,000 deaths.
 
NPR called the criminal trial of top executives at Insys Therapeutics a “landmark case” and the “first successful prosecution of high-ranking pharmaceutical executives linked to the opioid crisis, including onetime billionaire John Kapoor.” 
 
Kapoor and his four co-defendants were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy – a charge that is often used to prosecute drug dealers and mob bosses.  In this case the federal government used racketeering to go after corporate executives.
 
The Big Pharma executives were found guilty of running a nationwide bribery scheme. According to court documents, from 2012 until 2015, the pharmaceutical company paid doctors to prescribe opioids in high doses and give it to patients who did not necessarily need it.
 
To facilitate their scheme, the Big Pharma executives created a sham "speakers program” where doctors were paid if they wrote a lot of prescriptions.  It’s the same kind of scam that was used by special interests to pay-off friendly politicians. 

Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senate Democrat Leader Loretta Weinberg have promised their political bosses that they will remove the rights of people to have religious and conscientious objections to the use of Big Pharma products, in this session of the Legislature.  There is a real concern here, because pharmaceutical companies like the one sentenced in federal court on Monday have used their billions to shout down average voters.
 
In 2016, Insys Therapeutics underwrote an effort to defeat a ballot initiative in Arizona.  This included an advertising campaign claiming that opposing the measure was to "protect children".
 
Insys Therapeutics’ allies included major state politicians, the Association of County School Superintendents, the Hospital and Healthcare Association, and several other community organizations.  Big Pharma won… defeating the ballot initiative 51.3% to 48.7%. 
 
That’s why it is so important for New Jersey reformers to demand that a fully transparent website be created that details all of Big Pharma’s influence in New Jersey.  There have been too many deaths as a result of that influence and the resulting lax oversight by government.  400,000 dead and counting…
 
The time for transparency is now.

Video links Sweeney push on mandatory vaccination to Big Pharma

An explosive new video has been posted on YouTube by the media group News In Jersey.  The video has already been viewed by over 12,700 people.

News in Jersey writes:
 
Many have wondered why New Jersey State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has been so adamant in regards to passing Senate Bill S2173, to the extent that he would remove Health Committee Board Members to push this Bill and then to try to influence other Senators to Vote Yes to the most controversial bill that New Jersey has seen in decades. We investigated and found that there is one constant when Sweeney becomes defiant, those are the bills that he is protecting or pushing that George Norcross has demanded.
 
Welcome to the swamp of New Jersey politics. General Majority is the George Norcross run Super Pac pushing politicians into their positions. New Jerseyans see thru the millions that Norcross has spent to put his personally selected order takers into office.
 
He has been buying votes and influence to steer insurance contracts to his firm for years. He has used the Quid Pro Quo to build his firm and is now doing the same thing for other companies who need influence and are looking to get laws passed that will help their net profits.
 
George Norcross and Stephen Sweeney have crossed the line. We are putting our politicians on notice, we are watching you and we will be investigating your connections…
 
We welcome any additional commentary, rebuttals, clarifications, etc. on this very interesting topic.  Stay tuned…

Sweeney camp says African-American legislators guilty of endangering children’s lives

By Rubashov
 
There is an increasing sense of desperation in the attempt by Senate President Steve Sweeney and his camp to pass a series of controversial and unpopular bills that they waited until after the November election to spring on the voters.  That’s right, everyone who is now pushing so loudly for things like this forced  vaccination bill didn’t have the balls to make so much as a squeak before the election, when the voters could do something about it. 
 
Everyone party to this lame duck scam now is being dishonest with the voters – and the voters know it.
 
Sweeney’s latest act of desperation happened late yesterday, when the Democrat Senate President trotted out Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) to suggest that Assemblyman Jamel Holley (D-20) would be culpable in the deaths of children.  Yes, that is how desperate they’ve become.  In an exchange on InsiderNJ, Senator O’Scanlon made this statement about Assemblyman Holley:
 
“Let’s be absolutely clear, the science is overwhelming, vaccines save lives.  Children’s lives.  As our solid, high levels of vaccination rates have fallen the occurrence of outbreaks of preventable, potentially life-altering or even deadly diseases has increased.  If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.
 
“It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.  And please don’t try to compare the infinitesimally smaller risk of vaccines to the dramatically greater risk of failure to maintain a high level of vaccination.
 
“Lastly, it isn’t just the optionally non-vaccinated that are at risk.  The elderly, the very young, the immunocomprosmised who can’t be vaccinated, the 1 in 10 children who are vaccinated who don’t develop immunity and wide swaths of the population whose immunity has lessoned over time. It will be these potentially permanently impacted lives that Assemblyman Holley will have to answer for.”
 
The Sweeney camp – with Republican Declan O’Scanlon as its spokesperson – are a group of non-scientists playing with science.  They make the claim that New Jersey’s vaccination rates have fallen and we are now facing a crisis.  Like it wasn’t a crisis before the election, but it is one now.  Now, in lame duck, children are going to die – and it’s going to be Assemblyman Holley’s fault!
 
But this simply isn’t true.  According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), New Jersey’s vaccination rates are higher than the national average.  So why did this crisis suddenly materialize after an election.  Isn’t that what you have an election for – to discuss issues like this, openly and honestly? 
 
Everyone know that the lame duck session is when you sneak through all the legislation average voters don’t want or care about as paybacks for those special interests who supported you during the election.  You know, the election where you didn’t discuss all these controversial issues in an honest and transparent manner.
 
Skepticism towards the pharmaceutical industry is not without reason.  After all, didn’t they tell us that opioids were the bomb, that they were just the thing for all our troubles, and not to worry?  Didn’t a court just rule that a major pharmaceutical company suppressed evidence that their product gave women uterine cancer?  And they suppressed it for three decades! 
 
So why should we listen to Sweeney and O’Scanlon’s assurances that Pharma knows best?  Isn’t that how the opioid crisis came about?
 
This is why you don’t do this kind of legislation after the election.  You do it before the voters have cast their votes, so that they have a say, so democracy can work.  Instead, we have the lame duck scam, and a lot of chest beating about a problem that wasn’t a problem the politicians wanted to talk about just a few months ago. 
 
And the desperation of the Sweeney camp is palpable.  Just look at the madness of the language employed by Sweeney spokesperson O’Scanlon:  “If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.  It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.” 
 
O’Scanlon is employing a very weird, highly unethical, form of bullying.  Afterall, given so loose an argument, wouldn’t this make Sweeney and O’Scanlon responsible for all the deaths resulting from their exemption?  If you really, really believed the b.s. you are laying on Holley, why would you exempt ANY child?  Would not their amendment be a kiss of death for those students? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases reports the risk of death from measles is higher for adults than for children.  So why isn’t the Sweeney camp mandating the vaccination of every public employee, everyone on any form of public assistance, every incarcerated adult and juvenile, and everyone attending a state supported institution of higher learning? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases recommends that all adults born in 1957 or later get “at least one dose of the MMR vaccine” and that all college and university students, healthcare personnel, and international travelers “receive two doses of the MMR vaccine.”  Heck, if we are talking science, that’s what the actual scientists are advising.
 
And the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases makes this politically-incorrect observation…
 
FACT: Most cases of measles in the US result from infections acquired in other countries or are linked to imported cases.
 
Holy dog crap!  So how come Sweeney, Murphy, and the Democrats are so committed to porous borders???  Like… if they were really committed to stopping the measles and protecting children…
 
Why is O’Scanlon silent on this point?
 
Have you noticed yet that the Democrat Senate President has successfully co-opted a Republican and got him to do his dirty work?  Sadly, this has happened before, on issues ranging from the imposition of the state income tax to the repeal of the death penalty.
 
Meanwhile, a host of very important issues go entirely unaddressed – beginning with property taxes.  Yeah, that thing that New Jersey leads the world in.  The highest property taxes in America, along with the highest foreclosure rate, along with the worst for business climate and job creation.  Why are none of the issues that average voters actually care about being taken up by the Legislature?
 
Why?  Because average voters don’t pay lobbyists, that's why… 

It’s like the Princeton University study says…
 
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
 
The Democrats know this – just as they know that they will always be able to find a Republican to help them push one of their special interest scams over the line.  Maybe Republicans should just refuse to participate in Sweeney’s scams until he agrees to actually address the important jobs that the average voters want the Legislature to do – like lower property taxes. 

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

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

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

When it comes to screwing working moms. Sweeney Dems are fighting a losing battle.

Just got this missive from some of Senate President Steve Sweeney’s minions:

S-4204 (sponsored by Senate President Sweeney) & A-5936 (sponsored by Assemblymen Joe Egan and Wayne DeAngelo) seeks to reform this broken system.

Send a pre-written e-mail to your State Senator and two Assembly representatives RIGHT NOW by CLICKING HERE to ask them to vote “YES” on these important bills.

Really? A pre-written email? What, literacy not a big thing in Sweeneyland?

The Senate President has got himself tangled up in a fight led by a group of women writers. That should scare the bejesus out of him. And even if he’s too arrogant to admit it (them being women and all) – the Democrats he leads should know enough to get out of the way of what’s coming at them.

These woman are smart, wickedly articulate, and they are already making the Senate President a national laughing-stock. One of them (she works as a free-lance investigative reporter for the Washington Post) has already landed him in that newspaper-of-record’s pages. Get a load of these excerpts from the Washington Post, earlier this week…

In 2003, I walked away from my full-time, $80,000-a-year job as the executive editor of a national magazine. I had no other job lined up; I just had a hunch, having worked in the publishing business for about a decade, that I could have a better work-life balance and make a lot more money if I put out a shingle as a freelance writer and editor.

As it turns out, I was right. Today, I work fewer hours, I work only the hours I want, and I make six figures. I’m happier, I get to pick my projects, and I get to choose which editors I want in my life. I am 47 years old with a career that is successful in pretty much every way.

But that career will no longer exist if my home state of New Jersey and other states like it continue on their current path with independent contractor legislation, putting freelance journalists like me out of business…

The laws are being marketed as pro-worker, but the way they are being written is so strict that they are already starting to destroy the careers of people such as me who prefer to work for ourselves.

…The language in these independent contractor laws, though, makes no meaningful distinction between exploited contract workers and people like me. Instead, the language makes it impossible for people like me to work within the letter of the law.

New Jersey’s S4204, for instance, says I have to do all my work “outside all of the places of business of the employer.” That means I can’t spend even one or two days of an 18-month, front-page project outside my home office, having meetings with my editors in a place like The Washington Post’s newsroom. How is any freelancer, no matter whether she is a journalist or a graphic artist or a public-relations specialist, supposed to run her business if she never takes meetings on any client’s premises? The upshot of clauses like that one in S4204 could be crippling fines for employers. And because of that threat, according to testimony given during a standing-room-only hearing in New Jersey’s capitol last week, editors and publishers in New Jersey are already saying the same thing the ones in California are starting to say to freelancers there: Thanks, you’re great, but we’ll find our writers and proofreaders elsewhere.

These states, in writing such overly broad legislation, are hanging a giant, toxic, neon sign around the necks of the middle class…

…everyone from truck drivers to caterers to yoga instructors has their livelihood in the crosshairs. The people testifying in New Jersey that their careers would be hit have ranged from lawyers to wedding photographers to bakers. Newspaper representatives tried to explain that people who deliver those papers are independent contractors, and if this legislation becomes law, citizens will no longer get their local news delivered to their homes. The lawmakers seemed genuinely stunned about how many jobs operate under the independent contractor model in modern-day America. They really seemed to have no clue.

… The lawmakers writing this legislation have no idea who the millions of us choosing to be independent contractors are, or how our industries operate, or why we want to remain our own bosses. Here in New Jersey, the power behind this legislation is state Senate President Steve Sweeney, a 60-year-old high school graduate with no higher education on his résumé, and whose day job is serving as vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. His worldview matches that of the senators we came up against in the hearing room; they seem to truly believe we’re all just confused about our ability to protect our own best interests.

A bunch of clueless, stupid good-old-boy politicians vs. a lot of very smart women. You knuckleheads sure picked yourselves a good fight. Good luck with that boys.

Imagine what would happen to Sweeney’s caucus if these women split into groups and decided to assign three or four or more to each incumbent Sweeneyite. Imagine boys… each of you with your own investigative reporter – or maybe two or three of them – ripping through your stuff and writing about it… endlessly. Heck, maybe the GOP might even take the notion to help them disseminate it… or maybe Sue Altman and Jay Lassiter will.

Politically, most of these women are what you would call attitudinal liberals. Few are Trump supporters. But they could become Jersey Republicans for the simple reason that Jersey Democrats – led by Senate President Sweeney – have pronounced a death sentence on their livelihoods and are preparing to pull the trigger. Nothing so concentrates the mind as having your life destroyed. It becomes crystal clear who your enemies are… and your friends become whoever hates your enemies.

Looks like Sweeney came to a spelling bee armed with a truncheon. No, threats and intimidation aren’t going to work this time. You can’t do a “Sue Altman” on these gals and expect to win.

No democracy in Sweeney’s Senate. Democrats block Veterans, Law Enforcement from testifying.

Well, at least they didn’t beat up any women at today’s Senate hearing. But who can forget what these fascist thugs ordered the state police to do just a few weeks ago…

These are the same Democrats who are attempting to make it impossible for working moms to have a livelihood in New Jersey. The same Democrats responsible for slashing education funding for New Jersey’s children. The same people who copy the excesses of genocidal regimes (such as Myanmar) in denying education to children based on their religious beliefs. The same Democrats who want to fuel the foreclosure crisis in New Jersey by taking away the property tax cap and allowing property tax rates to rocket. Do they really hate women, children, and families this much?

At today’s Senate Transportation Committee hearing, a hand-picked body of Sweeney Democrats blocked the testimony of dozens of American citizens and legal immigrants who opposed Senate bill S-3229, legislation that creates a special driver’s license for illegals at $18 dollars, while raising the price of driver’s licenses for everyone else from $24 to $29. Many of those blocked were United States military veterans and members of the law enforcement community.

American citizens were blocked from giving testimony. Legal immigrants were blocked from giving testimony. Veterans were blocked from giving testimony. Law enforcement was blocked from giving testimony. And this was done so that FOREIGN NATIONALS, resident in New Jersey illegally, could repetitively parrot the talking points they were provided by their Democrat handlers. It was such an anti-democratic, fascistic display, they even wore uniforms.

It was quite a display. And a reminder that New Jersey has the least democratic Legislature in America. But hey, let’s count our blessings. At least they didn’t beat up any women at this Senate committee hearing. Stay tuned…

Democrat legislation will put more drunk drivers on the roads (but they’re illegal, so it’s okay)

Year after year, drunk drivers account for as many deaths in America as murders using firearms do. So why don’t the Democrats seem to care?

A New Jersey Senate committee is hearing some shocking testimony today on S-3229, legislation that would create a special driver’s license for illegals at $18 dollars, while raising the price of driver’s licenses for everyone else from $24 to $29. Members of the Senate Transportation Committee are hearing the following testimony as you receive this…

“Worse, under the bill you’re considering today in particular, documents and information obtained from an applicant for an illegal alien’s driver's license will be confidential and not be considered a government record. More specifically, the bill prohibits the use of this material in the investigation, arrest, citation, prosecution, or detention of illegal aliens, as it relates to for their criminal immigration status. The bill does include exceptions for certain federal legal provisions (pursuant to 8 U.S.C. s.1373 and 8 U.S.C. s.1644) and for a valid court order or subpoena. That said, today’s New Jersey Licenses for Illegals bill does not include an exception for illegal aliens who drive drunk or commit human trafficking, arson, violent child abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder, vehicular manslaughter or homicide, or even terrorism. It should.

An alien illegally present in the United States guilty of such offenses should face investigation, arrest, citation, prosecution, detention, and frankly imprisonment or deportation, as appropriate, for their criminal immigration status, period – and, frankly, should not get a discounted driver’s license in New Jersey regardless.

Let’s take drunk driving as one example directly relevant to drivers licenses. In Fiscal Year 2017, “Traffic Offenses – DUI,” i.e. driving under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs, was the most commonly listed component of the criminal backgrounds of aliens administratively arrested by U.S. Immigration andCustoms Enforcement, a staggering 80,547 or 56% of those arrested, including criminal charges and convictions in the federal system of record, according to ICE.

Given that fact, S-3229 should include some kind of exception that either bars illegal aliens convicted of drunk driving from receiving licenses, allows law enforcement personnel to use driver’s license application documents in criminal immigration proceedings as part of their investigation into those crimes, or both.

Another example: the second-most common element of criminal background of ICE-arrested aliens in the U.S. in Fiscal Year 2017 was “Dangerous Drugs,” a total of 76,503 aliens, or 53%. Illegal aliens convicted of criminal charges associated with dangerous drugs would seem to be an important ground for excluding

applicants from licenses – or at least allowing law enforcement authorities to use submitted documents in an investigation that might result in deportation.

How about “Traffic Offenses,” which figured fourth most often in the criminal backgrounds of aliens in FY2017, a total of 68,346 aliens, or 47% of those arrested by ICE.

That’s right: You’re about to vote for a bill that gives driver’s licenses to illegals, and shields the documents they submit from disclosure for investigations, even if they are charged or convicted specifically of traffic offenses, one of the most common offenses aliens arrested by ICE commit in the U.S.. That’s a mistake.

The list goes on: Liquor Offenses, Sex Offenses, Weapons Offenses, Stolen Vehicles, Robbery, Sexual Assault, Kidnapping, Homicide – all too common among the backgrounds of ICE-arrested aliens in FY2017.”

None of these exclusions are carved out in S-3229. The result of this vote will become abundantly clear as the victims of this legislation pile up…

Senate President Steve Sweeney is a man given to hubris. Just look at his staff, who is there, and for how long. Hubris.

Of late the Senate President’s hubris appears to have contaminated the Democrat Party caucuses in both chambers of the Legislature. A woman is manhandled and muscled out of a public hearing for the amusement of a Democrat Party boss. A Sweeney bill takes away the property tax cap to allow unrestrained property tax hikes across New Jersey. The “lame duck” session of the Legislature is used to push all sorts of grossly unpopular legislation. The lives and personal well-being of tens of thousands of workers are targeted with a Sweeney bill that takes away their livelihoods. After cutting education funding to hundreds of thousands of school children, the Democrats push an immunization bill that threatens to throw thousands more out of the classroom and on to the streets. What modern government has taken away the right to education from people because of their religion (outside of places like genocidal Myanmar)? And now they push legislation to raise the cost of a driver’s license to citizens and legal immigrants, while rewarding illegal immigrants with a cut rate driver’s license.

We have not seen such hubris in New Jersey since 1990-91.

The buttheads on the Star-Ledger editorial board owe Sussex County an apology

By Rubashov

People in Sussex County have just spent most of the week without electricity, heat for warmth or washing, and hot food. They’re used to waiting for the government and government-sanctioned utilities to get around to them last. Sure they provide the drinking water to New Jersey’s cities – but that hasn’t stopped Governor Phil Murphy from wanting to turn the county into a dumping ground and cutting education funding to the county’s children.

Now the editorial board of the Newark Star-Ledger have directed their collective bungholes in the direction of Sussex County – to engage in a bit of unreserved dumping themselves. Over the weekend, the Star-Ledger let go a massive dump on folks still in the process of dealing with the damage done by that early December snowstorm.

According to the Star-Ledger, the arrest of two social outcasts – members of a biker gang – is a sign of a vast underlying social and political movement in Sussex County. The editorial board claims that in “sleepy Sussex County” there has been “a troubling uptick in hate crimes lately.”

Of course, this isn’t true. According to the official Bias Incident Report put out by the Murphy administration earlier this year – signed by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan, and Civil Rights Director Rachel Apter – Sussex County experienced no increase in bias crime between 2017 and 2018 (the latest available figures). No increase… as in zero.

The same cannot be said for counties like Passaic, which experienced a 286% increase; or Union County, with a 200% increase; or Camden, with a 55% increase in bias crime; or Hudson County with its 43% increase. Of course, these are all Democrat-controlled counties, so the Star-Ledger would be hesitant to tie these genuine “up-ticks” to something like “White Extremism”. Far-better to just fashion a narrative around the arrest of a couple biker gang members in a relatively peaceful county – and then use them to characterize and smear the entire population.

The official figures – the data – reveal something else as well. Statewide, “bias crime” or “hate crime” has fallen. Since figures began in 2006, reported incidents have fallen from 825 that year to 569 incidents in 2018. Such crimes are actually quite rare – from 151 arrests in 2006, “bias crime” has fallen to just 59 arrests in 2018. Those are the official figures, direct from the Murphy administration.

In fact, the only “bias crime” evidenced by the Star-Ledger’s editorial board is the crime of bias committed by said board against the people of Sussex County.

In August of this year, NJ 101.5 went through the Murphy administration’s Bias Incident Report and listed the 49 municipalities with the worse incidence of “bias” or “hate crime”. Guess what? None of those municipalities were in Sussex County. None.

Now guess which towns were listed? Number one for “hate crime” was East Brunswick, in Middlesex County. Number two was Evesham Township, Burlington County. Woodbury (Gloucester), Hoboken (Hudson), South Brunswick (Middlesex), Cherry Hill (Camden), Fort Lee (Bergen), Princeton (Mercer), Hackensack (Bergen), Livingston (Essex), Montclair (Essex), West Orange (Essex), Jersey City (Hudson), Edison (Middlesex), and New Brunswick (Middlesex) all appear to be hotbeds of “White Extremism” if the Star-Ledger is to be believed.

Funny thing… some of these towns are the places of residence of those very same members of the Star-Ledger’s editorial board. Which means, next time they want to take a dump on somewhere, they should just step outside, pull down their drawers, and do it on their own front steps – because apparently, that’s where all the action is.

So why would the Star-Ledger just make this crap up and defame a whole county and its people? Well, we’ve been here before…

All this puts us in mind of the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. The media went crazy reporting on every salacious detail, hundreds of suspected “witches” and “cultists” were investigated while politicians and prosecutors pontificated and made their careers, dozens were arrested, many of whom were convicted and spent years in jail – before the truth pushed through to reveal that it was all just media hype. A public circus of show trials and fake stoked fear.

The New York Times covered this in one of their Retro-Report series…

Those convicted were eventually released. Instead of the media, the politicians, and prosecutors who convicted them being made to pay – the taxpayers paid out millions as some measure of restitution to the people whose lives were destroyed (for a story, a headline, a conviction). Writer Aja Romano wrote an interesting piece on the Satanic Panic a few years ago…

In 1980, a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse. Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. Pazder purportedly helped Smith uncover memories of past abuse at the hands of members of the Church of Satan, which Pazder insisted was older than LaVey’s group by several centuries.

Almost from the moment of Michelle Remembers’ publication, its claims and allegations were repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media praise, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse.

Despite the wild implausibility and unverifiable foundation of its stories of grisly abuse and sex orgies, Michelle Remembers was presented during the ’80s and early ’90s as a textbook for legal professionals and other authorities. It also spawned numerous copy-cat memoirs like 1988’s Satan’s Underground, all equally false, which embellished and mainstreamed the idea of a massive, intergenerational, clandestine satanic ritual sex abuse cult — one that could be occurring in your very own neighborhood.

“The devil worshippers could be anywhere,” writer Peter Berbergal said in summing up the zeitgeist. “They could be your next-door neighbor. They could be your child's caregiver."

The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the 1980s…

This fear would ravage communities and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history.

…In 1980 in Bakersfield, California, social workers had been reading the just-published Michelle Remembers as part of their training when a number of children came forward to declare that they had been molested as part of a clandestine local occult sex ring. Two of the girls had been coached by a grandparent who was believed to have a history of mental illness. Over the coming months, their story of strange occult sex acts would grow more and more bizarre, as they claimed to have been hung from hooks in their family’s living room, forced to drink blood and watch ritual baby sacrifices, and much more.

Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims of satanic ritual abuse would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.

Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of a local carpenter named John Stoll, who spent 20 years of his 40-year sentence in jail. Parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen were each sentenced to 240 years in jail after their own sons were coached, through coercive investigative techniques and overeager therapists, to accuse them of child molestation. Both children later recanted and the Kniffens were released after serving 12 years in prison. As adults, several of the children involved in the trials professed to have been traumatized by their own earlier false testimony and the subsequent damage it caused.

But these children weren’t alone; the Kern County abuse case was the first, but would not be the last, to spiral hopelessly out of control.

…Among the many failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in daycares was the McMartin trial, which became the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. This massive investigation began in 1983, when one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the police investigation into the abuse claims, a child-service nonprofit group known as the Children’s Institute conducted examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare. The examinations were run by a woman named Kee MacFarlane, who was an unlicensed psychotherapist.

MacFarlane had no psychological or medical training, and boasted a welding certificate as her highest academic credential; still, she and two other unqualified assistants were allowed to conduct the investigations, famously using “anatomically correct” dolls and other questionable methods of interrogation. These extremely coercive interview processes led to false memories among children, which then led to highly fantastic claims of abuse directed at even more staff members. Out of 400 children, the interviewers determined that 359 of them had been abused.

The accusations collected by the Children’s Institute resulted in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse being leveled at seven daycare staff members by 41 children. (Pazder, now considered an “expert” in satanic ritual abuse, was among the consultants in the case.) Among the litany of outlandish claims children made in the case were that daycare owners would flush them down toilets, that they had built secret underground tunnels to transport them to ritual ceremonies, that they had ritually sacrificed a baby, and that they could turn into witches and fly.

After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to an utter lack of evidence. The original accusing parent in the case was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative techniques used by the Children’s Institute were thoroughly discredited by the psychological community, and one by one, all charges against the daycare staffers were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Due to the over-the-top nature of the allegations in the McMartin case, the public gradually became skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse. “After scouring the country, we found no evidence for large-scale cults that sexually abuse children,” Dr. Gail Goodman, a psychologist who conducted a wide-scale survey of US case workers about the hysteria, told The New York Times in 1994. What criminal allegations were made had generally come about due to a mix of mental illness, false memories implanted during therapy and witness investigations, and, most frequently, reports from people who were being influenced by histrionic media reports of satanic ritual abuse — a pattern very similar to the current outbreak of clown scares.

The writer goes on to outline a dozen or so similar prosecutions. All built on literally insane allegations. All debunked in time – but not after causing a remarkable degree of harm on those who were falsely accused.

Where were the members of the Star-Ledger editorial board in the 1980s and 90s? Maybe they were covering the Satanic Panic? Maybe they were fanning the flames of illogic and fear? Maybe they believe enough time has passed, that people have forgotten, and that maybe they’ll do it again? Let’s hope not. But then again, it’s not the 1980s… and who reads newspapers nowadays (besides the advertisers, many of whom rely on customers from… Sussex County)?

Meet some of the people whose lives are being destroyed by Trenton Democrats

Working mothers and others depend on the flexible arrangements that working as an independent contractor provides them. It’s a global feature of what’s become known as the new “gig economy”. But such arrangements could soon be illegal in New Jersey, if Senate Democrats have their way.

Senate Bill S-4204 was recently passed out of the Senate Labor Committee on a 3 to 1 vote. That’s three Democrat YES votes – Fred Madden, Joseph Lagana, and Jim Beach – to one Republican NO (Tony Bucco). The bill has one sponsor – Senate President Steve Sweeney.

The Assembly Democrats also passed their own version of the bill out of committee on a 6 (Democrats) to 3 (Republicans) vote. The Democrats waited until after Election Day to introduce their bills in both chambers of the Legislature. Now it’s getting fast-tracked. How dishonest is that? Waiting until after the voters could do something about it.

As proposed by Sweeney, S-4204 “provides that, for the purposes of all State employment laws, individuals who perform services for remuneration are employees, not independent contractors, and are subject to the provisions of those laws… unless and until it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioner that:

a. The individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of the service, both under the individual’s contract of service and in fact; and

b. The individual’s service is either outside the usual course of the business for which that service is performed; and

c. The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.”

This is an incredibly stupid move for Senate President Sweeney, a potential candidate for Governor in 2021. But it gets worse because the guy Sweeney would be running against – incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy – supports Senate Bill S-4204 too.

Who is affected by S-4204? Several Facebook groups have formed in response to the actions by Trenton Democrats. Some feature the stories of those whose livelihoods will be destroyed by the Democrats’ actions.

One such group is www.fightforfreelancers.com . In under two weeks, this group has attracted nearly 1,000 activists and its Facebook page features dozens of stories about the hardships S-4204 will bring.

Alida Kass of the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute is leading the fight against S-4204 and its companion legislation. NJ101.5’s Bill Spadea recently interviewed her…

You can do something to save the professions chosen by working moms and others. The Senate Labor Committee is meeting again on Thursday in Trenton. You can call or email the Senators responsible for voting for this atrocity and give them a piece of your mind…

Senate President Steve Sweeney (D)
856-251-9801
856-339-0808
sensweeney@njleg.org

Senator Fred Madden (D)
856-232-6700
856-401-3073
senmadden@njleg.org

Senator Linda Greenstein (D)
609-395-9911
sengreenstein@njleg.org

Senator Joe Lagana (D)
201-576-9199
senlagana@njleg.org

Is “White Extremism” the new “Satanic Panic” scare?

By Rubashov
 
On September 16, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law. More than $30 billion was spent during the Clinton presidency to work with state and local law enforcement to drive down crime.  It worked, crime declined sharply during the 1990’s.  But President Clinton would later complain that voters’ perceptions continued to reflect concerns about the “high incidence” of crime, despite the empirical evidence of its decline.
 
Why?  Well, news coverage of crime had changed.  Facing an increasingly competitive environment, media outlets fought to attract more customers.  From Agatha Christie to True Detective, crime brings in an audience, so the media began to spend an enormous amount of time covering crimes that in the past would have been noted, if at all, by a line or two in the “police blotter”.  The media’s increased coverage of crime made people believe there was more of it, despite the evidence.
 
Democrats like Congressman Tom Malinowski would have us believe that there are “white extremist” cells in every town and neighborhood where average working class folk account for a significant portion of the population.  Of course, this is not the case within the precincts of those bubble lands inhabited by rich One-Percenters like Tom Malinowski.  There only good-will and tolerance abide, so says Malinowski.    
 
The New York Times, that bastion of unbiased journalism, supports the Democrat narrative of “white extremism” (aka “white supremacy”).  Of course they would.  Despite having plenty of opportunities to do so, the New York Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican for President since 1956.  If you voted that year based on the Times’ recommendation, you would be 84 years old today. 
 
The evidence suggests the New York Times has a record of bias that is surpassed only by the newspapers of the former Soviet Union.  And yet day by day we receive missives from the New York Times, begging for money, suggesting that by paying them money we are somehow performing a public good.  One recent appeal for money stated this bald faced lie: 
 
“The freedom of the press is essential to our democracy, and subscriber support is vital in helping journalists follow the facts wherever they lead and report without fear or favor.”
 
The sales flunky who penned that howler either doesn’t read the newspaper he’s shilling for – or he has a set of grapefruit-sized cojones.  Follow the facts wherever they lead… tell that to the millions of murdered Ukrainians defamed by the New York Times.  You can read all about the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize winning genocide-denier here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

Hey, now don’t get the idea that the New York Times is some wild radical or revolutionary media outlet.  Far from it.  The New York Times is the newspaper of record of the Corporate/Government/& Academic Establishment of these United States.  It supports all the wars, all the foreign interventions, all the big spending, all the government intrusions into private life, it is a champion for the slow decline of freedom in this country.  Just look at how the New York Times trashes Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard… 

In pushing the Democrats’ “white extremism” narrative, the New York Times seizes upon the affinity that some biker gangs have for WW2-style German military helmets, Nazi-insignia, and other pointedly non-conformist paraphernalia. Of course, such has been adopted and worn by anti-social delinquents since at least the 1950’s (as any of a number of popular “biker” movies from that and later eras will illustrate).

It would be monstrous for a serious newspaper to argue that the members of a criminal biker gang with ties to illegal narcotics represents a “political” force, or is representative of a specific community or region, or is somehow the face of a significant piece of the American working class – if it wasn’t so patently silly and ridiculous. Married up to this are the efforts of individual Democrats like Tom Malinowski – who is forever on the hunt for “evidence” of the “looming threat” of “white extremism” (too bad he forgets the role he played in selling out the Rohingya people to genocide).

All this puts us in mind of the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. The media went crazy reporting on every salacious detail, hundreds of suspected “witches” and “cultists” were investigated while politicians and prosecutors pontificated and made their careers, dozens were arrested, many of whom were convicted and spent years in jail – before the truth pushed through to reveal that it was all just media hype. A public circus of show trials and fake stoked fear.

Those convicted were eventually released. Instead of the media, the politicians, and prosecutors who convicted them being made to pay – the taxpayers paid out millions as some measure of restitution to the people whose lives were destroyed (for a story, a headline, a conviction). Writer Aja Romano wrote an interesting piece on the Satanic Panic a few years ago…

In 1980, a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse. Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. Pazder purportedly helped Smith uncover memories of past abuse at the hands of members of the Church of Satan, which Pazder insisted was older than LaVey’s group by several centuries.

Almost from the moment of Michelle Remembers’ publication, its claims and allegations were repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media praise, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse.

Despite the wild implausibility and unverifiable foundation of its stories of grisly abuse and sex orgies, Michelle Remembers was presented during the ’80s and early ’90s as a textbook for legal professionals and other authorities. It also spawned numerous copy-cat memoirs like 1988’s Satan’s Underground, all equally false, which embellished and mainstreamed the idea of a massive, intergenerational, clandestine satanic ritual sex abuse cult — one that could be occurring in your very own neighborhood.

“The devil worshippers could be anywhere,” writer Peter Berbergal said in summing up the zeitgeist. “They could be your next-door neighbor. They could be your child's caregiver."

The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the 1980s…

This fear would ravage communities and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history.

…In 1980 in Bakersfield, California, social workers had been reading the just-published Michelle Remembers as part of their training when a number of children came forward to declare that they had been molested as part of a clandestine local occult sex ring. Two of the girls had been coached by a grandparent who was believed to have a history of mental illness. Over the coming months, their story of strange occult sex acts would grow more and more bizarre, as they claimed to have been hung from hooks in their family’s living room, forced to drink blood and watch ritual baby sacrifices, and much more.

Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims of satanic ritual abuse would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.

Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of a local carpenter named John Stoll, who spent 20 years of his 40-year sentence in jail. Parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen were each sentenced to 240 years in jail after their own sons were coached, through coercive investigative techniques and overeager therapists, to accuse them of child molestation. Both children later recanted and the Kniffens were released after serving 12 years in prison. As adults, several of the children involved in the trials professed to have been traumatized by their own earlier false testimony and the subsequent damage it caused.

But these children weren’t alone; the Kern County abuse case was the first, but would not be the last, to spiral hopelessly out of control.

…Among the many failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in daycares was the McMartin trial, which became the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. This massive investigation began in 1983, when one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the police investigation into the abuse claims, a child-service nonprofit group known as the Children’s Institute conducted examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare. The examinations were run by a woman named Kee MacFarlane, who was an unlicensed psychotherapist.

MacFarlane had no psychological or medical training, and boasted a welding certificate as her highest academic credential; still, she and two other unqualified assistants were allowed to conduct the investigations, famously using “anatomically correct” dolls and other questionable methods of interrogation. These extremely coercive interview processes led to false memories among children, which then led to highly fantastic claims of abuse directed at even more staff members. Out of 400 children, the interviewers determined that 359 of them had been abused.

The accusations collected by the Children’s Institute resulted in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse being leveled at seven daycare staff members by 41 children. (Pazder, now considered an “expert” in satanic ritual abuse, was among the consultants in the case.) Among the litany of outlandish claims children made in the case were that daycare owners would flush them down toilets, that they had built secret underground tunnels to transport them to ritual ceremonies, that they had ritually sacrificed a baby, and that they could turn into witches and fly.

After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to an utter lack of evidence. The original accusing parent in the case was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative techniques used by the Children’s Institute were thoroughly discredited by the psychological community, and one by one, all charges against the daycare staffers were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Due to the over-the-top nature of the allegations in the McMartin case, the public gradually became skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse. “After scouring the country, we found no evidence for large-scale cults that sexually abuse children,” Dr. Gail Goodman, a psychologist who conducted a wide-scale survey of US case workers about the hysteria, told The New York Times in 1994. What criminal allegations were made had generally come about due to a mix of mental illness, false memories implanted during therapy and witness investigations, and, most frequently, reports from people who were being influenced by histrionic media reports of satanic ritual abuse — a pattern very similar to the current outbreak of clown scares.

The writer goes on to outline a dozen or so similar prosecutions. All built on literally insane allegations. All debunked in time – but not after causing a remarkable degree of harm on those who were falsely accused.

Perhaps the New York Times writers are too young to remember the 1980s and 90s. Perhaps they failed to study it at journalism school. Perhaps it wasn’t offered. In any event, let’s hope the Times and its political fellow-travelers are not heading down this well-beaten road again… only this time the accused, the victims, will be whole communities, regions, a whole class of working people, or anyone from anywhere not likely to believe the New York Times.

GSI Poll: 44% of New Jersey residents planning to leave. Is NJ the new East Germany?

Yesterday was a voting session in the New Jersey Legislature. Regina Egea of the Garden State Initiative (GSI), a think tank that closely monitors the various home-grown diseases that beset the state’s economy, sent around fresh data from a poll conducted for GSI by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s School of Public & Global Affairs. Ms. Egea had this to report:

According to the survey, 44% of New Jersey residents are planning to leave the state in the not so distant future with more than 1 in 4 (28%) planning to depart the Garden State within 5 years. Unsurprisingly, Property Taxes and the overall Cost of Living were cited as the main drivers. The results also debunk two issues frequently cited in anecdotal accounts of outmigration, weather and public transportation, as they ranked 8th and 10th respectively, out of 11 factors offered.

These results should alarm every elected official and policymaker in New Jersey. We have a crisis of confidence in the ability of our leaders to address property taxes and the cost of living whether at the start of their career, in prime earning years, or repositioning for retirement, New Jersey residents see greener pastures in other states. This crisis presents a profound challenge to our state as we are faced with a generation of young residents looking elsewhere to build their careers, establish families and make investments like homeownership.

This out-migration of people should come as no surprise to anyone who has kept track of how and where former New Jersey elected officials spend their retirement. After lifetimes spent raising people’s property taxes, voting for all manner of other taxes and spending – while building up pensions and other benefits for themselves – they move to states less liberal with money, with markedly lower taxes. They escape the taxes they are responsible for, the failing economy they are responsible for. There are actual colonies of former New Jersey elected and appointed officials popping up in states like Florida and North Carolina – all being mailed pension checks from New Jersey!

So how did the New Jersey Legislature spend the voting session on the day the poll was released that showed nearly half the inmates of the garden spot they’re running were planning their escape? In the words of Republican Assemblyman Hal Wirths, the Democrats who control the Legislature decided to make it “criminal appreciation day”.

Yep, the Democrats gave the vote to convicted criminals and also provided them with education funding – just months after they gave millions in education funding to illegal immigrants – while slashing education funding to the children of property tax payers across the state. Of course they did, that’s how they roll.

The Democrats in New Jersey have gone crazy. Everybody can see how this story is going to end. The only thing that can change that ending are Republicans. Elect a Republican as Governor, change the make-up of the Legislature by adding more and more Republicans – and you will give anxious movers-to-be the breathing space to reconsider and give the state a second (or third or fourth) chance.

Democrat Senate President Steve Sweeney has spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince New Jersey’s business community that he is for them. They even backed his guys in District 1 (and lost).

But Sweeney’s promises and plans are not really “bi-partisan” or “pro-business” or “pro-jobs” at all. He showed this when he specifically targeted Republican-voting school districts for his education funding cuts. And again, during the campaign, when he allowed top staffer Mark Magyar’s newspapers to trash even friendly Republicans. And after the campaign, with a $9 million pay-back to abortionist Planned Parenthood for supporting Democrat candidates. And again, when Sweeney proposed S-4204, which will crush working mothers and drive businesses out of the state.

Steve Sweeney always returns to what he is. He is reminiscent of those lines from one of Kipling’s poems:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

These Democrats – all of them, in one way or another – are a form of slow motion disaster. Post-election, they have merely increased the speed. All the evidence suggests that with these Democrats, in the end, the only good Republican is one who no longer holds office (just as the only good business or good worker is one who pledges fealty to the corrupt machine). Those 44 percent of New Jerseyans who are so desperate for leadership they are willing to move to seek it elsewhere, will not be assuaged by “bi-partisan” cohabitation. More dramatic measures are in order – clear, unambiguous Republican measures.

Governor Murphy caught in an act of cultural appropriation?

The Left calls it “cultural appropriation”. It’s what they complain about when a member of the so-called “dominant” culture appropriates elements of another culture – especially a disadvantaged “minority” culture. Well, Phil Murphy is certainly a mega-wealthy one-percenter, so having a can of PBR would probably count as cultural appropriation. But in this case, he dressed up…

This photograph was posted by the Governor’s own communications guy, a “proud alum” (as he puts it) of Hillary Clinton, Bill DeBlasio, and Barack Obama. So he should know all about the rights and wrongs of political correctness. Or is it only incorrect when someone you don’t like does it? Of course, that could be anyone from Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.

Was this a case of cultural appropriation or just an attempt at pandering? Will the Governor wear a kilt on St. Andrew's Day? A sombrero on Cinco de Mayo? Will he do a dance too… maybe end up on a remake of Coldplay’s Dancing Politicians (Violet Hill)?

Governor Murphy is always up to something. One day he is issuing directives on providing Sanctuary and millions in aid to illegals – while slashing education funding to the children of taxpayers. The next he is instructing local law enforcement on how to incarcerate the sexes together – can’t wait for the lawsuits that will result from this brainstorm. But somehow he can’t seem to address the highest property taxes in America, or the worst foreclosure rate in America, or the lousiest business climate in America.

Phil Murphy runs away from the big stuff. He likes to meddle in the lives of “lesser beings” (average folks like us) and he like photo ops. And he likes to feel morally superior to everyone else (we suppose it goes along with being economically superior). What you see here is what you are going to get. This is what he is good at.

Trentonian: The lives of hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans are about to be destroyed.

The Trentonian newspaper put out a warning yesterday…

Attention fellow New Jerseyans: We are about to get screwed like we've never been screwed before by state Sen. President Steve Sweeney, the rest of the legislature, and Governor Phil Murphy.

…I need you to understand bill S4204, introduced by Sweeney in November, and fast-tracked for passage in the coming weeks. In short: It will eliminate the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans. Plain and simple.

The bill would upend the current system of people who operate as independent contractors. Basically, you won’t be allowed to offer your services unless you’re hired as an official employee of the business. That’s a simplistic reading of the bill, but that’s it in a nutshell.

For example: Let’s say you’re a kindergarten teacher and, on the side, you’re a wedding photographer. Maybe you shoot four or five weddings a year, and you get the work through Jimmy’s Wedding Photo Emporium. You like photography, you like weddings, it’s a fun little side gig for you, and Jimmy pays you $200 a wedding, and you’re happy. Or maybe you’re not a teacher; maybe you’re a stay-at-home mom trying to make a few bucks. Maybe you’re a college student looking to pay down your debt. Maybe you’re retired and you enjoy taking pictures. Doesn’t matter; unless Jimmy hires you as an employee, you will not be allowed to shoot weddings for him. You cannot be an independent contractor of wedding photography anymore.

So.

Are you a photographer? A truck driver owner-operator? A freelance writer? A tree trimmer? A dog groomer? A lawyer? A locksmith? A tow-truck driver? A million other things? Yeah. You’re screwed.

And woe is the small business owner, because this cuts both ways. Remember Jimmy, our old pal from Jimmy’s Wedding Photo Emporium? Yeah, he won’t be able to afford to hire all these employees, won’t be able to afford the taxes that go along with having all these employees. So yeah. If you’re Jimmy - or any small business owner that hires people to do piecemeal work, guess what? You’re screwed.

You can read Jeff Edelstein’s entire column here: https://www.trentonian.com/news/the-lives-of-hundreds-of-thousands-of-new-jerseyans-are/article_91e95642-0c08-11ea-a16d-e311dc18d1ae.html

Why are they doing this in the face of data that clearly indicates the current structure helps working mothers and others? United States Census data has chronicled this common route back to work for women trying to balance motherhood with gainful employment. And there is a large academic literature on the subject. As New Jersey 101.5’s Bill Spadea noted:

That's right, If you're a working mom who took some time off to have and raise your children, you may be at risk.

The latest attack on our economy from the radicals in Trenton is a new bill that would all but eliminate the ability for a person to work as an independent contractor in New Jersey…

The restrictions placed on employers in order to essentially force them to hire W2 employees only will be most hurtful to working moms. So many mothers need the flexibility of returning to work and controlling their own hours like ride share drivers, food delivery, special education providers, among many, many others.

As we know, the so-called 'gender pay gap' is a very complicated issue and has everything to do with choices many women make to stay home with their kids for a number of years. Naturally, returning to the workforce after a gap in experience results in reduction in pay as many women are essentially starting again. The idea of returning to work as an independent contractor offers the kind of additional income and flexible hours, which empowers moms to continue managing their homes, balancing child care and of course, paying NJ taxes.

We heard from Alida Kass on Monday from the NJ Civil Justice Institute prior to her testifying before the Assembly committee discussing the new law. Then Jon Bramnick, the recently re-elected Assembly Minority Leader, explaining that this is all about new taxes for NJ businesses and another reason that many business owners will look to leave NJ. They can simply head across the river to PA or DE and not pay the additional taxes at all.

Read More: Murphy's and Sweeney's new tax target: Moms returning to work

Hear Bill Spadea interview Alida Kass…

The NFIB noted that the New Jersey Democrats are merely copying a California law that totally screwed working mothers and small businesses in that state, but apparently those pushing this legislation don’t care. The only kind of business they favor is the crony capitalist kind – businesses big enough to collect corporate welfare and then kick-back to the right politicians and their superPACs. Real dirtbag stuff.

Hopefully there’s a Republican on the horizon who will stand up for moms and cut the nuts off these Democrats.