Will Weinberg dare mention colleagues’ predatory sexual behavior???

By Rubashov
 
Led by Governor Phil Murphy, Trenton Democrats are feigning “shock” over an NJ.com report detailing the predatory sexual behavior of many who run New Jersey’s government, political, and lobbying institutions.  What shameless hypocrisy!  Their disbelief and shock are reminiscent of that famous scene from the movie Casablanca…

Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney was quick to note: “It’s especially curious given Murphy’s well-known practice of employing non-disclosure agreements to muzzle women who work for him.”
 
Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) expressed the disbelief shared by many, when he wrote:  “The fact that the Governor can utter these quotes with no sense of shame or irony, while his campaign attorneys continue to threaten female campaign consultants WITH RETALIATION (emphasis not enough) if they speak out about the atmosphere/incidents on his campaign, is astounding.”
 
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-37) has proposed setting up an “ad-hoc committee” to address “misogyny and sexual harassment” among New Jersey’s political and lobbying class.  According to press reports, Senator Weinberg has invited veteran lobbyist Jeannine LaRue, political operative Julie Roginsky and Patricia Teffenhart, executive director of the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Senate Majority Counsel Alison Accettola and Senate Minority Executive Director Christine Shipley to serve on the panel. 
 
Outside of Ms. Teffenhart, this appears to be an insiders’ panel and we seriously doubt that someone like Ms. Accettola will actually call out her bosses or a lobbyist like Ms. LaRue will be in an economic position to be an independent whistleblower.  It simply isn’t credible.
 
Senator Weinberg knows this – and her efforts appear more and more to be along the lines of an attempt to seize control of a potential scandal, control it before it gets out of hand, and then brush it under the rug.  Like they did the rape case, still unresolved, of Katie Brennan. Nobody was charged.  Blame was sufficiently obfuscated and dispersed.  The Trenton way.    
 
“Entering a sexual relationship with a subordinate, even when the contact is initiated by the latter, is considered unethical by some because of the subordinate's vulnerability to the superior and the inequality of power that characterizes the relationship.” (Wikipedia… on Sexual Misconduct)
 
Weinberg and her committee must be committed to taking on the problem at its source.  That means identifying those in the governmental/ political/ lobbyist power structure who sleep with staff members they have the power to fire at will.  Those who have sexual dependents on their payrolls. 
 
This is where the rot begins.  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?  Everyone knows what is going on, everyone sees it, people are rewarded, predators are lauded and further empowered – and nothing is said. 
 
Writing about the Weinstein rape case, Alexia Fernandez Campbell, of the Aspen Institute, notes: “Sexual misconduct is pretty broad — it can cover everything from asking a work subordinate out on a date to pressuring them for sex in exchange for career advancement.”
 
Are the reports detailed by NJ.com evidence of a social pathology at the heart of the Trenton Establishment?  Here is therapist Steve Becker’s take on sociopaths.  Does it sound like some of the folks rolling around Trenton? 
 
Pathologically self-centered individuals, such as sociopaths or narcissists, often project a level of self-confidence that is pathologically tremendous. This can be a problem for others who, unlike the sociopath, will be prone to empathy and self-reflection, along with which come self-doubt and hence fluctuating, less dependable levels of confidence.
 
But the pathologically self-centered individual is often seemingly immune to self-doubt and can thus seem implacably, impressively confident. Why?
 
The answer is surprisingly simple: When your interest in others is principally, if not entirely, about what you can get, or take, from them; when you lack the capacity for, and/or inclination to, genuine, thoughtful self-reflection; and when the meaning, or purpose, of life is fundamentally reduced to the expectation, and pursuit, of continual gratification, you have a prescription not only for pathological self-centeredness, but its frequent concomitant—pathological self-confidence.
 
Think about it: for such an individual, it is mostly, and sometimes only, about what he wants. And if he knows what he wants, such an individual will feel entitled to it. And his sense of entitlement becomes self-validating—self-validating, that is, of whatever argument, rationalization, or manipulation brings him closer to his demand.
 
In other words, the pathologically self-centered individual has something very powerful in his favor—conviction. His is the conviction of his entitlement, of his right to have what he wants—whether it’s agreement, an apology, special attention, cooperation, sex, a favor, forgiveness, you name it.
 
And he wields his sense of conviction powerfully and persuasively—all the more so if he’s also articulate and glib.
 
This explains how a sociopath can look you in the eye and blame you for something—even his victimization of you—and yet you struggle to fully disbelieve him. As I just noted, if he is intelligent and glib, he is in an even better position to erode your sense of reality. He can construct positions, however absurd and even confirming of his sociopathic orientation, that nevertheless have just enough superficial plausibility to arrest your attention.
 
Once you’ve been disarmed, even slightly, his impregnably confident assertions, stemming from his pathological self-centeredness, can have a brainwashing influence.
 
You wonder if you’re not crazy? The “gaslighting effect” is in full throttle. It is disorienting, literally, to have someone present even a ridiculous proposition, demand, or accusation with unwavering confidence and certitude.
 
And the disorienting effect is magnified exponentially when the assertion is simultaneously packaged in superficially intelligent, coherent, “rational”-sounding language. Confidence in one’s sense of reality can wane, and fail, under this combination assault.
 
This can explain why sometimes extremely intelligent, thoughtful and self-respecting individuals can actually be at greater risk of accepting and tolerating abuse. It can be a case of the exploiter’s pathologically inflated confidence overwhelming the more self-questioning, self-doubting individual’s reality.
 
Here’s an idea…
 
Why not ditch all those Trenton insiders and put together a committee made-up of average, common-sense taxpayers and mental health professionals?  Maybe the latter will confirm what the former has long suspected:  Trenton is nuts.

HBO series mocks attitude of Dem Senator Vitale

If you want to have an idea of what happens when a nation replaces science with ideology… emotion instead of logic… and takes to bullying science into submission instead of following the data… tune into HBO’s series Chernobyl. 

Or… you can just attend a committee meeting of the New Jersey Senate chaired by Joseph Vitale.  Either is likely to feature a scene like this one…

Joseph Vitale is the Chairman of the New Jersey Senate's  Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee and he is anything but a gentleman – or even a human being – when lording over his committee.  We vividly remember him in committee arguing with a citizen over Senate Bill 1195 – then legislation, now law – which allows people to alter their birth certificates to whatever gender they wish, without undergoing sexual reassignment surgery.  Yes, in New Jersey, people with penises can legally be women and people with vaginas can legally be men.  Talk about ideology stepping on reality – this is Chernobyl level! 

Senator Vitale, was the main sponsor of Senate Bill 1195 and his exchange with this citizen exercising the right to speak before the New Jersey Legislature was anything but respectful.  There was something of the sociopath in the Senator's behavior -- one moment he was dripping sensitivity, only to turn vicious the next.  There's no remorse – he doesn't appear to care how he treats people who don't agree right down the line with him.  Does he lack a conscience?  We wonder. 

What placed Vitale in the same class as the Chernobyl-denying ideologue in the video was the way he utterly dismissed the reputation of a scholar whose words were entered into the record by the citizen.  Senator Vitale appeared to have no intellectual curiosity at all.  Here is that exchange:

The Senator:  "...You are citing some medical director, obviously he's a former medical director, probably for good reason."

The Citizen:  "Because he retired."

The Senator:  "Um, right, good thing."

Now someone with Vitale’s level of certainty must have some credentials to back up such a coarse dismissal.  So we wondered if the Senator was a doctor or a professor, after all, he is the Chairman of the committee through which passes all health care legislation in New Jersey.  We looked up his biography and found out that he managed to make it through the 12th grade.  Yep, born in 1954, went from high school to the family business, drifted into the muck of Woodbridge politics, became one of the boys, was selected by the boys as their Senator when Jim McGreevey ran for Governor.

And what about that "medical director" the one the Senator said was "obviously... a former medical director, probably for good reason" and that it was a "good thing" he was no longer working?

Well that guy was born in 1931 and is a psychiatrist, researcher, and educator.  He is University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author, co-author, or editor of seven books within his field.  He was the son of a high school teacher and a homemaker.  He graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and from Harvard Medical School in 1956.  He was accepted into the neurology and neuropathology residency program at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he studied for three years under the chief of the Neurology Department.  From Massachusetts General, he went to the Institute of Psychiatry in London (where he studied under Sir Aubrey Lewis and was supervised by James Gibbons and Gerald Russell). Following London, he went to the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.  He has held various academic and administrative positions, including, Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College (where he founded the Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory), Clinical Director and Director of Residency Education at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Westchester Division and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oregon.  From 1975 until 2001, he was the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and the director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University.  At the same time, he was psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He is currently University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His own research has focused on the neuroscientific foundations of motivated behaviors, psychiatric genetics, epidemiology, and neuropsychiatry.  During the 1960s, he co-authored papers on hydrocephalus, depression and suicide, and amygdaloid stimulation.  In 1975, he co-authored a paper entitled "Mini-Mental State: A Practical Method for Grading the Cognitive State of Patients for the Clinician." This paper details the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE), an exam consisting of just eleven questions, that quickly and accurately assesses patients for signs of dementia and other states of cognitive impairment. It is one of the most widely used tests in the mental health field.  In 1979, in his capacity as chair of the Department of Psychiatry, he ended gender assignment surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  In 1983, he co-authored The Perspectives of Psychiatry, which presents the Johns Hopkins approach to psychiatry. The book "seeks to systematically apply the best work of behaviorists, psychotherapists, social scientists and other specialists long viewed as at odds with each other."  A second edition was published in 1998.  He also treated author Tom Wolfe for depression suffered following coronary bypass surgery. Wolfe dedicated his 1998 novel, A Man in Full to him, "whose brilliance, comradeship and unfailing kindness saved the day." He is a registered Democrat who describes himself as a "political liberal".

And you Senator... you made it through the 12th grade.

Senator Vitale, don't you think it would have been a lot wiser to shut your mouth, open your ears, and maybe learn something?  Maybe read one of the guy's books before dismissing him out of hand?  Or don't, perhaps this is why health care is what it is in New Jersey? 

Maybe New Jersey is in the shape it is in because of the lack of humility and unwillingness to learn exhibited by politicians who set policies – guys like Joseph Vitale.  Maybe a Committee Chairman too stupid to learn does result in substandard government and people being made to suffer?

An Illegal Attempt to Bar Trump from NJ Ballot in 2020

This week in Trenton is a real doozy…

The New Jersey Senate will be meeting on Thursday, February 21st, to consider Senate Bill 119, which changes the qualifications for the Office of the President of the United States.  This purely state legislation attempts to hold a federal office to a higher standard than any state office.  

Senate Bill 119 exempts EVERY New Jersey Legislator from having to disclose his or her state or federal income tax returns in order to appear on a ballot, but it singles out candidates for certain federal offices – those of President and Vice President – and requires that they disclose their federal income tax returns in order to appear on the ballot in New Jersey.   This legislation also exempts all the other federal elected officials in New Jersey – including United States Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez – from having to disclose their federal income tax returns. 

Senate Bill 119 is so narrowly crafted in its purpose and design that it amounts to a transparent attempt to keep the incumbent Republican President, Donald Trump, off the ballot in 2020.  The sponsors of Senate Bill 119 – Senators Weinberg, Turner, Greenstein, and Singleton – know that if their legislation succeeds and they decapitate the top of the Republican Party ticket in New Jersey, they will succeed in suppressing Republican voter turnout in the 2020 Presidential election, disenfranchising voters on a massive scale, in what could arguably be called a criminal act of calculated and coordinated voter suppression.

These Democrats fear the electoral chances of Donald Trump so much that they are prepared to cheat – to rig the election by keeping an incumbent President off the ballot in New Jersey.  Never before in America’s history has this happened.  The intent of Senate Bill 119 would not pass muster in a United Nations administered election in a Third World Country. 

We believe that the disclosure of income tax returns are a good thing – for all candidates for public office to do.  Every federal candidate in New Jersey, every Legislator, the Governor and his cabinet should all be required to do so.  Once New Jersey requires this of their own politicians – then it can reach beyond its borders and require the same of people who do not live here.

The sponsors of Senate Bill 119 – Senators Weinberg, Turner, Greenstein, and Singleton – are trying to pretend that their voter suppression is an act of “good government” when they appear utterly content to ignore the fact that there are those amongst them – in the Democrat legislative caucus – who have been convicted of serious crimes, including federal crimes.  Why not make your own disclose their criminal activity??? 

The sponsors of Senate Bill 119 – Senators Weinberg, Turner, Greenstein, and Singleton – are trying to ignore the fact that there are those in the Democrat legislative caucus who collect money to lobby and who do so in open violation of standard norms on conflicts of interest and on the appearance of conflicts of interest.  Why not make your own disclose their conflicts of interest??? 

The sponsors of Senate Bill 119 – Senators Weinberg, Turner, Greenstein, and Singleton – know that the lawyers-legislators in their legislative caucus do not disclose who their clients are, which allows them to cover-up corruption and conflicts of interest for years, and often, forever.  Why not make these lawyer-legislators disclose who they get their money from, disclose their clients, their conflicts of interest, and their potential corruption???

The high standards that you propose for people living outside New Jersey should be lived by the politicians who represent New Jersey.  Scum cannot aspire to teach others how to be saints.  Scum must pull themselves out of their mire of corrupt filth, clean out their bunghole, bathe in the clear water of reform, and then – once purified – and only then… teach others. 

First things first.  You must lead by the example you make of yourselves. 

Lesniak fails to take on real human rights abuses

What a bone head!  Senator Ray Lesniak's response to our call for responsible government was something a teenager would come up with:  "Well a rock star is doing it so we should too."

Really?  What does a rock star have to do with the average person in New Jersey?  If you are lucky enough to have a job and a roof over your head, your average household income is $53,482.  Your home is worth $175,700 -- and you pay the highest property taxes in America.

That rock star Ray Lesniak is intent on having us follow has trousered nearly $76 million so far this year.  That's for January through April and that's just for the American leg of his concert tour.  Now he's off to Europe and... well, Europe.  Ray Lesniak's hero only does white people.

Lesniak's rock star has a house in California worth $60 million.  Heck, that's house enough for more than 340 New Jersey families.  But wait, that's not Ray's buddy's only house.  He has another house and properties valued in excess of $200 million.  That doesn't sound like the average guy to us.

What is Ray Lesniak saying to us when he points to a rich celebrity and tells us to do what he tells us to do?  Money makes right? 

Well here's what George Carlin has to say to Senator Ray "Lord of Ass" Lesniak:

If Ray Lesniak was half the man of the Left he claims to be, he'd author a bill to seize his rock star buddy's extra home and turn it into a homeless shelter for those who can't find work because of the lousy job Ray has done as a legislator since 1978.  Yes, this creature has been around since 1978, and his long tenure in politics perfectly encompasses the destruction of the working class in New Jersey and the United States of America.  No, we're not saying that Ray did it all, but he did do his part.

Back in 1978, when Ray was a newborn legislative weasel going from trouser pocket to trouser pocket, getting his snout caught were it didn't belong, a student who worked a minimum-wage summer job could afford to pay a year's full tuition at the 4-year public university of his or her choice.

Thanks to legislators like Ray Lesniak, that doesn't happen anymore.

Since 1978 -- while Ray has grown richer and richer (though not as rich as his rich celebrity friends he wants us to obey) -- average working people have grown poorer and poorer.  The average worker today is over $20,000 poorer than he or she would have been if legislators like Ray Lesniak hadn't got their hands on power in the 1970's. 

And while Senator Ray Lesniak and his rich celebrity friends are fighting to allow people with penises into the girls' toilets in states like North Carolina, there are some battles that Ray is too pussy to fight.  Like the human trafficking and modern day slavery that goes on in Qatar.

On Thursday, when Ray Lesniak leads the members of the New Jersey Senate in taking the "momentous" step of banning travel to places within the United States of America, here is what the cowards won't be doing.  The Senate won't be banning travel to Qatar.  Why should New Jersey take a stand on Qatar?  Because Qatar is using slave labor to build projects related to the World Cup.

Don't believe us?  This is a headline from the Guardian(U.K.):  "Modern Day Slavery in Focus in Qatar" (March 30, 2016).  From Mother Jones:  "Qatar is treating its World Cup workers like slaves" (May 26, 2015).  From Reuters:  "Qatar complicit in modern slavery" (October 28, 2015).  Here is what Amnesty International had to say about Qatar: 

The authorities arbitrarily restricted the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. A prisoner of conscience was serving a lengthy sentence for writing and reciting poems.

Amnesty just issued a report (March 31, 2016) titled, "Qatar World Cup of Shame."  Here are a few excerpts:

Migrant workers building Khalifa International Stadium in Doha for the 2022 World Cup have suffered systematic abuses, in some cases forced labour... “The abuse of migrant workers is a stain on the conscience of world football. For players and fans, a World Cup stadium is a place of dreams. For some of the workers who spoke to us, it can feel like a living nightmare,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.

“Despite five years of promises, FIFA has failed almost completely to stop the World Cup being built on human rights abuses.”

...Amnesty International uncovered evidence that the staff of one labour supply company used the threat of penalties to exact work from some migrants such as withholding pay, handing workers over to the police or stopping them from leaving Qatar. This amounts to forced labour under international law.

“Indebted, living in squalid camps in the desert, paid a pittance, the lot of migrant workers contrasts sharply to that of the top-flight footballers who will play in the stadium. All workers want are their rights: to be paid on time, leave the country if need be and be treated with dignity and respect,” said Salil Shetty...

Qatar’s kafala sponsorship system, under which migrant workers cannot change jobs or leave the country without their employer’s (or “sponsor’s”) permission, is at the heart of the threats to make people work... Some of the Nepali workers told Amnesty International they were not even allowed to visit their loved ones after the 2015 April earthquake that devastated their country leaving thousands dead and millions displaced.

My life here is like a prison... a metal worker from India who worked on the Khalifa stadium refurbishment, complained when he was not paid for several months but only received threats from his employer:  “He just shouted abuse at me and said that if I complained again I’d never leave the country. Ever since I have been careful not to complain about my salary or anything else. Of course, if I could I would change jobs or leave Qatar.”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/qatar-world-cup-of-shame/

But Senator Ray Lesniak is not going to peep about Qatar.  You see, it is easy to pick on Americans living in North Carolina, but not so easy to stand up to the powerful people in New Jersey who represent the State of Qatar. 

We happen to have a copy of the signed contact between the Embassy of the State of Qatar and a powerful firm whose lobbyists include the former chiefs of staff for both Senators Menendez and Booker -- signed last December -- courtesy of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (enforced by the United States Justice Department).  Ray Lesniak's political allies pocket a retainer of $100,000 a month just for making sure the State of Qatar isn't embarrassed by anything like a resolution calling them out for their human rights abuses.  Last year, the firm pocketed as much as $155,000 a month just in consulting fees. 

So go ahead, Ray.  Tuck up your balls and make your fashion statement.  Punish your fellow Americans for wanting to keep sexual predators out of girls' toilets, while you and the New Jersey Senate kiss the tail of the State of Qatar and endorse its slavery and abuse of human rights by your silence.  We pity you.

Bernie Sanders vs. Sue McCue (Rutgers Super PAC)

If you want to bring down the levels of violence in New Jersey don't hold your breath.  The Rutgers Super PAC hobnobs with the entertainment industry and there is money in violence.

Think about it.  France passed legislation a few years ago that bans overly thin models from the fashion industry because studies show that young women are influenced by the sight of these models to develop eating disorders.  Britain is looking to ban the consumption of alcohol on broadcasts because government studies show that it leads to alcohol-related disorders.  Here in America, we have long banned tobacco commercials for the same reason.  But politicians tell us to believe that subjecting an average child to 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school and, by age eighteen, 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders, will have no effect on his or her development at all.

We've known that violent-content acts like a drug on childhood development since President Bill Clinton first highlighted the problem in the 1990's.  He pointed to study after study and the marketing documents of the entertainment industry itself.  All the evidence was there.  And then the entertainment industry increased its campaign contributions by 1,000 percent and spent hundreds of millions on lobbying and soft money to convince Congress to forget every study it had read.

Bathed in this new-found ignorance, members of the New Jersey Senate happily allow their grandchildren to watch a Tarantino bloodbath on TV, while they strip single moms of the right to defend themselves and their children.  "Rely on the police," they are told when -- because of the economy people like the Senators have bestowed on them -- they must live and work in dangerous areas and police response times are simply too long.  You and your children can not hide for that long a time and expect to survive. 

Of course, the Senators have money and live in low crime areas with good police protection.  And although they work in Trenton, they work in buildings protected by dozens and dozens of men with guns.  Thick, burly, well-trained men who know how to kill if the need arises.  The Senators value their lives, even as they devalue the lives of everyone else.  As do the rich "activists" like the billionaire Bloomberg and all those Hollywood people and New York celebrities from the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.

Their message is simple:  We want to make a fashion statement that overturns the Bill of Rights and leaves the poor, working, and middle classes defenseless -- while we make wheelbarrows full of money feeding the culture of violence.

Now Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont (where the Second Amendment is alive and well), is calling out the legal bribery that allows the entertainment industry and others to buy politicians and give us laws nobody wants, while blocking laws everybody is asking for.  Bernie Sanders is coming after Sue McCue and the Rutgers Super PAC.  And if he has his way, the process of legal bribery will become illegal again.

Here is an instructive video featuring Professor Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts.  In it, Mrs. Warren dispels forever the myth that donors simply pay for "access."