Thoughtful workers from across the political spectrum come together to oppose Sweeney’s S-4204.

The politics of crony capitalism has distorted the political landscape, turning party ideology into a mask one wears to hide the agendas of Establishment interests. As the reform group RepresentUs notes, we have been on the road to where we are for a long time. But there is an answer… it is in the "fusion politics" that Ralph Nader wrote about a few summers ago in his book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. And it is what keeps the Establishment up at nights. The open letter below illustrates why:

Dear Senator Sweeney:

On behalf of the Township of South Orange Village Board of Trustees, I urge you to withdraw S-4204 for consideration until a time when language can be properly integrated to ensure that the livelihood of our state’s legitimate independent contractors is not jeopardized.

As a governing body representing a very progressive community, it is seldom we find ourselves at odds with legislation introduced and supported by Senate and Assembly Democrats. I say this because we wholeheartedly support the goals of the legislation—specifically, proper protections for workers—and believe lawmakers are justified and morally compelled to act given the findings presented in Governor Murphy’s Task Force on Employee Misclassification (July 2019).

However, we oppose the language of the bill as introduced (and amended) and most recently discussed during the Senate Labor Committee hearing on December 5, 2019.

We respectfully, and with a sense of urgency, ask that the three prongs of the ABC test be amended and/or reimagined completely to reflect the new “gig economy,” comprised of successful entrepreneurs, that presents many valuable ways in which these workers—by choice—have created opportunities for themselves to earn a living on terms that work best for them and their families. The testimonies provided by these individuals, whom this bill will impact adversely, should provide sufficient evidence that more modifications are necessary.

In my experience, any bill that needs to carve out “exceptions” is a result of confusing language that can’t be universally applied to everyone in a concise manner. Moreover, while likely not intended, it also gives the appearance that certain professions, organizations, or lobbying entities had special access in the drafting of the bill.

Though the legislation has been described as a “pro-worker” bill, our objections to it do not make us “anti-worker” but rather, reflect our desire to ensure that all workers receive thoughtful and responsive consideration before passage. While New Jersey may have lost millions of dollars as a result of underreported wages, adoption of this bill in its current form can result in hundreds of millions of lost wages in unintended consequences to legitimate independent contractors. As evidenced in the hearings and echoed by the Chamber of Commerce, small businesses and startups will be disproportionately impacted, as they often rely on the gig economy to compete with larger corporations.

Our sentiments have been shared with our District 27 Representatives and I am grateful that Senator Codey, Assemblyman McKeon and Assemblywoman Jasey have heard and share our concerns. A legislative initiative can only be enhanced and improved upon when leaders at all levels of government listen and collaborate with stakeholders. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Sheena Collum
Village President

Has the NJBIA become a voice of woke capitalism?

Remember when Republicans were the party of business and Democrats the party of the working class? While the GOP still loyally votes on behalf of the interests of business, the days of business rewarding that loyalty with its support appear to be long gone.

Today’s corporate class votes Democrat because they (1) know the Democrats will do nothing to threaten their economic position in society, and (2) they get to publicly assure themselves that they are "good people" by doing so. Yes, for them the modern Democrat Party is a religious experience – but one that doesn’t require sacrifice.

Government intrudes on business so much these days that instead of organizing resistance to those intrusions, many businesses have made politics their partner. Government is, after all, run by politicians – so corporations hire lobbyists, fund candidates, and more importantly adopt political and social policies that signal the virtues they want the world to see. And for some, it’s sort of like the pious mob boss who makes a great show of paying for the new roof on the church, so that possible critics look the other way when his real work comes to light.

Woke capitalism is crony capitalism with a social justice cover.

Here is a succinct but very much on-point explanation by Kajal Iyer, who boils down a New York Times editorial by Ross Douthat, called “The Rise of Woke Capital.”

Ms. Iyer outlines how corporations are embracing a woke identity to couch their “malpractices” and market their products. These corporations have disrupted the traditional balance between Left and Right in America, between business and labor – its yin and yang.

Woke corporations are like hip middle aged husbands who have successfully found a young mistress, content in the continued loyalty and forbearance of the dutiful wife at home. Guess which political party is “the wife at home”?

Take the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) and its political action committee, New Jobs PAC, which calls itself “The Voice of Business”. When the NJBIA and the Chamber of Commerce rolled out their “Plan for an Affordable New Jersey” in July, who handled the messaging?

If you answered “the Clinton grease machine” you would be correct.

Yep, MWW, the firm that is so close to Bill and Hillary they even found a job for disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner when he was too controversial to be hired elsewhere. The biography for the firm’s founder notes that he is “known for his political contributions and fundraising for the Democratic Party” and he’s served as a Deputy Finance Chair of the DNC.

So how pro “leave me alone and let me create jobs” kind of business is this firm and what kind of messaging are you going to get out of them? The answer can be had just by going through the media section of the NJBIA website, which offers lectures on climate change and diversity as well as a host of other left-wing incantations. The rest is a course in “politics/government is your wingman”. Do what they want, pay them what they want, support who and what they tell you to support, and they will allow you to do business.

For the non-woke businessperson who just wants to make a living and create jobs, the message is one of subservience. Pay the Danegeld or the Vikings will pillage your business.

On the other hand, if you are a big pharmaceutical firm mired in controversy over the fallout from one of your products… being uber-LGBTQ can change the focus and make you one of the “good guys”. Yep, too bad about the cancer… or the opioids.

Is this the only voice for business in New Jersey?

Is it time for Republicans to quit playing the loyal “wife at home” and ask for a divorce? Why take the blame for all that corporations do, only to watch them hire the Left to provide a Leftist message that helps Leftist politicians to run against you? Wouldn’t it just be better to leave the Democrats and their crony capitalist backers in the muck and run on a message of reform and clean government?

Does anyone really believe that the “corruption tax” (so labeled in the Soprano State) has gone away? Or would the average voter say that crony capitalism has made it stronger than ever?

Matt Rooney calls out the Democrats on their hypocrisy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, why indeed?

You can read Matt Rooney’s entire column here…

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

Is AFP even a conservative organization anymore?

Can we get serious?

In America, there is a consensus, a generally accepted agreement as to what the word “conservative” means.  Take a poll.  Ask the average voter what the word means.  The four pillars of modern American conservatism are pretty easy to remember:

(1) The Right to Life.  Conservatives, real conservatives, Reagan conservatives, we oppose abortion.  Full stop.  

(2) The Second Amendment.  Hey, how many court rulings do you need before you finally get that the government has no duty to protect you?  In a Republic, that is on you.  Conservatives oppose the anarchy of crime.  We support gun rights, local police, and laws that are tough on crime – especially violent crime.

(3) Less Government/ Lower Taxes.  Conservatives know that smaller government and less government regulation leads to less spending and debt, which enables governments to cut taxes.  Conservatives also know that crony capitalism is a form of political corruption and as such is itself a tax on the goods and services used by ordinary citizens.

(4) Illegal Immigration.  Conservatives like America and American culture.  We welcome anyone from anywhere who wants to come here and join us and become an American.  We don’t want to be colonized by foreign cultures with authoritarian or anti-democratic traditions.  We don’t want to be told that we need to change to accommodate those who gate-crash the laws of our country. 

In order to call yourself a conservative in America, you pretty much need to be all four of the above.  Maybe you can get away with being a little mushy on one and still be considered a “soft” conservative.  But if you are bad on more than one, you need to think about why you are a Republican.  (Hey, haven’t these people ever read the PLATFORM of the party they claim membership of?)

That’s not to say that anybody is a “bad” person.  It’s just saying that you’re not a conservative.  See, the word “conservative” actually does mean something.  It’s not just a term of praise used in the proper setting to describe people we happen to like… or want to suck-up to. 

“Conservative” doesn’t mean “libertarian”.  It is per se a traditionalist point-of-view.  Conservatives want to C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E the traditions and values of our American Republic.  Unlike our libertarian brethren, we don’t want to replace Mom and Apple Pie with the Orgasmatron and the Orb.

That’s not to say that conservatives and libertarians (or anyone else for that matter) can’t agree on certain issues and work together.  But having a conservative point of view on this or that issue doesn’t make one a conservative.  Heck, Bill Clinton called himself a “fiscal conservative” – that didn’t make him a conservative.  It made him a liberal who saw the political advantages of conservative policy on issues like welfare reform.  He was still a liberal. 

And so we come to the especially Jersey-style, end of year crap that recently went spewing itself all over the Internet.  For years now, New  Jersey has been working very hard at being the place words go to lose their meaning.  Reading “The Right 40 Women to Watch in 2019” (written by AFP’s head honcho in New Jersey) it’s now clear that this trend has reached new depths of meaninglessness – with many of those mentioned being members of the “Right” only in the way that Hillary Clinton can be considered being to the “Right” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

AFP – Americans for Prosperity – is the group formed by the super-rich Koch brothers as the political and lobbying arm of their business empire.  Anyone who knows anything about the Koch brothers knows that they come out of the Libertarian Party – in fact, one of the brothers actually ran against Republican Ronald Reagan on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980.  Yes… THAT Ronald Reagan. 

And what a ticket that was… it supported everything from the decriminalization of narcotics and prostitution to America’s standing down as a world power.  If that crew had been elected, we’d still have the Soviet Union (and maybe they would have won).  But happily, Reagan won and the Koch operation was forced to rebrand itself as fake “conservative” – a move that started the process of unwinding the meaning of the word. 

Over the last decade or more, the Koch operation has done much to corrupt the conservative movement in America – in an effort to remake it in their own crony capitalist image.  Now they’ve come full circle and are back to advocating a soft-on-crime approach while pushing to flood the open market with recreational marijuana… this, in the midst of an opioid epidemic that is killing upwards of 50,000 people each year.

In fact, AFP in New Jersey has become so crony capitalist, so establishment, so anti-conservative values, that it has taken to shilling for far-Left politicians like U.S. Senator Cory Booker.  Just before Christmas, AFP paid for a mailing that lauded Senator Gropicus (a great moniker, courtesy of SaveJersey’s Matt Rooney) for a soft-on-crime package of feel good “reforms” that miss the problem entirely, but make for good media ads for his 2020 run against President Donald Trump.  Why the heck would AFP do something like that?  The Democrats don’t need the resources – they already have George Soros – now they have the Koch operation’s millions too? 

Among those women on “the Right” we were asked to “celebrate” were a half dozen who made the list because of their service on the just completed campaign of Bob Hugin for United States Senate.  Now maybe the writer didn’t get the memo, but Bob Hugin didn’t run from “the Right” and his campaign did all it could to distance itself from said “Right” – starting with millions in advertising assuring the electorate that he was a “different kind of Republican” who explicitly rejected at least one of the four pillars of modern American conservatism.  So WTF?

And since when did the legalization and sale of marijuana become a conservative issue?  Hasn’t anyone read about the vaping problem in our schools?  And this is with nicotine… imagine what it will be with marijuana?  And edibles?  How will policing the use of chocolate bars, peanut butter cups, and cookies work?  Candy for children… So how the heck did the “co-founder and executive director of the New Jersey Cannabis Industry Association” make a list of “women on the Right”???

Get out of your offices and talk to average people sometime!  Ask them if they think legalizing and selling an entry level drug in the midst of an opioid epidemic is a conservative political position?  Average voters will think you have lost your mind.  But there she is, on the list for being “at the helm” in her quest to “unleash a new industry within the State.”  What’s next?  Narcotics?  The legalization of human trafficking?  Prostitution?  Body parts?   Wait… it will come.

Rosemary Becchi made the list too.  She’s the president of a “new grassroots advocacy organization” formed in 2018 “to fight Jersey’s high taxes and propose policy solutions to the state’s complex financial problems.”  Except that she hasn’t.  Ms. Becchi is a DC lobbyist who has donated to the Democrats.  Hey, we get that lobbyists do that kind of thing, but let’s not call it conservative. 

Nobody has seen Ms. Becchi testifying in Trenton, or providing information to legislators, or even returning telephone calls from those interested in finding out more about her “organization”.  Cynics would say that it is nothing more than a front – a cover for her personal ambition to run for Congress.  This is something she openly explored against incumbent Congressman Leonard Lance (R-07) a year ago, with her “grassroots” organization forming a kind of parentheses between that and her expected formal announcement for 2020.

But as far as labeling her a “conservative” – we don’t really know where she stands on big government and taxes, leaving aside her unknown positions on abortion, the Second Amendment, and illegal immigration.  So who is trying to fool who here?

Finally, AFP’s list is memorable because of the genuine conservatives – four pillar conservatives – that it leaves out.  Champions like Marie Tasy and Christine Flaherty and Rev. Mandy Leverett… they are fighting to maintain the value of human life, to recognize the threshold of fetal pain, to end the trafficking of human beings and the sexual exploitation of women and children.  Of course, in today’s cash register world of “new industries” like pot and such, none of that matters – except that it does matter to conservatives, and there are a great many of us.

Also dissed were Freeholder Deborah Smith of Morris County – a great advocate for the Second Amendment – and incoming Sussex County Freeholder Dawn Fantasia who took down an incumbent Freeholder by winning 63% of the vote!  Nobody who made AFP’s list ever beat an incumbent.  Why are conservative winners ignored and pot pushers lauded as “conservatives”?   And how about an operative like Kelly Hart, the executive director of the Sussex County Republican Committee.  A four pillar conservative who actually won for Bob Hugin by more than was expected – outperforming everywhere but receiving scant recognition for it.  Obviously, there is a “cool girls” table, just as in high school, and some are not part of it… no matter how much they actually WIN elections. 

So in future, be a bit more judicious in who you label “conservative.”  Be honest with voters.  Stop telling them that you are something you’re not. 

Yes, we expect to hear arguments from pro-abortion, mushy on illegal immigration, soft-on-the-Second Amendment types who claim that they “feel” they are conservative.  But isn’t that just the times we live in?  We’ve all heard of gender-fluidity… well, these people are ideologically fluid.  And just as our chromosomes determine whether we are male or female, how we stand on the four pillars make us conservative – or something else.

Hey, don’t worry.  Not being conservative doesn’t make you a “bad” person.  And it doesn’t mean that you don’t hold conservative points of view on this issue or that.  You can still work with conservatives.  It just means that you recognize that you don’t come from the same ideological place that conservatives do.  And in your heart, you already know that, so let’s cut the bull and get honest with the voters.  Restoring their faith in the labels politicians apply to themselves will perhaps restore some measure of trust… for when the very words people use to describe themselves have no integrity, what confidence can voters have in anything?

Ralph Nader’s speech to conservatives re. crony capitalism

The American Conservative (TAC) is the publication that predicted the fall of the Bush dynasty and the rise of Donald Trump.  They wrote about the populist shift in GOP politics when most Washington-based journalists were confidently predicting that Paul Ryan was the next big thing.

The American Conservative recently held its 2nd annual conference on crony capitalism, "Cronyism in Action: Government's Cozy Ties to Big Tech & Big War." Ralph Nader gave a special address on the Military Industrial Complex entitled, "Eisenhower's Warning: Prophetic and Presently Understated."  You can watch it here:

The conference began with opening remarks by the Hon. C. Boyden Gray, former ambassador to the European Union, and a board member of The American Conservative.  The first panel, on the military-industrial-congressional complex, featured journalist and TAC contributing editor Mark Perry as moderator, POLITICO reporter and defense editor Bryan Bender, investigative journalist and TAC contributor Gareth Porter, Mandy Smithburger, director of the Project on Government Oversight, and Caroline Dorminey, a defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute. You can watch a video of the first panel here:

The second panel debated the role of cronyism in the technology industry and featured TAC executive editor Lewis McCrary as moderator, writer and Open Markets Institute fellow Matt Stoller, Washington Examiner commentary editor

Tim Carney, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Stacy Mitchell, and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation founder and president Robert D. Atkinson. You can watch a video of the second panel here:

For more information or to subscribe to The American Conservative, please contact John Burtka, at… jburtka@theamericanconservative.com. 

Politician Lobbyists straddle both parties

Too many voters persist in believing that the two political parties work in opposition to each other.  In fact, both are neo-liberal in their economic policies and both believe in crony capitalism.  The only difference may be which interests benefit from that crony capitalism. 

The Democrats fill the place of a traditional party of the Left -- a party of the poor and working class.  The Republicans play the role of a party of Middle Class conservatism -- of small business and traditional values.  In fact, the Democrats have worked to make the poor more dependent on politicians and have sided with big business to support immigration policies to drive down the value of labor, while supporting trade policies that have driven high-paying manufacturing jobs overseas.  For their part, the Republicans side with big corporations and wealthy special interests to offer tepid opposition to a rabidly commercial agenda set on destroying local businesses and imposing a global set of standards on both economic and human relationships.

New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney summed it up when -- in the midst of an economic downturn, high unemployment and underemployment, no property tax relief, mass foreclosures, homelessness, debt, record poverty, and children going hungry -- he declared that same-sex marriage was the state's "top priority" and the most important thing on the legislative agenda.  Why not?  Billionaires like Paul Singer and Tim Gill were funding the project.  It was important to them and they have the money to push an issue to the front of the line. 

A recent Princeton University study nailed it when it reported that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

Now you know why all those referenda voting down same-sex marriage meant jack dick.  Money uber alles.  Simply put, the citizen and his or her vote simply don't matter to the critters who run our legislative bodies.   

Witness the rise of the lobby/public relations/political consulting entity -- often an arm of a law firm -- that employs both Democrats and Republicans.  Gone are the days of simply relying on campaign contributions to make a legislator sweet.  Now a lobbyist is likely to be the party chairman of a county or municipality -- somebody who can knock a legislator off the party "line" in the primary or find a popular mayor to run against him. 

And forget the idea that Democrat lobbyists only lobby for "Democrat" issues and Republicans for "Republican" issues.  They lobby for whomever it is that pays them and simply use their party offices to beat legislators into voting the way the rich corporations or interests who pay want them to vote.  There was a long line of Republicans taking money to lobby for same-sex marriage.  Republicans have trousered George Soros' money and have lobbied for everything from corporate crony solar projects to raising taxes.

Republican voters are beginning to figure out that their party's establishment doesn't care what they think and uses their votes to get hired by people who do not have their interests in mind.  Social conservatives got the message first.  That's why we had historically low turnout in New Jersey in last year's Assembly races.  The Trump phenomenon -- which began after he made a no nonsense comment about the supposedly taboo subject of illegal immigration -- is further evidence that the old b.s. no longer works.

The Reagan-era alliance between the social conservative and Chamber of Commerce wings of the GOP has gone off the rails.  For years working class social conservatives voted against their economic self-interests for candidates who promised to respect their traditional values, only to watch those candidates do the bidding of the rich who fund their campaigns and piss on every traditional value.

Why should social conservatives vote to keep the taxes of a corporation like Johnson & Johnson low, when that corporation takes the money it saves and uses it to make propaganda media to push same-sex marriage or helps to underwrite the operations of Planned Parenthood.  A year ago, more than 100 of the richest and most powerful corporations signed an amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges in support of same-sex marriage and in direct opposition to much of the world's major religions.  Among those to codify this global corporate position on faith and morals was Johnson & Johnson. 

A New Jersey business organization that relies on Republicans elected with social conservative votes to support its agenda, rewarded this loyalty by inviting the former president of Planned Parenthood to be the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.  Will social conservatives be asked by this business group to support less regulation for Johnson & Johnson, now that it has lost a court battle that disclosed its callous disregard for women and children who use its products? 

When a resolution is proposed in the Legislature, calling for the condemnation of Johnson & Johnson's corporate leadership for failing to warn women that its talc-based products could cause cancer, will so-called women's advocates like Senator Loretta "Mother Roach" Weinberg sign on?  Will Senator Sweeney?  After all, these corporate monsters knew as far back as the 1980's that their products caused cancer but they were so addicted to profits that the greedy pigs kept selling it and kept quiet about the cancer.   

Wow, doesn't support for same-sex marriage and Planned Parenthood mean that you are "progressive," that you're one of the so-called "good-guys"?  Obviously not.  The same corporation that makes fashion statements in support of "LGBT rights" and "women's reproductive rights" was happy to expose women and children to the possibility of slow, painful, horrible deaths in order to keep its profits high.  Corporate fashion statements are a diversion, a scam. Money uber alles.