Is Josh Gottheimer guilty of improperly using his office?

By Rubashov

So, it wasn't a real invitation to a real event? Just a political ploy?

Did InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack pull the curtain back on Congressman Josh Gottheimer – or did Gottheimer do it to himself?

On March 22nd Congressman Gottheimer sent a formal invitation – on his official stationery – to the Sussex County Board of Commissioners. The invitation was to join him for a “briefing” by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) on “the latest domestic terror threats in our State.”

The invitation, signed by Congressman Gottheimer, did not contain the date and time of said briefing or the location at which it was to be held. It did contain this paragraph:

“I will follow up with specific details on the briefing with NJOHSP and look forward to working together to stop hate, domestic terror, and extremism in all forms. In the meantime, please contact me directly at Josh.Gottheimer@mail.house.gov with any questions. Thank you for your service.”

But Congressman Gottheimer never did follow up with specific details. According to Snowflack, he instead used it as a political hit piece on the Commissioners and, more importantly, on his constituents who reside in Sussex County. On a March 25th post on InsiderNJ, Snowflack wrote:

“Today, Gottheimer, whose 5th District includes most of Sussex County, released a letter he sent to the county commissioners on March 22.
In case, the commissioners have any doubt about the specter of white supremacy, the Democratic congressman is ready to help. His letter invites the commissioners ‘to join me and the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness for a briefing on the latest domestic terror threats in our state.’
It then notes that for the first time the state’s Homeland Security Office has raised the threat level posed by white supremacists to ‘high,’ putting them in a class with ‘ISIS-inspired terrorists.’
Gottheimer adds that three far-right groups in particular – the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and Three Percenters – are active in Sussex County.
That’s an interesting point.
As the debate raged over the hate-related resolutions, some speakers said condemning extremism is needed, because of the presence in the county of those very groups. Commissioners, as is their apparent custom, didn’t respond to the speakers’ point.
When the issue of political violence from the right is raised – as it has been many times since Jan. 6 – some Republicans point out violence caused by the far left.
So, Gottheimer’s letter also mentions ‘individuals inspired by antifa ideology.’
But make no mistake. The congressman’s main point is about the dangers of right wing extremism. And in Sussex County.”

Well, let’s look at this for a moment. Let us examine the statement: “for the first time the state’s Homeland Security Office has raised the threat level posed by white supremacists to ‘high,’ putting them in a class with ‘ISIS-inspired terrorists.’”

Are the groups mentioned here – the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and Three Percenters – which are labeled by Gottheimer as “white supremacists”, actually in a “class with ISIS-inspired terrorists”?

ISIS is officially designated as a “terrorist organization” by the United Nations, the European Union, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Paraguay, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Oathkeepers and Three Percenters don’t make the list.

The Proud Boys make the list in Canada, just as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) made the list in the United Arab Emirates. Curiously, CAIR’s designation as a “terrorist organization” didn’t stop Congressman Gottheimer from praising and seeking electoral assistance from Action Together, a group that has coordinated activities with CAIR and has even accepted awards from them.

We can point to numerous activities in which CAIR has worked closely with Democrat Party activists throughout Congressman Gottheimer’s district – everything from voter registration drives to protest rallies. Why did it not earn a mention in Gottheimer’s missive?

In fact, CAIR is closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a designated “terrorist organization” in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Kazakhstan, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Given this, Congressman Gottheimer’s assertion about the “threat level posed” seems histrionic, hysterical even. In fact, everything in his “invitation” seems less about the work of government and simply a political hit – albeit one paid for by the taxpayers.

Then there is Congressman Gottheimer’s claim that “the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and Three Percenters are active in Sussex County.” Are they?

It has been polled you know. Recently.

Nobody heard of them. Nobody knows anyone who is a member. And, by-the-way, nobody thinks Sussex County is particularly racist. Or that their neighbors are racists. Or that “white supremacy” is prevalent.

Why would they? Sussex County is one of the least violent, safest places in America. People move from places like Bergen County and New York City to enjoy all that it offers. It has more incidents of agricultural trespassing than bias crimes.

Now we are all aware that the designation of what is or isn’t a “terrorist organization” is a highly political exercise. Joe Cryan’s beloved Irish Nationalists were all once labeled “terrorists”. Even Nelson Mandela was once designated a “terrorist”. So was Menachem Begin, who went on to become the Prime Minister of Israel. It was Begin who, as the leader of a militant paramilitary group, ordered the bombing attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 91 people – British, Arabs, and Jews – died in that bombing.

Is Congressman Gottheimer suggesting that Sussex County is a hotbed for activity of the kind practiced by Menachem Begin? If so, where are the crime statistics? No, instead of crimes, we are told about “incidents”. These mainly involve people posting on-line or handing out reading material that other people find offensive – which, in America, is perfectly legal. Other “incidents” involve rude or anti-social behavior which, if it becomes criminal, should be dealt with as the law instructs.

In his rush to stamp out all such “incidents” Congressman Gottheimer runs the risk of creating a species of thought crime and of packing our already packed-out prison system with a new kind of prisoner – a political prisoner. This is not the way forward if you wish to continue to use that name, democracy.

Here to instruct Congressman Gottheimer on the difference between “crimes” and “incidents” is the great Ira Glasser, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1978 to 2001…

Now this isn’t the first time Congressman Gottheimer has used his office to play political tricks.  Earlier this year he held a press conference on “hate” at the Sussex County Community College and claimed to have had invited the County Commissioners and the state legislative delegation, which he had not.  And then there was the time he crashed the county vaccination center – had his staff members threat face with some sheriff’s officers and then dared them to arrest him – all over a photo op.  Weird.
 
Weirder still is the political angle to all this.  Does he have data showing that his constituents in Sussex County want to believe they live in a violent, racist hellhole and that they and their children are all bad, bad racists?  That’s not a very positive message. 
 
It appears that, in the wake of the January 6th Capitol Riot, a number of Democrats have seized upon it as their Reichstag Fire moment.  They want to use it to criminalize their political opponents to the point that they, once again, enjoy the “permanent majority” they held during the forty years before Newt Gingrich undid it in 1994.  It is a dangerous game that appears to have carried them along to this moment.
 
Of course, Josh Gottheimer is an old hand at playing with fear.  His former boss, President Bill Clinton, played on the fear of “Black” crime for votes and now he is trying to convince people that their real threat is their neighbor (as opposed to corrupt, rapacious politicians like himself).  But it’s a dodgy strategy, because their neighbor is likely to disprove what Gottheimer is selling.
 
Yes, the strategy is a little crazy.  Just like Katie Rotondi, the organizer the Congressman got to pull together the twenty or so Democrats (mostly failed candidates) to represent what Fred Snowflack takes to be “the people” of Sussex County.  Rejected county candidates, rejected municipal candidates, some even rejected by their own party… like Rotondi herself.  Their words will come back to haunt him (and they were all publicly recorded), because the intention in them was so plain:  To them Sussex County is an evil, bad place, full of “white supremacists” and “violent racists” who refused to vote for any of them.  And so, of course, the Democrats, the failed candidates, hate them for it.  This is the just the way some folks deal with the sting of rejection.
  
 

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”
George W. Bush

Anti-Trump criminals attack GOP legislator’s family

By Sussex Watchdog

Over the past month, we’ve gone where newspapers like the Gannett corporation’s New Jersey Herald fear to tread.  We’ve covered the vandalization of family homes in Northwest New Jersey by anti-Trumpers and asked why these obvious acts of hatred were not covered in the same way as when someone spray-paints a Gottheimer for Congress sign? 
 
Does the Gannett corporation approve of violence, so long as it is directed towards people who they decide are unfashionable?  Or are they simply glad that the violent are too distracted to examine Gannett’s record closely?  Are they pleased that the violence is directed away from them?  That someone else is doing the suffering?
 
Sometime last night, a billboard advertising Space Farms Zoo and Museum was defaced with spray-painted anti-Trump slogans and foul language…  

Space Farms is owned by the family of Assemblyman Parker Space (R-24) and his wife, Jill Space, a Republican State Committeewoman and the First Vice Chair of the Sussex County Republican Committee.  When Congressman Josh Gottheimer’s (D-5) campaign sign was defaced, everyone of both parties rallied around him, the media covered it in great detail, all and sundry were appalled.  We won’t hold our breath in this instance.
 
At this sick moment in our history, the Establishment has allowed the violent to target some with impunity, while taking steps to destroy the morale and effectiveness of the police.  Average Americans have watched this and have responded by personally arming themselves to an unprecedented degree.  Any possibility of a rational debate has been screwed to death over the past few weeks.  People cannot unsee what has happened. 
 
This attack on the family of an elected representative of the people comes just weeks after two Black Lives Matter activists were arrested for spray-painting “BLM” and defacing property near the home of the elected Sheriff of Sussex County, Mike Strada.  At about the same time, ten shots were fired at the home of Sheriff Strada, while his wife and children were inside.  That crime is still under investigation and Governor Murphy’s State Police have not released the name or names of those suspected of perpetrating what could be a case of attempted murder.
 
Fresh from successfully intimidating the Sussex County Freeholder Board into passing a resolution that they dictated, Black Lives Matter activists were out in force yesterday, holding a Black Lives Matter rally in Byram while – a few miles away – engaging in an action to disrupt a planned pro-Trump rally that was called off at the last minute for safety concerns.  The stated reason was weather related.
 
Now the New Jersey Herald is willingly accepting the intellectual servitude of the Black Lives Matter movement.  Its pages today remind us of the end of the free press in Germany during that very dark period of the 1930s and 40s.  We will devote a future post to illustrate just how parallel the language is – often word for word.  It make us wonder if those running BLM are historical copycats?
 
Of course, the Gannett corporation is more than happy to spread the blame to America or “society” or the police… instead of being held to account for its own actions.  No matter how many riots or burned down buildings or spray painted slogans or murderous acts… violence does not result in peace.  You cannot compel peace or tolerance or respect at a global level.  Government cannot mandate these things.  Such things happen at the smallest, personal, and individual scale.
 
That is Gannett’s problem.  As a corporation Gannett has been wantonly cruel to its individual workers – generally, across the board, although some have believed it to be due to the color of their skin. 
 
Black Lives Matter is complicit in Gannett’s corporate viciousness.  By allowing Gannett to “take a knee” they are complicit as its public relations “fig leaf”.  But so long as they get their pay-off, Black Lives Matter doesn’t seem to care about the workers.  After all, these are academic “Marxists” of the snowflake variety.
 
Gannett pays homage to Black Lives Matter because it doesn't want anyone looking at their behavior or the behavior of some of the corporation's media outlets.  Like the recent federal class action lawsuit brought against Gannett alleging that the corporation is "running a racist workplace that makes it impossible for black workers to be promoted".  The 26-page lawsuit, with 23 pages of attachments makes for interesting reading:
 
"Gannett ran a sophisticated scheme and cover 'in the form of focus groups and other means and methods that are subjectively manipulated by Gannett to achieve its discriminatory goals and objectives.'
According to the lawsuit, Gannett 'has a corporate custom, policy, pattern, practice and procedure of not promoting African-Americans to director and leadership positions and utilizing a ‘one-and-done policy’ that disparately impacts African-American employed within the company.'
Gannett, based in McLean, Va., is best known for its flagship newspaper, USA Today. Its chain of newspapers, TV stations and other media reach than 110 million people a month, according to the complaint."
 
A journalist employed at Gannett added:
 
“In sum, the overall employment atmosphere and attitude at Gannett is hostile toward recruitment, training, leadership, management and advancement of African-Americans into top broadcasting leadership positions and opportunities.”
 
The EEOC found that it could not certify that Gannett is in compliance with the federal anti-discrimination law.  The federal class action lawsuit "seeks class certification, restitution, and compensatory and punitive damages for Civil Rights Act violations, loss of prospective earnings and a court order 'to enjoin the discriminatory practices.'"
 
Gannett was also recently sued for age discrimination over its practice of replacing older employees with younger, less expensive ones.  Over 1,300 Gannett employees have been "fired" between 2011 and 2017. 
 
Gannett is a ruthless corporation that takes knees and points fingers in a public relations spin operation designed to take the focus off them.  Black Lives Matter is aiding and abetting this scam.  Don’t be fooled.
 
We will keep you informed.  Stay tuned... 
 
 

“It is his millions of relationships that will give man his humanity… It is not our ideological rights that are important but the quality of our relationships with each other, with all men, with knowledge and art and God that count.
 
The civil rights movement has done a magnificent job but it is now faced with the ancient choice between good and evil, between love for all men and lust for a group’s power.”
 
“Every group on earth that has put ideology before human relations has failed; always disaster and bitterness and bloodshed have come.  This movement, too, may fail.  If it does, it will be because it aroused in men more hate than love, more concern for their own group than for all people, more lust for power than compassion for human need.”
 
“We must avoid the trap of totalism which lures a man into thinking there is only one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now.”

(Author Lillian Smith, civil rights pioneer,
on accepting the Charles S. Johnson Award for her work)  

Memo to the Dems: Think... before using the "H" word.

You hear the word "hate" a lot these days.  It's the go-to jibe that the corporate Democrats and virtue-signaling liberals use to tar anyone who disagrees with them.  Expect to hear a lot of it at those upcoming "Women's Marches" planned for New Jersey -- and at the State House later this week -- and from the Murphy Administration (and its new First Lady).

The use of the word "hate" has a history -- having been used again and again by various governments and establishment elements in order to dehumanize opponents... in preparation for killing them.  A case in point is imperial Britain's reaction to the unofficial "Christmas truce" of 1914, early in the Great War (WWI). 

Large numbers of British soldiers freely fraternized with their German counterparts and it horrified the London establishment.  In some sectors, the unofficial "truce" lasted beyond the New Year.   The sentiment behind the truce was well expressed by the poet David Jones, who dedicated his book, In Parenthesis, in part "to the enemy front-fighters who shared our pains against whom we found ourselves by misadventure."  And by the French sobriquet:  "Nos amis les ennemis." (Our friends the enemy.)

The recognition that the other side are people too is never welcome for those who place ideology or cause before humanity.  As the well-worn pages of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals attest, you must strip the humanity from your opponent and make him or her a caricature -- the better to hate them.  Of course, you do not admit to what you are doing but rather, as Josef Goebbels counseled, accuse them of hatred and absolve your actions as simply a defense against hate.

And so the British government got together the comics, the cartoonists, the writers of skits -- and asked them, for King & Country -- to cooperate by churning out propaganda that accused the other side of being "haters".  And not just the soldiers, but their wives and children and parents too.  The better to starve them when the time came.  "Hate" is a magic word.  It absolves the doer of all the hateful things one does against the "haters".  

Perhaps the Democrats, the Women's Marchers, and all the holier-than-thou people who readily absolve themselves of any human responsibility by assuring themselves that those they hate are "haters" unworthy of human consideration, can find it within themselves to start thinking of those who disagree with them as fellow human beings, who just happen to disagree with them.  Make it your New Year's resolution.  Try.

NJEA leaders fail to oppose all political violence

Over the weekend, we heard from a college-educated, professional woman, who resides in a new McMansion in an upscale suburban community, and drives a very expensive energy-efficient automobile.  From all outward signs perfectly sane.  The argument she put forward is this:  That Kim Jong-il is "only trying to protect his country" and that Donald Trump is "a far greater threat to the world's peace."

This is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its worse.  We run into egregious examples of it all the time.  For instance, there's a group of social warriors called Action Together Sussex County.  This group has been doing a lot of virtue-signaling lately, with calls for "peace & love" and the like.  They recently did an "education rally" with two NJEA-backed legislative candidates in which a lot of holier-than-thou language was employed.

Unfortunately... they have a past.  And it's a not-too-distant past. 

Take April 9, 2017... the Action Together Sussex County Facebook page.  Get a load of this "peace & love" routine:

"Got a friend who hates Trump"?  WTF!

"...Please email share this link with Democrats and progressives not on Facebook so that they can participate."  Participate in what?  Hating Trump, that's what.

How's that for spreading the hate?

On June 14, 2017, a United States Congressman was shot down while attending a baseball practice.  Action Together Sussex County makes no mention of this act of violent hate on its Facebook page... ever!  Why?  Is it because the victim is a Republican and the perpetrator a "leftwing activist" (per Wikipedia)?

Where were the vigils, the rallies, the calls for "peace & love" then?  Isn't the life of a Republican worth as much as that of a Democrat?  Apparently not.

Also shot were a female Capitol Police officer, a Congressional aide, and one other bystander.  They too did not earn a mention.

Then there is Action Together Sussex County's support of the Women's March and its silence when the media reported that the Women's March "honored" cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur), a terrorist on the FBI's "most-wanted" list.

According to groups like the Women's March (which the NJEA supported, by the way) terrorists like Chesimard -- who murdered a New Jersey State Trooper in cold blood -- "inspire us to keep resisting."  Oh do they?

The Women' March organization issued a statement "celebrating" Ms. Chesimard's birthday, praising her as a "revolutionary."  Which brings us to the NJEA leadership's statement on the murder of a young protestor in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

To begin with, the purple prose is somewhat embarrassing, particularly as it comes from people claiming to be educators.  Remember, this is the organization that consistently uses restrained language when describing the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.   While describing September 11th as a "tragic event" the NJEA uses the term "horror" to describe a young man driving his automobile into a crowd of protestors.  That is an odd formulation given the relative scales of the two incidents.

We believe that what James Alex Fields did was willful murder and that he should pay for it with his life.  On this point, we part company with the NJEA, who oppose the death penalty.  They employ hard words.  We prefer hard sentences.  In this case, the murderer's life.  Enough talk.

The NJEA has often been silent in the face of political acts of violence.  When they do rouse themselves, it is more often about the ideas expressed than the violence that has become a part of our general political discourse.  Often enough, the NJEA's reaction could be misconstrued as itself an incitement to violence.  Take its statement on Charlottesville as an example, with its calls to "act boldly" for the cause of "social justice" and to change society.  "Act boldly" means what?  "Social justice" includes which issues and solutions? 

Was James Hodgkinson -- a "leftwing activist," late of Belleville, Illinois -- acting boldly when he sought to shoot some Republican members of Congress in June?

The NJEA's statement is full of such unclear language, open to gross misinterpretation.  Again, shocking for educators who should know how to write clearly.  We suggest they pick up a copy of The Elements of Style, a classic by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

The statement by the NJEA's leadership never mentions the act of murder -- and instead conflates this act with a tragic aircraft accident that occurred.  The NJEA never acknowledges that America is rapidly devolving into a place that no longer understands the idea of a "loyal opposition"  -- a place where people can no longer peaceably hold contrary points of view.  The NJEA statement does not call for an end to political violence.  Instead, the NJEA focuses on the ideas expressed by "neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hatemongers" (Are the Women's March and Action Together included amongst those "hatemongers"?) and on the "symbols" displayed and by "rhetoric reminiscent of Nazi Germany" (As in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, perhaps?).

Is the NJEA statement a call to fight violence with violence... to "act boldly"?  You must ask them.

We believe that this is the moment for the NJEA to place aside its inner Che Guevara and dust off and channel its inner Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.  We should not fear ideas -- especially the stupid ideas expressed by racists and neo-Nazis.  They are too easy to refute and make a mockery of.  We should not need to stoop to their level -- to call for censorship or speech bans or other forms of authoritarianism -- to undo their foolish propositions.

Speech must be met squarely with speech.  It does no good to force ideas underground.  It is far better to lure out foolish ideas, into the sunlight, where they can be tested, argued, and disposed of.  Those who do otherwise lack confidence -- or are simply propagandists and scam artists on the make who will use the same violence that they pose to condemn.  There is no idea, no argument, that an intelligent, civilized people need fear.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right when he said, in a somewhat different context, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."  Instead of stoking fear, the NJEA's leadership should be pushing the debate forward into the "bright sunlit uplands" of clarity.