Why did Nick DeGregorio refuse to take questions from conservative leaders?

By Rubashov

Some people seem to have been talked into thinking they’re entitled. That they don’t need to answer questions because they have the inside track.

Enter Nick DeGregorio. Nick is a young man in a hurry to make his mark in the world. There’s nothing wrong with this. Personal ambition is a necessary feature to political office.

But personal ambition is a poor reason for holding office. Simply “getting ahead” or “moving up the ladder” is an empty motion. A candidate needs to ask himself – and needs to be asked – to define his intentions. Why do you want to hold office and what will you do with it if you get there?

Nick got involved in politics as an acolyte of fellow Marine, Bob Hugin. Nick’s campaign is using the same punchline Hugin used in his failed 2018 bid for the United States Senate: Vote for me, I’m a Marine. It’s easy to see why, they both hired the same political insider to guide them.

Asking for someone’s vote based on your military service isn’t a bad approach, just a shallow one. Hey, running for Congress isn’t the same as running for Post Commander of the local VFW. There’s a bit more to it than your method of service. And using this approach, shouldn’t we all be voting for Mikie Sherrill?

Nick has every right to run, but as we learned from Bob Hugin’s 2018 campaign, being a Marine doesn’t make you a conservative. Hugin launched his campaign by trashing much of what traditional conservatives hold dear (before reminding them that he was, indeed, a Marine).

In contrast, Nick is taking the silent approach. On his campaign website, we are treated to many paragraphs about what he did in the military, but there’s nothing there about what he’d do in Congress. No issues page. No policies.

In fairness, Nick does notice some of the problems facing voters today. His website devotes a single paragraph to those details:

“Taxes are out of control. Businesses and jobs are fleeing, taking our neighbors with them. Our classrooms—once safe places for our children to learn to think for themselves—are now devolving into testing grounds for radical political ideology. And behind it all are the career politicians and insiders, who are too busy serving themselves in Washington to care about the mess they have created for the rest of us here at home.”

No ideas or solutions. No platform or policy page on his campaign website.

Nick sounds the way he does because behind Nick are those career political “insiders” that his website claims “are too busy serving themselves… to care about the mess they have created for the rest of us.” Nick’s campaign has identified the problem… and the problem is Nick’s campaign.

But Nick shouldn’t be singled out. His campaign is not unique. Most political campaigns today begin by hiring a “career insider” to fashion prose about how other “career insiders” represent a threat to the way of life of average voters. And we’re not arguing they don’t, we’re just pointing out the hypocrisy of the exercise.

There are some “career insiders” who appreciate policy and some who don’t. Those who don’t generally push the “I’m just here to win” mantra. That’s because policy is hard work. Specifically, taking a policy and turning it into a winning message is hard work. Much easier to maintain a policy-free-zone and tell voters what they want to hear, spinning and zipping until you cross the finish line. But that is no way to build a party. A party is constructed of planks and platforms – which is just another way of saying issues and policies.

And so, it was notable when Nick DeGregorio turned down an invitation to share his views with a panel of statewide conservative leaders that included Mayor Steve Lonegan; Marie Tasy (New Jersey Right to Life); Alex Roubian (2nd Amendment Society); Rev. Greg Quinlan (Center for Garden State Families); John Robert Carman (NJ Constitutional Republicans); and Josh Aikens (AriseNJ). Every other candidate for the GOP nomination in the 5th District participated, as did every candidate in the neighboring 7th District – including elected officials like Senator Tom Kean Jr. and Assemblyman Erik Peterson. Perhaps Nick hasn’t fully formed views on issues like taxation and abortion and the Second Amendment? More likely, it’s because the “career insider” running Nick’s campaign wants to get though the primary using little more than the word “Marine” so that he can define Nick in a way that will appeal to some mythological entity known as the “soft Democrat”.

Of course, this is an act of deception. It is the opposite of leadership.

It takes personal courage to serve in wartime. It takes moral courage to adopt policy positions and believe in them enough to want to sell them. And just as personal courage moves the ball forward in war, moral courage moves us forward as a nation.

Ronald Reagan is mentioned on Nick’s campaign website: “Together, we can – and will – win the battle of ideas and ensure, as President Reagan said, that America remains a shining city upon a hill for generations to come.” How can one not mention ideas when discussing Ronald Reagan? Even on a website without ideas.

Ronald Reagan was no Marine. But Ronald Reagan had ideas and convictions that he fought for. He had the moral courage it took to move America forward. No “career insider” ever got him to hide his light under a basket. And forget wimpy appeals to “soft” Democrats – Reagan converted a generation of Reagan Democrats to his way of thinking. He won and moved the policy ball forward. We need more candidates with Reagan's kind of courage.

President Reagan on how to deliver a message.

NJGOP: Will Bob Hugin cause a civil war for Jack Ciattarelli?

By Rubashov

First, a hearty welcome to our new readers in the Washington Metro area.

Later today, former U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin will become the new Leader of New Jersey’s Republican Party. Ideologically, Hugin is very different from the last two men at the helm of the NJGOP. Outgoing Chairman Mike Lavery is a behind-the-scenes guy who shares a similar issue grid with the Chairman he replaced, Doug Steinhardt, an unashamed conservative on issues like the Right-to-Life, the Second Amendment, illegal immigration, taxes, and traditional values.

Of course, Hugin spent $36 million on a campaign to convince voters that he wasn’t a conservative. Nevertheless, he had more than enough connections with President Trump for the Democrats to define him. His campaign provided insiders with six-figure jobs, made some consultants rich, but was otherwise a disaster. While suppressing the GOP base, Hugin drove up swing Democrat turnout in several congressional districts that Hugin won – and the Republican Congressman or congressional candidate lost.

Last December, Hugin ran for Chairman of the NJGOP and came up short. Since then, 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. Surely, with so few legislators and counties in the GOP column, $30,000 would be better used to defeat Democrats.

Women for a Stronger New Jersey is run by Bob Hugin’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign manager, who also benefits as a vendor to the committee. Hugin’s spouse is a member of the three-member board that runs the committee, according to its webpage. And as if anyone needed clarification as to the ideology of the candidates the committee is looking to promote, the Women for a Stronger New Jersey website is very clear on this:

“We're working to grow the number of women serving in elected office at the state and local level by building a diverse network of moderate Republican and Independent women throughout the state and expanding the pool of women considering public office.”

That’s right, conservative Republican women need not apply. But independents – as in non-Republicans – are okay. That’s kind of a sucky formula, isn’t it?

Earlier this year, when the state’s senior Pro-Life Senator decided to run for re-election, Women for a Stronger New Jersey was there wasting resources and urging a primary. And there was a primary – not for the Senate, but for the Assembly – with another enormous waste of resources. In total, Republicans have pissed away about $2 million on avoidable primaries – and that’s not counting the gubernatorial race. Insider vendors and consultants trouser the proceeds and benefit, but the party doesn’t. Because money doesn’t come easy.

Women for a Stronger New Jersey is not the only committee Bob Hugin has set-up that seems drawn to killing its Republican brethren. Jersey Real is a federal independent expenditure SuperPAC that has spent hundreds of thousands in Republican congressional primaries in seats that we later failed to pick-up. The Treasurer of Jersey Real happens to be that same candidate who was hoping to become the first transgendered Republican State Committeewoman. Small world.

Jersey Real is already active fomenting primaries in two congressional districts for next year: CD05 and CD03. Jersey Real’s choice in CD05 worked on Hugin’s 2018 campaign. It doesn’t appear to matter to anyone that the Democrat incumbent is sitting on $9 million. Nobody has asked, let alone answered, the question about how Republicans spending a million or more dollars bashing each other is going to help that arithmetic. Hey, the consultants and vendors will trouser a lot of cash – but the poor GOP donors shouldn’t expect a return on their investment.

One high-ranking party boss in South Jersey said that Bob Hugin told him the NJGOP wants “new” looking candidates… youth, women, “minorities”, anything but old white guys. What’s going on in your head doesn’t matter… issues, policies, ideas, solutions, ethics, integrity, honesty… these things don’t matter. It is all about how you look and how they can market you. Sad, especially because they almost always lose anyway.

After the scandal of Watergate, steps were taken to make our election process more democratic. In the time since, the Courts have destroyed those reforms, ruling that money is speech. Today, the average voter feels shouted down by a few very rich oligarchs who count for a very few votes but whose money allows them to scream very loudly and shout down millions of voters.

This disparity led a Princeton University study (Gilens & Page, 2014) to conclude: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Voters believe in the ideal of democracy but increasingly understand they do not have it.

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

In an opinion column, published in yesterday’s New Jersey Globe, Fairleigh Dickinson’s Peter Woolley wrote: “Jack (Ciattarelli) barely mustered half of the Republican primary vote though running against two candidates who were, to put it most charitably, marginal.”  It’s actually worse than that, because most Republican voters weren’t excited enough or mad enough to vote at all. 
 
Bob, you have been chosen to lead the NJGOP by the 2021 gubernatorial nominee.  His name is Jack Ciattarelli.  He is job one.  Along with every legislator and legislative candidate and all the county offices and local elected offices.  The party has candidates who face do or die THIS November. 
 
Don’t get ahead of yourself worrying about how to put your stamp on the 2022 congressional primaries so that the GOP establishment nominates a bunch of lefties nobody cares about.  If you are going to do that, you might as well take Alan Steinberg’s advice and just embrace critical race theory and then – for all your money – prepare to be the state’s third party.
 
Finally, you need to accept that this is a grungier, more blue-collar party now.  A candidate can get by perfectly well just by repeating the word “Trump”.  Of course, that is not a policy or a solution.  But neither is the first transgendered (fill in the blank).  More than branding, the GOP needs thinking.  Come up with solutions to the problems voters face and then tell the story of how you are going to do it, so that they believe at least you’ll try.          

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

Eric Hoffer

The Reparations Racket is an exercise in vote-buying

Most of those alive today are descendants of slaves. Wikipedia defines slavery as follows:

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. Scholars also use the more generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour to refer to such situations. However, and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word, slaves may have some rights and protections according to laws or customs.

Slavery existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations. A person could become enslaved from the time of their birth, capture, or purchase.

Slavery was legal in most societies at some time in the past, but is now outlawed in all recognized countries. The last country to officially abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of modern slavery. The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery (or unfree labour) continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.

Race doesn’t enter in to it, as all manner of human beings, all colors and creeds, have enslaved their fellow man since the beginning of time. If it is, as some suggest, our original sin (and it is high on the list of sins) then it is a sin shared by all mankind, one that in our humility we must all account for.

The Bible tells us that the Israelites often found themselves enslaved as a people – by the Egyptians, and later, by the Romans. Slavery existed in the Americas at the time of its first contact with Europe. At the start of the American Republic, there were two African-based slave trades. One, out of sub-Saharan Africa, provided human beings to slaveholders in the United States and European colonies in America. The other, based in North Africa, brought European slaves and others to Islamic markets. The United States fought two wars to end the latter (1801-05 and 1815) and a civil war (1861-65) to end the former.

Politically, the Democrat Party was the institutional face of the slavery in America. You need only read the Democrat Party platforms prior to the Civil War to recognize this. Long after the Democrats were forced to give up on slavery, they continued to commemorate their slave-holding heritage. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders… they all have attended Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners and have, by doing so, honored those two slave-owning Democrats.

Slavery in America ended with the advent of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, was elected in 1860 with 39.8% of the vote. Lincoln was sworn-in on March 4, 1861. The American Civil War began a month later, on April 12, 1861. By then seven Southern states had seceded from the Union.

At the 1860 census, it was recorded that those in slavery made up 13 percent of the United States’ population. Slavery existed in 14 of the then 33 states (by the end of the war there would be 36 states). 3.9 million people were enslaved, but only 8 percent of American families were slaveholders. Slaveholders did not constitute a majority in any of those 14 states in which slavery was tolerated. But though a minority, slaveholders were an exceedingly rich minority.

All the anti-slavery states (as well as some of the slaveholding ones) produced soldiers and sailors for the holy cause of abolition. New Jersey furnished 76,814 soldiers and sailors – 1,185 of whom were African-American. This was a smaller contribution than neighboring states like Pennsylvania (337,936) and New York (448,850). It was claimed that New Jersey was less enthusiastic than more Republican states. In 1864, in the middle of the war, New Jersey would field the Democrat candidate against Lincoln, who won the state’s 7 electoral votes and a 53% to 47% popular vote win.

Nevertheless, 5,754 New Jersey soldiers/sailors gave their lives in that war to end slavery. Again, neighboring states gave more to the cause. Pennsylvania lost 33,183 of its sons. New York lost 46,534. Regiments were segregated then, so we know that most of those who gave their lives were classified as “white”. But it should be noted that they fought alongside comrades who were classified as “colored” – 36,847 of whom died. In all 178,975 “colored” soldiers and sailors served in the war.

Some Democrats have come up with the ridiculous fable wherein they argue that the parties “switched” ideologies. No, you will not find support for slavery in any Republican Party platform. Unfortunately, the Democrats cannot make that claim. Slavery is the sin of their party. Burdened by such a sin, it is natural that the Democrats wish to deflect the blame for it onto a wider population. And so they have come up with the idea of “reparations”.

What the Democrats propose is a tax (it’s always about a tax with them, isn’t it) on some people – regardless of whether or not their ancestors had slaves, or fought and died to end slavery, or even were in the United States before 1865. Then the Democrats propose that they make a gift of this money to a different group of people.

This satisfies the Democrats’ need to publicly proclaim their “goodness”. It also absolves their party of its unique blame by vastly expanding that blame to others, regardless of whether they have any specific guilt at all or of the sacrifices made by their ancestors. And finally, the Democrats calculate that by taking from Peter and giving it to Paul, Peter will be silenced into submission and Paul will reward the Democrats with his vote. Yes, the Democrats are without shame.

Later today, you can catch this shameless performance at the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Committee Room 11, Fourth Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey. The performance is for the benefit of the Democrat Party of Phil Murphy, Steve Sweeney, and Craig Coughlin.

Stay tuned…

Murphy Dems say taxpayers who want answers to school funding cuts “extremist”

The administration of Governor Phil Murphy and the Democrats who control both chambers of the Legislature cut funding to most Sussex County school districts – as well as to many other rural and suburban school districts across the state.  These cuts were made despite the fact that working class families in rural and suburban New Jersey continue to subsidize the property taxes of rich corporations and wealthy professionals in many of New Jersey’s gentrified urban districts.
 
To give just one example, in Vernon, the Murphy Democrats’ education funding cuts resulted in a 10 percent property tax increase.  And this is only year one of a proposed multi-year round of cuts by the Democrats.
 
Republican Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths have been trying to get the Democrats to agree to hold a special session on property taxes.  Space and Wirths want to address the unfairness of the New Jersey education funding formula – the most inequitable in the entire United States.  To date, the Democrats have tried to change the subject, making excuses on why they don’t have time to address property taxes but do have time to tackle such pressing concerns as transgender curriculum for schools and such.
 
Then there’s the Governor’s screwball Sanctuary State scam that has already released violent sex offenders back into the community.
 
Since July, Assemblymen Space and Wirths have been trying to get someone from the Murphy administration to show up in Sussex County and come before an open public meeting to discuss his Sanctuary State scheme, how he came up with the idea, and whether it was motivated by politics or genuine law enforcement concerns.  The New Jersey Herald covered this in a front page story on July 24th but to date, the Murphy administration has played hide-and-seek, dodging the issue and refusing to show up and talk to the people of Sussex County.
 

https://www.njherald.com/news/20190724/space-wirths-want-attorney-general-to-explain-sanctuary-state-directive

 
So it is a bit disconcerting that when the Governor finally shows up in Sussex county, it isn't at a public meeting, but at a location hidden from the general public; and it isn't to answer questions from the people who pay his salary, but to raise money from big donors for the Democrat Party.
 
Now, to add insult to injury, the Democrats trot out their Antifa-wannabe shill, Chairwoman Katie Rotondi, who labels as “haters” and “extremists” those seeking answers from the Governor whose salary they pay.  Since when is it extreme to ask questions of government? 
 
In fact, before sending out his shill again, we think Governor Murphy needs to take a remedial course in the Constitution of the United States of America – specifically the Bill of Rights.  Last time we checked, in the United States of America – in this country – the right to petition is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which specifically prohibits government or its party shills from abridging "the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".
 
Finally, we think it the height of hypocrisy for a party operative who is notorious for singing about sucking a “bag of d*cks” to be offended by the use of a phrase like “Murphy sucks”.  If you wish to be a puritan, by all means be a puritan, but please be consistent about it.  

Yes, that is her. The Democrat Party chairwoman in all her glory. Katie Rotondi is also notorious for mocking Disabled American Veterans and for comparing Christian belief to “Hitler” – something the Democrat Committee applauded her for – and something the trustees of the Sussex County Community College failed to examine when they caved into her demands to remove one of their own members. As Katie says… “F*ck you, I love you.”

Did you get that, Governor Murphy? Do you approve?