Murphy proposes French-style fuel tax that caused the Yellow-Vests Movement

Wikipedia defines the Yellow Vests Movement as “a populist, grassroots, revolutionary political movement for economic justice that began in France in October 2018.” The movement is motivated by rising fuel prices as well as government and crony-capitalist-induced escalations in the cost of living.

The Yellow Vests Movement holds that a disproportionate burden of government tax “reforms” fall on “non-elites” – the working and middle classes – particularly in rural and suburban areas. In France, the Movement has called for direct democracy through the implementation of citizens' initiative referendums.

The Movement spans the political spectrum, drawing from voters on both the Right and Left who have been pushed to the “periphery” by government policies that support crony capitalism. It gets its name from yellow high-visibility vests, which French government regulation requires all drivers have in their vehicles and to wear during emergencies.

Writers as diverse as Ralph Nadar, Chris Hedges, and Christophe Guilluy have written about a fusion of economically stressed voters on the “periphery” of the new economy coming together to challenge government and crony capitalist elites. It has been noted that the Trump prosperity has temporarily slowed down this evolution, much in the way that Watergate (1974) was simply a bump in the road on the way to a conservative resurgence and the election of Ronald Reagan and a Republican-controlled Senate (1980).

The Yellow Vest Movement started with the imposition of a new “green” fuel tax that was the last straw for working and middle class voters trying to make ends meet. Now it looks like New Jersey is heading down the same road. On Monday, the NJ Spotlight reported:

In what could amount to the most significant regional effort yet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 12 states have issued a draft policy framework to create a cap-and-trade program to reduce global warming pollution from vehicles.

The proposal, developed by the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), is modeled somewhat after the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program that for the past decade has helped clamp down on carbon pollution from power plants.

This draft framework, while sparse in details, proposes to put a cap on emissions from the transportation sector by requiring state fuel suppliers to buy allowances, which would be auctioned off for the right to emit carbon.

The draft does not describe what the level of caps would be, precisely who would be regulated, how much the allowances could cost, or how quickly the caps would go down. The transportation sector has replaced the power industry as the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In New Jersey, the sector accounts for roughly 40% of the state’s carbon pollution.

Motorists will likely pay at the pump

In the end, the cost will likely end up being paid for by motorists at the pump, a difficult choice for New Jersey and other states already pursuing new clean-energy solutions that are expected to be reflected in higher energy bills — at least for the short term.

Within the United States, New Jersey has perhaps the clearest elite vs. working class divide with more than half the state’s poor families living in rural and suburban communities subsidizing the property taxes of wealthy professionals and rich corporations nestled in the so-called Abbott Districts. Government directed, taxpayer-subsidized, crony-capitalists in Abbotts like Camden reap profits by husbanding poverty.

How will higher fuel costs go down with voters who are already stretched to the limit? How is this latest Murphy administration scheme going to help a state with a high rate of foreclosure and the highest property taxes in America?

Assemblymen Hal Wirths and Parker Space have proposed legislation to block Governor Murphy’s plans to raise the cost of fuel in New Jersey. A-5042 prohibits New Jersey’s participation in multi-state cap and trade programs like that proposed by the Transportation & Climate Initiative.

This legislation should get bi-partisan support before November 5th and the cold weather months set in. Higher fuel prices are not something anyone wants to see for the holidays.

Democrats put virtue-signaling before public safety

Over the weekend, Sussex County’s volunteer firefighters held their annual parade in Franklin. At the event, one of the contingents of volunteers proudly displayed a Trump banner. The reaction was predictable.

Instead of thanking the brave volunteers who daily keep their families safe from harm and death, local Democrats began calling town halls trying to have the firefighters “removed” or “suspended” as volunteers. Evidently, their loathing of Donald Trump is more dear to them than the safety of their own children.

Who would replace these volunteers next time a house caught fire was not a consideration by the Democrats, all that mattered was that they supported Trump so they had to go. It was reminiscent of a story that circulated early in World War Two, during the Battle of France. A wounded German officer was brought into an Allied dressing station. He needed a blood transfusion, but upon hearing that it was “French” blood, he refused it. The German bled to death.

The Democrats are like that German. They would rather burn to death than tolerate volunteer firefighters who support Trump. Yes, they are crazy. They are stone cold f*cknuts.

Volunteer firefighters willingly risk their lives for their community. But apparently putting your body on the line for your neighbors isn't good enough. The Democrats want your mind too. They want to control and regulate how you think and express yourself.

If the Democrats succeed in their action against the volunteer firefighters, they will also succeed in raising property taxes. If volunteers are driven out of voluntary firefighting companies, that would pave the way for paid fire departments. That would undoubtedly require a hefty property tax hike to fund it. So the Democrats are, once again, acting true-to-form – virtue-signaling and raising property taxes!

We owe a debt of gratitude to volunteer firefighters like Assemblymen Parker Space and Tony Bucco, and former Freeholder Phil Crabb. They come from families who have for generations volunteered to risk their lives in service to their communities.

Democrats use Heresy-Hunting to cover-up a Rape.

Sussex County Democrat Chairwoman Katie Rotondi is just one of many Democrats who want to distract us away from their shortcomings by focusing on the shortcomings of others. They wish to assure us of their piety through the condemnation of others. The supporters of Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, in particular, scream loudest about the off-color speech of others, as a means of drawing attention away from the cover-up of a violent sexual assault – the rape of one of their own female party members. And where is the First Lady of the State in all of this? What role, in all of this?

The great comedian Stephen Fry nails perfectly the politically correct hypocrisy of some New Jersey Democrats and their Leftist allies: “Preachiness… piety, self-righteousness, heresy-hunting, denunciation, shaming, assertion without evidence, accusation, inquisition, censoring…”

Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, actor, and writer. Fry's acting roles include a Golden Globe Award-nominated lead performance in the film Wilde, Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the crime series Bones, and as Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V for Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America. He was also the long-time host of the BBC television quiz show QI, with his tenure lasting from 2003 to 2016. Besides working in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines and written four novels and three volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles, and More Fool Me. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman during one series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of possible hosts who were tried out to succeed the late Humphrey Lyttelton, Jack Dee getting the post permanently.

“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)

NJ Republicans must have the courage to engage on the Second Amendment

There are three kinds of people who favor gun control: (1) Those who do so in reaction to horrific events and the media coverage of those events. (2) Those who emotionally or intuitively dislike guns or the idea of weapons. (3) Those looking for power, whether in the form of votes or other forms of power as would come from the confiscation of firearms.

Conservatives like United States Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) are taking a lead in the process of finding common ground with the first group and engaging with the second, which represent most of those who say they want stricter gun control. Here, Senator Cruz meets with prominent gun control advocates…

Senator Cruz has given a lot of thought to the Second Amendment and he knows who he is, where he stands, and why he stands there. This is important, because in order to have a conversation with those who hold a different position, you must first have a position of your own.

Most New Jersey Republicans get nervous around the Second Amendment. Most, not all, but most. This is an institutional thing that goes back decades. Sad to say, but even Bernie Sanders had a better voting record on the Second Amendment than did many New Jersey Republicans. When President Bill Clinton pushed a bill through Congress that required a seven-day waiting period for the purchase of a hand gun, Congressman Sanders (Socialist-Vermont) voted “NO”, while all but one of the Republicans in the New Jersey congressional delegation supported the bill.

Forget the Trump Revolution, New Jersey Republicans never really embraced the Reagan Revolution The brain and nervous system of the party tends to reject new stimuli. Nevertheless, the world has moved on, and the body of the party – those who identify or who could identify as Republicans – bears no resemblance to the past. Too often, the brain and nervous system reacts to them as outsiders and actively rejects them, looking, as they often do, like the Democrats of old.

So the Republican Party in New Jersey – the brains and nervous system of it – needs to adjust itself to its new body, for just as the body cannot function without a brain, the brain is fairly useless without a body to command. Step one in this process is an intellectual one. It requires engagement – brain with body – to learn again who it is and what it wants to do.

Before attempting to convince “swing” voters or Undeclared voters or “soft” Democrats… New Jersey Republicans must first know who they are, what they stand for, and what they would do in power. Only then can they engage in a dialog and adjust their message to sell their beliefs more effectively – that’s sell… more effectively, not scrap. And it really does help to get literate about this and to write it down, as an outline or a platform or whatever you wish to call it, so that it may be referred to and passed along.

As for the more tactile branches of the body – the activists – it is good to keep in mind the advice of Benjamin Franklin to the citizen who wished to know the form of government that we’d got. “A Republic,” he answered, “If you can keep it.” By this Franklin was instructing that citizenship is a daily duty. It does not end with a victorious election but begins there. The body sends a continuous flow of messages to the brain. It does not celebrate and then go dormant. Neither can the activist – or the good citizen.

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?

Polling numbers for so-called “Jihad Squad” suck/ Why do Democrat candidates embrace them?

Democrat internal polling released over the summer showed that members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” were so unpopular that it could have an effect on the 2020 presidential race. The Axios organization reported that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was recognized by 74 percent of voters in the poll – but just 22 percent had a favorable view of her. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was recognized by 53 percent of voters, with just 9% having a favorable view.

"Socialism was viewed favorably by 18% of the voters and unfavorably by 69%," Axios added, whereas "capitalism was 56% favorable; 32% unfavorable."

Meanwhile, a poll from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's own district found that she had a more than 2:1 ratio of unfavorable (51 percent) to favorable (21 percent), with 33 percent saying they would be ready to vote against her, and only 13 percent prepared to re-elect her.

Polling figures released by the Hudson Institute indicated that 75 percent of American voters support Israel and say that it is in America’s best interest to have the Jewish State as our closest ally in the Middle East.

60 percent of American voters agreed that anti-Semitism is happening more frequently today than 15 years ago – with most blaming anti-Semitism in the United States on Muslim extremists (37 percent), followed by right-win extremists (28 percent), and then left-wing extremists (22 percent). That’s nearly 60 percent of American voters who disagree with the assessment of Democrat Congressman Tom Malinowksi, who solely blames right-wing extremism for the rise.

A majority of American voters told pollsters that the BDS movement – a central plank in the ideology of the so-called “Jihad Squad” – is anti-Semitic. Most American voters believe the United States should stand with Israel in opposing the BDS movement that is supported by groups like CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) and their allies, like Linda Sarsour and Action Together.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) notes: The campaign to delegitimize Israel is being waged across the globe: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, is the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence. The BDS campaign is rampant with misinformation and distortion. ADL responds to BDS threats through advocacy and education, and we recently partnered with Reut Institute to develop in-depth analysis and strategic initiatives to marginalize and expose the illegitimacy of the BDS movement.

Advocates of BDS target multinational companies, college communities and well-known institutions, meaning it touches almost everyone. College and university campuses have become battlegrounds.

SOURCE: Anti-Defamation League)

Some pro-BDS activists have indulged in the most bizarre and repulsive kinds of anti-Semitic propaganda, like the statement pictured above.  And yet, when pro-BDS groups like CAIR and Action Together invade college campuses and meetings of their trustees, those institutions do little to fight back.
 
Americans applaud actions like that taken by the German government earlier this year, which passed a resolution condemning the BDS movement, comparing it to Nazi-era campaigns against Jewish businesses.  So why are we not hearing more about this from Republicans in New Jersey?  Do voters here support the BDS movement?  Are New Jersey voters more anti-Semitic than elsewhere in the United States?  Why are Republicans so unwilling to take up this battle when fighting anti-Semitism is so obviously the right thing to do?

And what’s up with the Democrats?
 
No less than eight Democrats who are running for the New Jersey Legislature this year have been clearly identified as members of the far-Left Action Together New Jersey on the group’s website.  They are Stacey Gunderman, Lisa Mandelblatt, Deana Lykins, Lisa Bhimani, Darcy Draeger, Christine Clark, Laura Fortgang, and Steven Farkas.
 
On February 10, 2018, Action Together New Jersey accepted an award from Linda Sarsour.  Accepting the award was Action Together New Jersey’s Executive Director, Uyen “Winn” Khuong; Action Together New Jersey’s Sussex County Co-Chair, Johannah Hinksmon; and Action Together New Jersey’s Director of Operations, Kim Baron.
 
Linda Sarsour is the controversial Democrat activist who has praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and the anti-Semitic BDS movement.  In 2017, Sarsour famously called for “Jihad” against the elected government of the United States of America…

The award was in recognition of voter registration drives and other political campaigning done by Action Together New Jersey in coordination with a group called CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Presenting the award was CAIR National Chairwoman, Roula Allouch, and CAIR-NJ Founder, Ahmed Al Shehab.

Due to its apparent ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of America’s most important Islamic allies – the United Arab Emirates – has designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

Action Together New Jersey is in the forefront of the drive to push the Democrat Party in New Jersey to the far-Left. They have joined CAIR in opposing the bi-partisan efforts of New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) to push back on members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” (far-Left Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) in their attempt to promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement.

Why are these Democrats in bed with pro-BDS movement members of Congress when opposing BDS is the morally right thing to do? What is wrong with New Jersey Democrats and their failure to recognize the anti-Semitism of their “heroes”?

Opposing BDS and those who support it is the morally right thing to do and the politically sensible thing to do.

There are four Leftist candidates in LD21 Assembly race

It has now emerged that there are FOUR Leftist candidates in the District 21 Assembly race. Two are straight-forward members of the far-Left. They came from the ranks of Action Together New Jersey, a far-Left group that supports the socialist Green New Deal of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If you are looking for a future of meat-free diets (soylent green, anyone?), the end of air travel (unless you are a member of whatever Politburo equivalent they adopt), the American Bill of Rights (“thought crime is a form of violence,” don’t you know?), and restrictive prohibitions on reproduction (think of Red China’s “One Child” policy on steroids)… then the Green New Deal embraced by Democrats Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman is for you!

The Democrat Party is embracing the death cult of Anti-Natalism. Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the top Democrats in the 2020 presidential race, recently argued against human procreation on the basis of its impact on the environment. At a CNN townhall earlier this month, Sanders said he would support making population control part of his climate-change agenda. It was extensively reported in the Washington Post, New York Times, and other national media. So what is Anti-Natalism? Well, we know that traditional conservatives don’t agree with it, so let’s look at it from the left-of-center point of view of an anti-tradition humanist…

Yep, even most anti-traditionalists can’t quite wrap their minds around this new cult that embraces human extermination (even as it makes an argument for the short-term extermination of certain strains of DNA… like Americans). But this is who the Democrats are. And now for their fellow-travelers…

Harry Pappas, the former party boss of the Union County Democrat machine, is running for Assembly in District 21 as a third-party candidate. Pappas claims to be a “conservative independent” but it is very clear what party he’s from. True to his roots, Pappas is a “Democrat”, plain and simple.

Martin Marks, the former Mayor of Scotch Plains, is a different matter. Marks recruited Pappas to run, which says a lot. Last week, New Jersey Globe ran a story that explained their motives and provided a background to their effort and why they have chosen to run as third-party candidates…

It’s possible that former Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and former Springfield Township Committeeman Harry P. Pappas could serve as spoilers in a highly competitive race where Democrats think they can flip two Assembly seats. That might be their objective.

Semi-surreptitiously, Marks and Pappas say their goal is to force Bramnick, the Assembly Minority Leader, to cuddle a conservative agenda – like embracing his 100% NRA rating rather than run away from it.

But privately, the two (so-called) “conservatives” (note: our quotation marks) really want to take responsibility for Bramnick’s defeat.

The New Jersey Globe has learned that the (so-called) “conservatives” could spent more than $20,000 on their race, although that number won’t be verifiable for several weeks.

The independent campaign is targeting high-propensity Republican voters with a conservative bent in a low-turnout election through digital ads and direct mail…

Marks and Pappas are taking votes only from the incumbents. None of their support is likely to come at the expense of Democrats Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman.

The question will be – and there is no rocket science in this – just how many voters in the off-off-year midterm elections will actually come out and vote for two independent candidates who stand no real chance of winning?

That’s right. Pappas and Marks are fellow-travelers of the far-Left.

Fellow-traveler is defined as… a person who is not a member of a particular group or political party (especially the Communist Party), but who sympathizes with the group's aims and policies.

You can’t be a conservative anything and run a campaign to ensure the election of two far-Leftists who are members of an organization that is on record as embracing the Green New Deal. You can’t claim to be Pro-Life but then plot to elect two Democrats who are on record as being members of a group that endorsed the Green New Deal and the Anti-Natalism death cult it represents.

That isn’t Pro-Life. That is Pro-Death Cult. That is Anti-Natalism.

The New Jersey Globe has done a great service for conservatives in exposing the lie behind the candidacy of Pappas and Marks. That lie is clear: Their campaign is not about electing conservatives, it is about ensuring the election of the most virulent kind of left-wing extremists imaginable. Any conservatives who buy into it are not worthy of the name.

Democrats target another college trustee over Free Speech

Rob Jennings of the Newark Star-Ledger is reporting how some far-Left Democrats are, once again, attempting to muzzle free speech and shut down the expression of any differing opinion. This time their victim is a trustee at Raritan Valley Community College. Her name is Dr. Felecia Nace.

Her crime? Speaking at an event in Boston, where she criticized the Legislature’s recent implementation of an unfunded mandate – the newly imposed “LGBTQ” curriculum requirement. Dr. Nace posed the question: “Where is the overwhelming need to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history that supersedes basic academic success.”

The Legislature imposed the new requirement without any additional funding – while it slashed education funding in most of New Jersey’s school districts.

Dr. Felecia Nace

Dr. Nace argues that the emphasis on LGBTQ education distracts from academic achievement and could even distort history. Citing examples from a similar curriculum used in California, she noted that it questioned the sexuality of President James Buchanan, the only unmarried U.S. president, and 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson.

“This reckless questioning sets children on a slippery slope. We have honored these individuals for their contributions to society, and what a slap in the face to their memories to now question their sexuality," Dr. Nace said.

"For most children, their gender is a fundamental part of who they are. The vast majority of children are not confused about their sex, and it’s something that they were never, ever preoccupied with until today.”

Dr. Nace taught language arts in the Montclair public school district, was an adjunct professor of English at Mercer County Community College, and worked as an education specialist with the state education department.

The community college issued a statement on Dr. Nace, who has been a trustee since 2017, pointing out that Dr. Nace was “present as a private citizen” and made her views accordingly. Of course, that wasn’t enough for the anti-speech, far-Left Democrats, who called for Dr. Nace’s resignation.

One such authoritarian politician – a certain Melonie Marano – put out a statement in opposition to intellectual diversity: “At a time when our county is becoming more diverse, and our young college students are becoming more understanding about LGBTQ+ issues, we cannot have board members who actively try to exclude gay studies from education.”

Marano’s statement reeks of religious conversion rather than democratic debate. Of course, true Democrats (those worthy of the name) understand that ALL unfunded mandates thrust upon the property taxpayers by the Legislature are open to question and debate. That is the very idea of democracy – a concept Marano apparently hates.

Marano is a long-time politician and candidate for Freeholder in Somerset County. She is affiliated with the far-Left group Indivisible and is endorsed by the Somerset County Democrats. In August, the Somerset Democrats went on social media to encourage those who “hate our country” to run for office. The media reported:

Somerset County Democrats disavowed a since-deleted Facebook post encouraging those who “hate our country” to run for public office, donate to political campaigns or otherwise engage in politics that drew fire from the county’s Republicans.

The leadership of the Somerset County Democrats did not take responsibility for what was posted on its social media and instead blamed a “volunteer” who they claimed was angry with… you guessed it… Donald Trump. The Democrats refused to name the volunteer.

Apparently, HATING AMERICA is now a qualification for office with some Democrats, so it should come as no surprise when we read statements from Melonie Marano in opposition to the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

Some NJ Democrats want to make speaking bad about Islam a crime.

And not just any old crime, but a crime that is punishable outside the normal justice system. A crime that is not subject to the rule of law – punished without due process – based on no more than an accusation. A crime where merely an accusation by a “believer” or an activist who claims to represent a “believer” is enough to make someone lose their job, their career, their ability to live free.

They tried to do it to liberal comedian Bill Maher. A lifelong Democrat, Maher donated $1 million to Barack Obama’s re-election… but it didn’t protect him from the far-Left when he criticized Islam. They wanted his job, his career, his life…

Entire county party organizations are being taken over by a far-Left group called Action Together New Jersey. In Sussex County, for instance, their members have thoroughly infiltrated the local Democrat committees and pushed the moderates out. On the group’s website, they identify members of Action Together New Jersey who have taken over and occupied leadership positions in the Democrat Party.

These include Katie Rotondi, the new Chairwoman of the Sussex County Democrat Committee. Also listed as members on the group’s website are Democrat State Committee members Michele Van Allen and Ben Silva, Stanhope Councilman Anthony Riccardi, Sparta Board of Education member Kate Matteson, as well as a number of Democrat County Committee members.

Also listed on the website are Action Together New Jersey members who failed as candidates for elected office. These include Jennifer Hamilton, who ran against State Senator Steve Oroho in 2017; former legislative candidate Gina Trish, who now holds an appointment from Governor Murphy’s administration; and several former candidates for town council or school board.

No less than eight Democrats who are running for the New Jersey Legislature this year have been clearly identified as members of the far-Left Action Together New Jersey on the group’s website. They are Stacey Gunderman, Lisa Mandelblatt, Deana Lykins, Lisa Bhimani, Darcy Draeger, Christine Clark, Laura Fortgang, and Steven Farkas.

On February 10, 2018, Action Together New Jersey accepted an award from Linda Sarsour. Accepting the award was Action Together New Jersey’s Executive Director, Uyen “Winn” Khuong; Action Together New Jersey’s Sussex County Co-Chair, Johannah Hinksmon; and Action Together New Jersey’s Director of Operations, Kim Baron.

Linda Sarsour is the controversial Democrat activist who has praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and the anti-Semitic BDS movement. In 2017, Sarsour famously called for “Jihad” against the elected government of the United States of America…

The award was in recognition of voter registration drives and other political campaigning done by Action Together New Jersey in coordination with a group called CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Presenting the award was CAIR National Chairwoman, Roula Allouch, and CAIR-NJ Founder, Ahmed Al Shehab.

Due to its apparent ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of America’s most important Islamic allies – the United Arab Emirates – has designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

Action Together New Jersey is in the forefront of the drive to push the Democrat Party in New Jersey to the far-Left. They have joined CAIR in opposing the bi-partisan efforts of New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) to push back on members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” (far-Left Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) in their attempt to promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement.

Action Together New Jersey has endorsed the economically ruinous Green New Deal of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The far-Left is on the march, taking over the Democrat Party, pushing out common sense and fiscal responsibility. The Action Together New Jersey crew are not traditional liberal Democrats. In fact, they explicitly reject liberal thought in favor of authoritarian conformism, the end of Free Speech, and making the American Bill of Rights subservient to their mob rule. Action Together New Jersey represents the most radical far-Left elements of the Democrat Party.

It is time to recognize Sept 11, 2001 as a “Hate Crime”

Most Americans would agree that the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, DC -- along with the hijacking and destruction of a passenger jet over Pennsylvania -- were crimes motivated by hate.  In the aftermath of the attack, no less than the President and the United States Attorney General agreed with this assessment. 
 
Now go to the U.S. Justice Department's Uniform Crime Report for 2001.  The report counts 12,020 victims of crimes that were the result of the "offender's bias."  7,768 of these were victims of "crimes against persons", with another 4,176 counted as victims of "crimes against property." 
 
Among the victims counted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Hate Crime Data Collection Program were 554 victims of "anti-Islamic" bias crimes.  According to the official USDOJ/FBI figures for 2001, just 10 people died (murder/non-negligent manslaughter) in the United States as the result of crimes motivated by hate.  By our count, that is 3,037 victims short. 
 
The count of homicides in New York City for that year does not reflect the 2,823 victims of mass murder at the World Trade Center; or the 184 victims at the Pentagon; or even the 40 victims in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.  They were all left out of the murder count.    
 
If you read the official homicide figures for 2001, you will find that the deadliest month in 2001 was July -- and that September actually experienced a drop in homicides from August before rising again in October.  This is not the fault of the FBI, who do their best, but who are, after all, servants of a political class more interested in the preservation of power than in honest and transparent government.
 
Isn’t it time that the United States government recognize the victims of September 11 ,2001, as victims of a “Hate Crime”?
 
How meaningful is the term “hate crime” when the victims of September 11, 2001 are not counted?  The term is a scam, a hypocrisy, when it ignores those dead.
 
Of course, we know the term “Hate Crime” is a very subjective one and too often it has been used as a tool of partisan politics by less than honest folks trying to score points against their opponents. 
 
Congressman Tom Malinowski likes to change the subject and direct us to the fashionable new threat of “white supremacy”.  You are encouraged to spy on your neighbor because he or she might be a “terrorist”.  Malinowski ignores the fact that he’s supported by Action Together New Jersey, a group that works with CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) which has been named a “terrorist organization” by one of America’s closest Islamic allies.   

 Hey, says Malinowski, what does an actual Islamic government know about what motivates Islamic terrorism anyway? Why should we listen to them? And so he goes on aiding and abetting while trying to focus the attention of Americans on each other.

Of course, Tom Malinowski really doesn’t give a hang about actual Muslim people anyway. He totally dissed the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar, as they were suffering from what the United Nations called "genocide". This was when Malinowski was a top official at the State Department. Later, Tom Malinowski joined a business venture that sought to build Myanmar’s economy while the government of Myanmar was exterminating actual Muslims in an actual case of genocide.

Apparently the term “Islamophobia” only applies to speech… not to genocide.

Democrats like Congressman Malinowski (and, it must be said, quite a few Republicans) appear unable to call out acts of hate motivated by a belief in radical Islam or by the impasse between Palestine and Israel. But as Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard points out, these same Democrats (and their GOP counterparts) are quite content to support actions against Islamic civilians and send the American military into the field to fight and die against an Islamic enemy.

The great hypocrisy of woke Democrats is to support war-making candidates for President (and, with Tulsi Gabbard pushed out of the debates by the Democrat Establishment, they are ALL wannabe “warriors”) while complaining about “Islamophobia” in others.

Hey Establishment Democrats!!! If you really care so much about ill-will between working class Americans and Muslims, then stop sending working class Americans to war against Muslims. Stop telling people to be careful about what they say, but that it is okay to kill (when instructed) or to support policies that kill. Stop the violence you are doing instead of trying to monitor the speech that is a natural result of the violence that YOU send people to commit.

In the end, this is all about the absolution of sin. The people screaming “white supremacy” the loudest know their policies kill actual everyday Muslims, so they seek to change the focus so that they can feel good about themselves. The fact that they blame the very people who they send to war to fight Muslims is horrific.

Perhaps such hypocrisy itself should be labeled a “Hate Crime”?

Democrats infiltrated by far-Left group aligned with Linda Sarsour and CAIR

In another excellent piece in the New Jersey Herald, reporter Eric Obernauer gets to the bottom of who the Democrats’ write-in candidate for Sussex County Freeholder is:
 
She has twice been featured in New Jersey Herald articles showcasing her participation in the Women's March in Washington, D.C., where she praised Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star in the liberal activist wing of the Democratic Party, in January for a speech she said was “filled with passion and thought-provoking inspiration.”
 
Lavin also has been an advocate for gun control legislation and, in July, participated in a “Lights for Liberty” vigil at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Elizabeth, where she and other members of the group Action Together Sussex County protested the detention of undocumented migrant children.
 
Yep, another member of the far-Left group Action Together.  But it doesn’t end with the Democrats’ write-in candidate Kristy Lavin (alias Kristy Schaid).   She is just the latest indication that the Democrat Party in New Jersey is becoming dominated by Action Together, which has officially embraced the insanely ruinous economic policies of  Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
 
Action Together New Jersey has no less than eight members running as the official legislative candidates of the Democrat Party…
 

District 21
Stacey Gunderman
Lisa Mandelblatt
 
District 24
Deana Lykins
 
District 25
Lisa Bhimani
Darcy Draeger
 
District 26
Christine Clark
Laura Fortgang
 
District 30
Steven Farkas

 
On February 10, 2018, Action Together New Jersey accepted an award from Linda Sarsour.  Accepting the award was Action Together New Jersey’s Executive Director, Uyen “Winn” Khuong; Action Together New Jersey’s Sussex County Co-Chair, Johannah Hinksmon; and Action Together New Jersey’s Director of Operations, Kim Baron.
 
Linda Sarsour is the controversial Democrat activist who has praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and the anti-Semitic BDS movement.  In 2017, Sarsour famously called for “Jihad” against the elected government of the United States of America…

The award was in recognition of voter registration drives and other political campaigning done by Action Together New Jersey in coordination with a group called CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Presenting the award was CAIR National Chairwoman, Roula Allouch, and CAIR-NJ Founder, Ahmed Al Shehab.

Due to its apparent ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of America’s most important Islamic allies – the United Arab Emirates – has designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

Action Together New Jersey is in the forefront of the drive to push the Democrat Party in New Jersey to the far-Left. They have joined CAIR in opposing the bi-partisan efforts of New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) to push back on members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” (far-Left Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) in their attempt to promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement.

Entire county party organizations are being taken over by Action Together New Jersey. In Sussex County, for instance, their members have thoroughly infiltrated the local Democrat committees and pushed the moderates out. On the group’s website, they identify members of Action Together New Jersey who have taken over and occupied leadership positions in the Democrat Party.

These include Katie Rotondi, the new Chairwoman of the Sussex County Democrat Committee. Also listed as members on the group’s website are Democrat State Committee members Michele Van Allen and Ben Silva, Stanhope Councilman Anthony Riccardi, Sparta Board of Education member Kate Matteson, as well as a number of Democrat County Committee members.

Also listed on the website are Action Together New Jersey members who failed as candidates for elected office. These include Jennifer Hamilton, who ran against State Senator Steve Oroho in 2017; former legislative candidate Gina Trish, who now holds an appointment from Governor Murphy’s administration; and several former candidates for town council or school board.

The far-Left is on the march, taking over the Democrat Party, pushing out common sense and fiscal responsibility. The Action Together New Jersey crew represents the very radical far-Left of the Democrat Party.

Democrat Assembly candidates are members of group aligned with Linda Sarsour and CAIR

Linda Sarsour is the controversial Democrat activist who has praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and the anti-Semitic BDS movement.  In 2017, Sarsour famously called for “Jihad” against the elected government of the United States of America…

On February 10, 2018, Action Together New Jersey accepted an award from Linda Sarsour…

View fullsize

Pictured with radical Linda Sarsour (above, L-R) are Uyen “Winn” Khuong, ATNJ Executive Director; Scott Baron, ATNJ Activist; Johannah Hinksmon, ATNJ Sussex County Co-Chair; and Kim Baron, ATNJ Director of Operations.

The award was in recognition of voter registration drives and other political campaigning done by Action Together New Jersey in coordination with a group called CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Presenting the award was  CAIR National Chairwoman, Roula Allouch, and CAIR-NJ Founder, Ahmed Al Shehab.

Due to its apparent ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of America’s most important Islamic allies – the United Arab Emirates – has designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

Action Together New Jersey is in the forefront of efforts to push the Democrat Party in New Jersey to the far-Left.  They have attacked the bi-partisan efforts of New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) to push back on members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” (far-Left Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) to promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement. 

Action Together New Jersey has endorsed the economically ruinous Green New Deal of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A number of Democrats who are running for Assembly this year are clearly identified as members of Action Together on the group’s website and have helped in their organizing efforts.  For their loyalty to the far-Left “cause” these Democrat candidates have been formally endorsed by Action Together New Jersey:

District 21

Stacey Gunderman

Lisa Mandelblatt 

District 24

Deana Lykins 

District 25

Lisa Bhimani

Darcy Draeger 

District 26

Christine Clark

Laura Fortgang 

District 30

Steven Farkas 

Among all the Democrats running for the Assembly this year, Action Together New Jersey chose to endorse only these candidates.  They represent the very radical far-Left of the Democrat Party. 

Hypocrisy, War, and “Islamophobia”

By Rubashov

The New York Times is the newspaper of record in America. So if you ever want to know which way the Establishment is blowing in the good old U.S. of A., consider this: The last time the New York Times endorsed a Republican for President was in 1956. His name was Dwight Eisenhower. If you voted for him then, you would be 84 years old today. That’s the American Establishment.

Of course, since 1956, the American Establishment – with the New York Times as its lead mouthpiece – has endorsed a whole series of wars which actually are not “official” wars because, per the Constitution, Congress did not declare them. Of course, the media doesn’t focus on the illegally of these seemingly endless wars, only the often made up justifications for them.

The same Establishment media that makes a show of displaying its morality – with fashionable admonishments like “how dare you be Islamophobic” – has for nearly two decades marched people off to wars in which they have been killed and maimed and left psychologically damaged by the Islamic combatants of the other side. And our own side has been asked to kill and maim and break the Islamic peoples against whom they have been cast. Ask any combat veteran. Killing is not an antiseptic business. It stirs the emotions. One cannot be fond of those you are asked to kill.

During and after the Great War (World War I) German-sounding place names across New Jersey were eliminated, changed to something else. Was it racism? Or was it in the nature of people who have been asked by their government to get angry enough to kill? Was it racism? Or was it the pain of a dead son or husband or father? Was it racism? Or the loss of a limb or limbs or eyes or psychological wholeness? Forty years after the end of the Second World War, there were still people who refused to buy Japanese automobiles. Racism or the residuals of a prescribed anger? Anger and loss…

The same Establishment media that decries “Anti-Muslim” thoughts or speech supports the wars in which actual Muslims are bombed, shot, starved, made homeless – and we are asked not to notice. They are our moral superiors, the arbiters of what is good and what is evil. Just do as they direct and know that to kill a man (as directed by government) is not as great a sin as to think an unsanctioned thought. Thought is the only real crime. Thought and its attendant, speech.

This is why Establishment media so hates the Ron Pauls and Tulsi Gabbards of the world. Anyone who questions war is job one on their hit list. The honest Left and the honest Right know this, which links them forever as “outsiders”.

Who is Tulsi Gabbard?

Tulsi Gabbard is a military combat veteran serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Elected in 2012, she became the first Samoan American and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress.

Gabbard served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 2002 to 2004. When she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at age 21, she was the youngest woman to be elected to a U.S. state legislature. Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in a combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009.

Gabbard was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Gabbard opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She is critical of interventionism in Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and Syria.

Gabbard is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020.

Sussex Democrat Chair’s “X-Rated” video

By Sussex County Watchdog

We believe in free expression. 

The Sussex County Democrats do not.  State Democrats asked them to find something on the county Republican Chairman.  Murphy operative Leslie Huhn “friended” his Twitter page, and two days later the Sussex County Democrats’ Communications Director was in front of the Sussex County Community College Board of Trustees, asking that the Republican be fired.  It was a partisan political scam by people looking to be “offended” in order to score political points.

Worst still is the role played by SCCC Trustee Howard Burrell.  Last year, when Burrell wanted to be a trustee, this website wrote in support of him.  Burrell gave his word of honor that he would not be political while a member of the college board.  Then he sat there while he was running for Mayor of Vernon.  He didn’t even disclose that he was campaigning when he took a vote against the Republican Chairman.  Just days later, he campaigned at a Democrat political event with the very Democrats who slashed education funding in Sussex County.  An ethical person would have recused himself from taking that vote.  But not Burrell.  

The question is:  Why didn’t SCCC Trustee Chairman Bill Curcio ask Burrell to recuse himself?  Why did Curcio and the board allow the college to be used this way – to sink into partisan politics? 

Yes, we believe in free expression… but hypocrisy needs to be addressed too.

Katie Rotondi, the Sussex County Democrat Chairwoman, has led the stalking of other people’s social media pages.  She and her fellow stalkers have found things to be “offended” by and have demanded that people be punished.  But has anyone looked at what she puts out?

She isn’t re-tweeting something by mistake.  She produces and edits this stuff.  She promotes it.  And there is a whole lot of it.  What follows is one of the milder examples of her stuff (and make sure no children are around to see this)…

https://vimeo.com/182943568

There are things in this video that many people in Sussex County would find to be offensive.  We highly doubt that we could get Bill Curcio and Howard Burrell and the other members of the SCCC Board of Trustees to read out some of the lines in this video.  They would be too embarrassed to do so… although we might just show up and ask them to. 

The SCCC trustees essentially allowed the Sussex Democrat Chairwoman to script their proceedings.  With the help of the SCCC’s newly hired Democrat law firm – a major funder of state Democrat campaigns – Rotondi and the state Democrats used the college to implement a political strategy that actually involved one of their trustees as a Democrat candidate.  This is a very serious ethical issue for the college.

In the midst of turkey vulvas and facial treatments and peeing on desks, we think this video should be reworked to show footage of the trustees… you know, talking and reacting and stuff like that.   After all, they allowed themselves to become part of Katie Rotondi’s body of work, so they should be part of her reel.  Call it performance art.    

Stay tuned…

Hey Democrats, quit minding other people’s business!

Katie Rotondi wants to be the Madame Defarge of Sussex County politics. Since becoming Chairwoman of the Sussex County Democrats, she has led stalking parties against her neighbors in Sussex County.

Like Charles Dickens’ villain in A Tale of Two Cities, Rotondi operates out of hatred towards those who disagree with her “revolution” and revenge on Sussex County for having voted for Donald Trump. As she can’t stalk everyone, Rotondi focuses on high profile figures in Sussex County as symbols of all of Sussex County.

Rotondi stalks them, finds something to be offended about, whips her mob into a frenzy, and then demands that her victim is removed. This metaphorical “beheading” was the ultimate fate of those victims of mass persecution during the French Revolution. Their only “crime” was to fail to think or speak in line with how the Katie Rotondies of the world want everyone to think and speak.

It is what Rowan Atkinson calls, “The creeping culture of censoriousness.” Others have called it, “The new intolerance.” It is an attempt to straight jacket thought and speech.

This loss of Freedom is happening all around the world. Indeed, for the first time in recent memory, there is an authoritarian, anti-freedom, economic success story to counter all those arguments put forward by the democracies that prosperity and liberty go hand in hand. There is another way for an economy to prosper, and that is the Chinese Communist way of social credit authoritarianism.

Do we, as Americans, want to go down that road?

Many countries have criminalized opinions that we all once took for granted. Think of our bullying laws run amok and you will have some idea of what it is like to live in a country in which giving “offense” has been criminalized. Some nations, like the United Kingdom, have started to break down those laws and restore freedoms that Americans, for the moment, still possess…

The question for Americans is this: Is the rise of our informal system of punishment really any better than the European criminalization of giving “offense”? Are extra-legal lynch mobs preferable to due process and formal adjudication?

Perhaps the way forward is as Rowan Atkinson prescribes: More speech.

Democrat Malinowski likes to watch illegals “mow lawns”

The new “Left” is absurdly rich and doesn’t care about working people.  It doesn’t matter if they are American citizens, legal residents, or illegal immigrants.

Lisa Bhimani is running for the Legislature in Morris and Somerset Counties.  She claims to be a “fighter” for average folks but how?  She’s so average she not only owns a million dollar home in the district – she has a $1.6 million place in Manhattan.  Check the United States Census figures.  That’s not average, that’s being a at the top of the One Percent. 

What’s wrong with the Democrat Party in New Jersey?

The last two Democrat Governors have been Wall Street One Percenters.  Cory Booker is a Wall Streeter, as are many others… this is who dominates and runs the New Jersey Democrat Party.   Senate President Steve Sweeney, a blue-collar union guy, is the odd-man-out in a leadership that got rich playing with money, through crony capitalism, and government contracts. 

In his book, White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University's Nick Carnes points out that while upwards of 65 percent of citizens are "working class" and 54 percent are employed in a blue-collar occupation, just 2 percent of the members of Congress and 3 percent of state legislators held blue-collar jobs at the time of their election.  How is that for a party that preaches diversity?

For non-citizen legal residents, the percentage in the working class is even higher, and for illegal immigrants higher still.  Not being eligible to vote, they are not represented at all – although the Democrats do make use of their bodies by carving out more Democrat districts by inflating the numbers with non-citizens.   

Not to worry… the One Percenters claim to be representing them.  Actually though, people like Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger (formerly of UBS Investment Bank) and Tom Malinowski (scion of a wildly wealthy blue-blood family) support policies that pit the illegal gray economy against American workers.  What difference does raising the minimum wage make when a business is free to hire all the illegal labor it wants – courtesy of a Sanctuary State scheme?

Just a generation or so ago, wages were such that the American working class formed part of the vast “Middle Class” that was the cornerstone of America’s economic and political stability.  Read Elizabeth Warren’s The Two-Income Trap or       

The Fragile Middle Class (Americans in Debt) for more on what happened.  Now the working class are the punchline in a joke perpetrated by people like Tom Malinowski and Phil Murphy.

Our friends at Save Jersey posted the story and video below.  In it, Congressman Tom Malinowski identifies his audience as “elitists” who he publicly assumes would never get their hands dirty.  He goes on to explain that there are “a lot of jobs in our community… that Americans are not willing to take” and asks “who do you think is taking care of our seniors” and “who do you think is mowing our beautiful lawns in Somerset County.” 

https://savejersey.com/2019/08/tom-malinowski-congress-house-illegal-immigration-election-2020/

While the administration of President Trump has created unprecedented job growth, it will not last forever.  And while the unemployment rate is currently low, it does not reflect those who have stopped seeking employment.  There could be great opportunities for business ventures and employment in the fields Congressman Malinowski mentions – provided that profits and wages are not held artificially low through the use of near-slave labor.

That is what Tom Malinowski is celebrating… the use of near-slave labor for the benefit of wealthy elites.  They employ near-slave labor through the gray economy and then say that American workers don’t want the jobs.  Is it the jobs they don’t want – or the pay?   

And the idea that there is nobody in central New Jersey who would be willing to do those jobs – provided the pay was something you could live on – is nonsense.  The poverty rate in Trenton is 28 percent – and Trenton is a lot nearer to Somerset County than Guatemala.  But those trapped in poverty in Trenton will never get out of it if the only jobs available are those in the gray economy working for near-slave level wages. 

A legal economy would smash the modern wage slavers and allow wages to rise to livable standards in America.  Those employed could then organize and form unions to collectively protect their rights. 

Tom Malinowski supports the status quo.  He wants illegal immigrants to be paid near-slave wages to subsidize the rich lifestyles of people like him.  It is an old story and it got Julius Caesar in trouble, back in the day.

Near the end of the Roman Republic, the rich patrician class had made the working class poorer by bringing in vast quantities of slaves to take their jobs.  Caesar objected to this and pushed through a law that protected jobs for citizens.  The Roman Senate ended up murdering Caesar. 

Human beings go round and round, chasing their tails.  We learn, unlearn, and relearn… now as then.

Hey Fred… It is called getting “Frelinghuysened”

By Sussex County Watchdog

InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack can’t think of a single Republican who was targeted by the Left and then driven out of office?  Well, we can.

Was there a nicer gentleman than Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen?  The Antifa Democrats targeted him and upset the old guy so much that his doctor told him to give it up.  They tormented a man whose public service began in the jungles of Vietnam and drove him out of office.  And it didn’t end – even after he agreed not to run again.  Remember how the Antifa Democrats held a party and mocked him, even as he closed his office?   

Two of these Antifa Democrats are now running for the Assembly – Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger.  They and their comrades showed up to the old gentleman’s office on its last day open – to “celebrate” by acting like dirtbags.  Well good for you.  You showed all the world what measure of class and grace you possess – obviously the kind of folks who get their jollies by pulling the wings off flies.  

Well, nobody is getting Frelinghuysened in Sussex County.  Antifa can hold its breath and kick and scream and all they are ever going to get in Sussex County is a sympathetic flip of the bird and the sincere advice to suck it. We give as good as we get and will keep on and on… until all the participants are dust.

God always saves a remnant.  Here, in Sussex County, we are that remnant.

We remember who we are.  We remember that America is a Republic.  That we are a nation of laws.  We have due process.  We have the Bill of Rights.  We do not succumb to the emotional howls of lynch mobs.  We do not honor vendettas or fatwas.  We don’t give in to terrorists.  We don’t let them have their way.  We are… Americans. 

Which brings us to Fred’s silly comparison between the NAACP’s Jeffrey Dye, who held a taxpayer-funded state Labor Department job, and the Sussex GOP’s Jerry Scanlan, who is a volunteer county college trustee.  Dye lost his taxpayer funded job for (as reported in InsiderNJ) having “authored some Facebook posts that were anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic.”

In the dismissal of Jeffrey Dye, we hope that the Murphy administration followed the law and there were work rules that addressed Dye’s actions.  We hope that Dye was afforded the due process that is the right of every worker when facing the often arbitrary power of an employer.   

The two great protections of the working class are the Bill of Rights and the right of workers to collectively organize.  If it ever becomes routine that an employer can simply fire someone when any old mob of people claims that he or she did something that gave “offense” then employers will have a ready tool to sweep away every protection that the working class has. 

In the case of Jerry Scanlan, the Board of Trustees of the Sussex County Community College failed to create a written policy to address the private use of social media by trustees, faculty, administration, and staff.  Scanlan broke no SCCC rules and did not use SCCC property.  He has no charge to answer for.  The Board’s only real course was to ask him very politely.  This they failed to do (and ultimately they placed the college in legal jeopardy).

Nobody would wish to live in a country in which the opinions of any old screaming mob constitutes the law.  Or a country in which laws are made up to appease the mob and then applied retroactively.  That would be a vigilante nation, a lawless nation. 

That might happen in other places… but not here.

HATE: InsiderNJ writes that Bible-based Christianity is “bizarre”.

Fred Snowflack is an idiot.  That is the only way to explain the InsiderNJ operative’s statement that denies the central tenant of all religions, which is that the religious belief they offer is the one and true way to salvation. 

Who goes to the church of “maybe this is the right way”? 

Are the people who own InsiderNJ too stupid to understand that this is how religions work or do they just hate the very concept of religion?  Perhaps in the Graham family what they worship is money and power and ass?  Hey, that is okay, but maybe you should employ open-minded people who understand that not everybody shares the same view.

Apparently at the church of the sacred orgasm – or whatever equivalent Mr. Snowflack attends – they have never heard of the “lake of fire” – also known as something called “hell”.  How is it that a man as old as Fred Snowflack has never encountered Dante’s Divine Comedy?  That he has somehow gone through life without ever coming across the concept of hell… even in the movies? 

Or maybe Snowflack knows exactly what the Christian pastor he smeared meant but pretended he didn’t so that Snowflack could appear “cool” and “oh so cosmopolitan”?  Face it Fred, you are neither.  You are just a persnickety old puritan.  You can’t help sticking your little old pecker into a story.

Snowflack attended a meeting of the Sussex County Community College Board of Trustees on Tuesday night to… well, “report the news” wouldn’t be quite accurate.  Fred makes up his stories beforehand and then fills in the blanks with his own brand of witty opinion.  Of course, one man’s wit is another man’s hate.

And Fred Snowflack shows us what he “hates” every time he posts a new story.  Of course, being a servile creature, Fred’s hates mirror those of his masters – the family of insurance vendors who own the InsiderNJ blog. 

When inconvenient facts pop up – like the poor job Sussex Democrats did in turning people out for the meeting or that half those present spoke up for and supported Sussex GOP Chairman Jerry Scanlan – Snowflack inflates the first by counting orifices and simply ignores the second.

Real journalists never describe things using subjective terms.  Real journalists might report that Mr. X or Ms. Y called something “hate” but real journalists don’t simply assign unprovable subjective terms to what is being reported on.  That isn’t newsworthy reportage, it is just opinion having a go at cross-dressing in order to look like news.  But here is Fred Snowflack…

“…after (GOP Chairman) Scanlan’s sexist and homophobic tweets, they (trustees) took the only action they could.”  Applying lines like “sexist” and “homophobic” doesn’t belong in a news report, it belongs on a piece of political campaign mail.  As for “the only action they could” – a reporter would report what a participant said.  In this case, Snowflack is the participant.  He’s become part of the story. 

Why is the Graham family content to pay for such poor and unconvincing work? 

Snowflack writes that (GOP Chairman) Scanlan “retweeted a series of offensive messages”.  Why the judgment?  Once again, Fred Snowflack has stuck his pecker in the story.  Wouldn’t a proper reporter write, “messages that some have found offensive”?  Why does Fred need feel the need to burden us with his pecker?  He should be an observer, not a participant. 

Then Snowflack makes the claim that neither he or Bill Curcio, or Howard Burrell, or Tyler Morgus or Michael Spekhardt have ever used or considered using the words “whore” or “bitch” or “lesbian” or “hag”.  Snowflack seems to believe that these words possess such power that their use turns the user into someone who must be shunned by all “good” society.  What a quaint puritan concept!  Besides which, it is a lie. 

It is a great pity that someone hasn’t invented a convenient boardroom polygraph machine.  Something with a single prod, neat and tidy.  In this way, before handing down such a ridiculous pronouncement, SCCC Chairman Bill Curcio could have inserted it into the anus of each and every board member, while the SCCC counsel asked them whether or not they had ever uttered any of those grave words.  After which, they could adjourn the meeting and all resign.

Think Snowflack’s writing couldn’t get weaker, check this out… “This became your proverbial hot potato for college trustees, who are not normally entwined in such controversies.”  “Proverbial hot potato”?  Maybe he meant “pecker”?

Well, there have been a few other “hot potatoes” that we can bring up from memory, like the time a Trustee was caught voting on SCCC contracts while taking monetary payments from the company being hired by the college.  Maybe – in the mind of a guy like Fred Snowflack – such conduct doesn’t rise to the level of a “hot potato” or a “re-tweet” or even a “hot pecker”, but it doesn’t sound very ethical to us.  But what are ethics when you work for government contractors yourself?

And now for the final insertion of the Snowflack pecker into the story… “But freedom of speech doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The trustees also had the right and the freedom to say that Scanlan’s tweets were incompatible with a college environment.”

What’s wrong here, aside from the insertion of the pecker, is that somehow Snowflack misses the fact that the trustees didn’t merely give their opinion, they labeled someone and punished him absent a written policy and outside the written rules of their organization.  Here, in America – in this country – we don’t punish people because other people think they should be punished.  It would be better that people go unpunished than to allow them to be punished at the whim of others.

Bill Curcio, Howard Burrell, Tyler Morgus, Michael Spekhardt, and the other members of the SCCC Board of Trustees failed to create a policy to deal with the private misuse of social media by trustees, faculty, and staff.  It is legally, morally, and ethically wrong to come up with an ad-hoc punishment, absent a written policy, simply because some people demanded it.

Even if the demand for punishment was popular (which, in this case, it is not), in America we don’t punish people simply because other people hold an opinion that they have done something wrong.  That is an evil precedent. 

The courts have ruled that calling someone a racist is every bit as damaging as calling someone a pedophile.  When Oberlin College tried to label someone a racist the college ended up getting hit with a $44 million judgment. 

We expect to see legal action taken against Sussex County Community College over the trustees’ institutional failures and unprofessional, irrational handling of this matter.  With spending out of control and enrollment declining, it will be a very high price to pay for making a fashion statement.

SCCC Trustee Burrell (D) running for Mayor of Vernon

So now we know what tonight’s circus is in aid of…

Politics.  Real scumbag politics.  The kind that masquerades as self-righteousness when it is really only about self-dealing.

It turns out that for some time now, SCCC Trustee Howard Burrell has been discussing and planning a comeback political career.  Trustee Burrell was a Democrat Freeholder until he was defeated for re-election in 2002 by 4,000 votes.  Sussex County Democrat Committee Chairwoman Katie Rotondi and Murphy county coordinator Leslie Huhn are both Burrell backers.  

We understood why Democrats like Dan Perez and Lorraine Parker wanted to hold an anti-Trump rally disguised as a special public meeting of the SCCC trustees, but we couldn’t figure out why SCCC Board Chairman Bill Curcio went along with it.  Now we know. 

SCCC Trustee Howard Burrell managed Democrat Dan Perez’ 2017 Freeholder race against Republican Freeholder Director Herb Yardley.  Perez lost by 7,000 votes.  Now Perez is returning the favor and supporting Burrell.

The SCCC Board of Trustees dumped a Sussex County firm as its attorney and hired the Union County Democrat machine firm of former State Senator Ray Lesniak.  So it is official.  The facts surrounding this appointment are shocking and will be dealt with in length but suffice to say that Ray Lesniak was a big defender of the corrupt practice of pay-to-play.

So now we know why some players on the SCCC Board of Trustees have dragged their colleague of seven years through the dirt for something he’s apologized for again and again…

Politics.  Dirtbag politics.  The kind of politics that sacrifices human decency, forgiveness, and pity for self-advancement. 

Sussex County Community College isn’t supposed to be about politics.  The SCCC Board of Trustees aren’t supposed to create venues by which to hang one trustee so that another can launch his political comeback campaign.

In fact, using SCCC facilities for partisan political purposes is explicitly against the rules of the Internal Revenue Service.  The process by which an executive session of the Board was called (a trustee is not “personnel” and no lawsuit has been filed by any party) and a public meeting held could pose legal hurdles for the SCCC.

Curiously, Howard Burrell launched his original political career 30 years ago in the midst of the same rhetoric being used by some Democrats today… accusing anyone they don’t like of “racism” and “bigotry” while they push legislation that even most Democrats say is anti-Semitic.  It seems some Democrats have learned nothing in 30 years.

Also worth noting are the assurances made by Trustee Burrell to the Freeholder Board at the time of his appointment just last year.  Burrell’s appointment had been held up by an earlier Freeholder Board over concerns that he would use his position on the SCCC Board of Trustees as a springboard to political office.  The current Freeholder Board appointed him after being assured that politics would not be part of it.  This has obviously turned out not to be the case and Trustee Burrell will have some explaining to do.

It looks like former Freeholder Carl Lazzaro was right about Howard Burrell and Watchdog was wrong to have advocated for Burrell’s appointment to the SCCC Board of Trustees.  We admit our mistake.

Democrats use Antifa tactics to disrupt Sussex County meeting.

On Wednesday evening, August 14th, the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders held a scheduled meeting to discuss placing a public question on the November ballot to address the Murphy administration’s illegal Sanctuary State directive.  A ballot question was proposed.  It passed with every vote. 

This was representative democracy at work… in an open public meeting…

Except that the so-called “Democrats” were there to stop the vote from ever happening.  At the direction of the same State Democrats who strong armed Jersey City Mayor Michael Fulop out of the gubernatorial primary in 2017, Sussex County Democrats tried to shut down the meeting and stop the vote from ever happening.

Sussex Democrats were instructed to use the occupancy code to try to have the Freeholders meeting cancelled until after the August 16th deadline for public questions to appear on the November ballot.  They contacted local officials and had them come to the Freeholders meeting to do an occupancy count.  The Democrats were more than matched in turnout and their plans were stymied by Skylands Tea Party President Bill Hayden, who had his people leave the meeting.  The Sussex Democrat coordinating the operation was heard reporting back on her cell phone:  “Our plan failed.”

These tactics are right out of the Antifa handbook and disgusted citizens who had come to the meeting to participate in democracy and open government.  Some went to social media to comment on what they saw, including the gentleman below:

 “I was shocked to see the way the democrat operatives used phony issues and outrages to basically try to shut down the vote. The way they pretended they couldn’t hear, the way they sabotaged the audio system before the meeting, the way they pretended their (sic) was a fire code violation and the hearing had to be shut down...we aren’t just fighting for issues here, we are fighting for our constitution, our way of life. The democrats are really Bolshevik thugs.”

Now the Democrats have been provided with another opportunity to obstruct due process and the rule of law.  This time it is courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Sussex County Community College (SCCC). 

The politicization of the SCCC is very troubling and runs contrary to the rules governing the college.  The lobbying by Democrats and the coordination with the Board raises serious concerns. 

These issues will be addressed in the weeks and months ahead.