Did Gottheimer break law in trying to politicize “extremism”?
/By Rubashov
On Tuesday morning, Congressman Josh Gottheimer seized public property for use in a political event. He apparently did so under false pretenses, making that it was a bi-partisan event, when it was anything but.
Something has the Congressman nervous, because he recently pulled a similar stunt at Sussex County’s COVID vaccination site – his bullied staff barging in to take control of a public facility – clashing with law enforcement – all over a photo op. Reportedly, the Congressman dared law enforcement to “arrest” him. It was a sad performance by all accounts. But why?
For Tuesday’s event, Gottheimer had his office wait to invite Sussex County’s elected officials until the morning of the event itself. A reminder was sent some hours after the event had begun. Was this a set-up so that the Action Together extremists within the Sussex County Democrat Committee could accuse the Republican County Commissioners of not caring enough to attend? Some posts on the Democrats’ social media suggests that it was. If so, was this a proper use of public tax dollars – of a congressional office and a public college?
Gottheimer may have even violated recent court rulings, which state that citizens’ comments cannot be banned from taxpayer-funded platforms of public officials. Those attempting to comment under the video of Tuesday morning’s event were blocked – until complaints to Gottheimer’s office caused someone to unblock them.
The “messaging” behind Tuesday’s event claimed that it was about “combating violent extremism” – which the Democrat Congressman seems to believe is a contagion emanating from the ranks of America’s military veterans and police officers.
This is also the line being pushed by the New York Times, which has a rather consistent record of support for undeclared wars and the unconstitutional, if not illegal, use of military power overseas. Both the Congressman and the Times appear to suggest that those they send to war, those that survive, should keep their scars – both of body and mind – to themselves. And if they can’t find a job… too bad. As for health care, they should make do with the VA and shut up.
They can’t seem to understand that griping is a right shared by all who serve and who have served. Instead, they want to monitor it, label it, suppress and punish it. This is cruel… but they are cruel. And if they weren’t so cruel, they would understand that you end griping by giving a veteran a job, housing security, and decent health care. Instead of these things, they offer an expansion of the surveillance state and new powers to monitor and detain.
That was the crux of Congressman Gottheimer’s message. His accompanying press release called on the federal government to “provide additional tools to law enforcement and our nation’s intelligence community to prosecute, financially counter, and help defeat” a number of groups that Gottheimer labels as “white supremacist” or “white nationalists, neo-Nazis, domestic terrorists, and other militias.”
In making the case against these groups, Gottheimer is more specific about what they have written on social media than he is about specific acts of violence. To us, he appears more concerned with restricting the Bill of Rights – an incumbent politician looking to stay in office forever by taking away the right of the people to criticize him.
This website was founded by the late Rob Eichmann. It was Rob Eichmann who purged the Tea Party movement of its bigots ten years ago. Rejecting the racialism of both the Left and the Right, Rob didn’t want to see a grassroots tax reduction movement of all the people turned into a vehicle to simply taunt and insult the nation’s first African-American President.
Working with the NAACP, we collected the worst posts on social media and issued a study called “The Racism Report”. We argued that it was rude and silly and pointless – and we got the NJ Republican State Committee to formally condemn the posts. We made the worst clean up their act. We did it the right way – from within – the grassroots monitoring the grassroots. Not top-down censorship or government surveillance or the threat of men with guns.
n his press release, Gottheimer references the Director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, Jared Maples, and praises him for making New Jersey “the very first government entity in the United States to label white supremacy as a top level terror threat.” Maples was formerly with the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) at a very controversial period in its development and so raises a number of questions and concerns.
For instance, we would like to know Maples’ thoughts on the 2014 revelations in the New York Times that the C.I.A. employed “at least a thousand Nazis” and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government’s ties to some still living in America.” Now, these aren’t people who are called Nazis by people who don’t like them. These are actual, self-identified Nazis. Does employing actual Nazis and hiding them in the United States make Maples’ old employer an “extremist” organization?
n his press release, Gottheimer references the Director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, Jared Maples, and praises him for making New Jersey “the very first government entity in the United States to label white supremacy as a top level terror threat.” Maples was formerly with the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) at a very controversial period in its development and so raises a number of questions and concerns.
For instance, we would like to know Maples’ thoughts on the 2014 revelations in the New York Times that the C.I.A. employed “at least a thousand Nazis” and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government’s ties to some still living in America.” Now, these aren’t people who are called Nazis by people who don’t like them. These are actual, self-identified Nazis. Does employing actual Nazis and hiding them in the United States make Maples’ old employer an “extremist” organization?
Congress heard testimony that the U.S. intelligence community “is prepared to kill U.S. citizens if they threaten other Americans or the United States.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said this policy is “particularly troubling” because U.S. citizens “retain their constitutional right to due process even when abroad.” The ACLU also “expressed serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power.”
We are going to examine Congressman Gottheimer’s proposals to make sure that his “additional tools to law enforcement and our nation’s intelligence community” do not include the kinds of things used by Fascist Juntas in South America, where the label “terrorist” could be applied to anyone for doing almost anything – with the consequence that he or she would “disappear” to be tortured, raped, murdered, and then dropped into the sea from a cargo aircraft.
Josh, we already know you have absorbed the willy-nilly labeling, so get ahold of yourself and try not to go full-fascist on us. Argentinian homeland security thought they were protecting the state too. They left a lot of orphans, grieving parents, spouses… without a body to bury. Think about it. And don’t go there.
For more reading, we suggest Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist/ National Book Award winning author Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Every elected official and activist of all parties should read it closely.
"Sure, there are some people who are happy to let intelligence agencies go about their business unexamined. But I think most people when they think about it will say that you will get better intelligence if the intelligence agencies don't operate in an unexamined fashion."
Rush Holt
Chairman, House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel,
Committee on Appropriations
N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website. Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions. To submit a column for publication, please contact Marianna at Marianna@JerseyConservative.org.
