Is the Dem Health Committee Chair qualified to discuss masking?

By Rubashov

Ego is no substitute for a background in medicine.

We know the chairmanship of the Senate Health Committee is a sought-after assignment, what with it being so important to some of the state’s most cash-fat industries and all, but shouldn’t the Democrats at least try to find someone with a background in medicine? What with the pandemic and opioid epidemic and ongoing health care availability crisis and the rapacious nature of Big Pharma – shouldn’t the Chair of the Senate Health Committee be someone whose qualifications stretch further than the ability to cash a check from some Big Pharma lobbyist?

Enter Senator Joe Vitale. He’s the Chairman of the Senate Health Committee and nobody’s ever accused him of being humble.

Earlier this year Vitale dismissed out of hand calls to investigate why Matthew Platkin and Phil Murphy signed-off on Executive Order 103 – which sent COVID patients into nursing and veterans’ homes – resulting in the deaths of up to 10,000 residents. Vitale claimed there was no need to investigate because he already had all the answers.

Vitale made headlines again today, this time for opposing Governor Murphy’s plan to lift his masking mandates on children. NJ.com’s Brent Johnson reported:

The chairman of the state Senate’s health committee told NJ Advance Media on Thursday he sharply disagrees with Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to lift New Jersey’s statewide coronavirus mask mandate inside schools and child care facilities next month.

State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, said he’s especially irked Murphy, a fellow Democrat, is removing the requirement in child care centers because children under 5 are not eligible to be vaccinated yet and remain “exposed.”

Last year, Vitale led the effort to repeal the law criminalizing the “act of a person knowing they are infected with venereal disease or HIV, committing sexual penetration without informed consent of other person.” Vitale generally follows fashion, not science, but there is a weird logic in allowing those with COVID to infect nursing homes residents while removing legal impediments to allow those with HIV to infect others. But how does that jive with keeping children masked forever?

As Chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Joe Vitale has been anything but a gentleman – or even a human being – when lording over his committee. We vividly remember him in committee arguing with a citizen over Senate Bill 1195 – then legislation, now law – which allows people to alter their birth certificates to whatever gender they wish, without undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Yes, in New Jersey, people with penises can legally be women and people with vaginas can legally be men. Science anyone?

Senator Vitale was the main sponsor of Senate Bill 1195 and his exchange with this citizen exercising the right to speak before the New Jersey Legislature was anything but respectful. There was something of the sociopath in the Senator's behavior -- one moment he was dripping sensitivity, only to turn vicious the next. There's no remorse – he doesn't appear to care how he treats people who don't agree right down the line with him. Does he lack a conscience? We wonder.

We recall the way in which Vitale utterly dismissed the reputation of a scholar whose words were entered into the record by the citizen. Senator Vitale appeared to have no intellectual curiosity at all. Here is that exchange:

The Senator: "...You are citing some medical director, obviously he's a former medical director, probably for good reason."

The Citizen: "Because he retired."

The Senator: "Um, right, good thing."

Now someone with Vitale’s level of certainty must have some credentials to back up such a coarse dismissal. So, we wondered if the Senator was a doctor or a professor, after all, he is the Chairman of the committee through which passes all health care legislation in New Jersey. We looked up his biography and found out that he managed to make it through the 12th grade. Yep, born in 1954, went from high school to the family business, drifted into the muck of Woodbridge politics, became one of the boys, was selected by the boys as their Senator when Jim McGreevey ran for Governor.

And what about that "medical director" the one the Senator said was "obviously... a former medical director, probably for good reason" and that it was a "good thing" he was no longer working?

Well, that guy was born in 1931 and is a psychiatrist, researcher, and educator. He is University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author, co-author, or editor of seven books within his field. He was the son of a high school teacher and a homemaker. He graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and from Harvard Medical School in 1956. He was accepted into the neurology and neuropathology residency program at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he studied for three years under the chief of the Neurology Department.

From Massachusetts General, he went to the Institute of Psychiatry in London (where he studied under Sir Aubrey Lewis and was supervised by James Gibbons and Gerald Russell). Following London, he went to the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He has held various academic and administrative positions, including, Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College (where he founded the Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory), Clinical Director and Director of Residency Education at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Westchester Division and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oregon.

From 1975 until 2001, he was the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and the director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University. At the same time, he was psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is currently University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His own research has focused on the neuroscientific foundations of motivated behaviors, psychiatric genetics, epidemiology, and neuropsychiatry. During the 1960s, he co-authored papers on hydrocephalus, depression and suicide, and amygdaloid stimulation.

In 1975, he co-authored a paper entitled "Mini-Mental State: A Practical Method for Grading the Cognitive State of Patients for the Clinician." This paper details the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE), an exam consisting of just eleven questions, that quickly and accurately assesses patients for signs of dementia and other states of cognitive impairment. It is one of the most widely used tests in the mental health field. In 1979, in his capacity as chair of the Department of Psychiatry, he ended gender assignment surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1983, he co-authored The Perspectives of Psychiatry, which presents the Johns Hopkins approach to psychiatry.

The book "seeks to systematically apply the best work of behaviorists, psychotherapists, social scientists and other specialists long viewed as at odds with each other." A second edition was published in 1998. He also treated author Tom Wolfe for depression suffered following coronary bypass surgery. Wolfe dedicated his 1998 novel, A Man in Full to him, "whose brilliance, comradeship and unfailing kindness saved the day." He is a registered Democrat who describes himself as a "political liberal".

And you Senator... you made it through the 12th grade.

Maybe read one of the guy's books before dismissing him out of hand? Or don't. Perhaps this is why health care policy is what it is in New Jersey? Maybe New Jersey is in the shape it is in because of the lack of humility and unwillingness to learn exhibited by politicians who set policies – guys like Joe Vitale. Maybe a Committee Chairman too stupid to learn does result in substandard government and people being made to suffer?

Now here are two comedians – Jimmy Dore and Bill Maher – who can offer opinions as equally qualified as those of Senator Vitale – but who offer them with better punchlines:

“Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.”

Confucius

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell

Democrats keep public out of “open” meeting to make State House VAX only

By Rubashov

In the coming battles between authoritarianism and democracy, what the State Capitol Joint Management Commission pulled yesterday will be pointed to again and again – used as a cudgel to demonstrate the hypocrisy, lust for unchecked power, lack of rational balance, use of fear, and general bad faith that define the authoritarians. The culprits here are partisan authoritarian bureaucrats – paid by the taxpayer, with benefits superior to those of average taxpayers, and pensions that working people can only dream of.

On a 5 (D) to 2 (R) party-line vote, the Commission voted to block any citizen from entering the public legislative areas of the capital complex if they cannot show proof of vaccination or the negative results of a COVID test from the preceding 72 hours. This includes the public areas of the legislative chambers and the committee hearing rooms, where members of the public once had the right to testify for or against legislation under consideration. All citizens will be required to wear a mask inside the building.

New Jersey now has a vaccine-or-test mandate for entry into public political and policy forums. Citizens not in compliance will be blocked and confronted by men with guns. Any citizen wishing to speak his or her mind to power, whether individually or assembling as a group, to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, is no longer free to do so. Their papers must first be in order. Journalists will likewise be unable to provide the scrutiny that the powerful require.

When it comes to exercising the freedoms contained within the Bill of Rights, five members of a Commission have unilaterally decided that a proof of vaccination card is now more important than a passport. Indeed, the primacy of the proof of vaccination card rises as the need for a passport is diminished.

If this was really about public health, the Murphy administration would not welcome, support, and promote undocumented immigrants residing in the United States in violation of federal law. Especially as so few come from nations that have had the opportunity to offer their people vaccination against COVID-19.

In this segment, anti-authoritarian Democrat Krystal Ball examines the collusion between the Biden administration and the pharmaceutical industry to keep most of the nations of the world unvaccinated and vulnerable – while pursuing a policy of open borders. If this was about public health, the members of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission would be demanding that the national borders be as tight as are the borders they police – the doors of the state capitol building.

Of course, they will not make such a demand because they are aiding and abetting an act of hypocrisy. Now watch this video and listen to a fellow Democrat, a woman of the Left, and a believer in democracy (true to her party’s name):

“The consequences for our own population – of this greed, cowardice, and corruption – will be deadly. We can get every last solitary soul in our own country vaccinated and it is not going to matter much in the end if new variants are constantly emerging from an unvaccinated global south. The pandemic will never end so long as billions of people remain vulnerable as a laboratory for COVID to mutate and jump the vaccines that we’ve already created.”

“Stop worrying about the anti-mask Karens and start worrying about the real COVID criminals, the CEOs and the politicians who would let millions die to protect their profits.”

If Black Lives Mattered as much to the five Democrats on the State Capitol Joint Management Commission as their political bosses say they do, they would issue a statement demanding that American pharmaceutical firms drop their patent protections and allow nations in Africa to produce the vaccine. This would save a lot more lives than any Assembly resolution or protest-turned-riot-turned-looting-turned-arson ever has.

The five Democrats on the State Capitol Joint Management Commission really don’t believe in mass vaccination. This is about power, about crushing the Bill of Rights and bringing a formerly democratic people to heel. They ignore the billions of unvaccinated waiting to come to the United States illegally but demand full compliance from every citizen who wishes to exercise the Bill of Rights.

But the actions of the Democrats who run the State Capitol Joint Management Commission were actually much worse than that described so far. Apparently, someone with the keys to the State Legislature’s website was concerned enough to block access to the Commission’s virtual/remote meeting yesterday morning. We heard from numerous people who looked for the usual link on the Legislature's website to sign-up and provide public input and it wasn’t there. It had been removed.

This went against both the policy of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission and the Open Public Meetings Act. In an October 22nd memorandum to Commission members that was not publicly posted on the Legislature’s website, the Commission Chairman wrote:

Due to the current public health emergency, the State Capitol Joint Management Commission meeting will be conducted remotely. The next meeting of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission will be held on Tuesday, October 26th at 10:00 a.m. in Committee Room 4. All Commissioners will receive instructions for remote access. For anyone who wishes to submit comments on any agenda item, or to participate in the meeting, please have them contact Roger Lai at rlai@njleg.org. For anyone who would like to view the proceedings, they will be live streamed at https://www.njleg.state.nj.us. Enclosed is an agenda and briefing material for this meeting.

In other words, an average citizen, wishing to comment or provide perspective, would need to be invited by one of the Commissioners to do so, as this notice was not made public on the Legislature’s website where members of the public generally go if they wish to testify or comment. The October 26th meeting of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission was posted on the legislative calendar in the usual place on the Legislative website, but all links to testify were removed and the Commission Chairman’s October 26th memo was not publicly posted there.

In effect, public comment was suppressed by the Commission’s actions and indeed, no member of the public was heard from despite dozens going to the legislative website to sign-up to be heard from. Remembering those large numbers of citizens who showed up to the State Capitol to protest attempts to do away with religious exemptions to vaccination, perhaps this is the purpose of the new rule and not “public health” after all?

“The people in charge are intent on replacing our free democratic system with an authoritarian system, where they don’t convince you of anything, they simply make you do things. And they benefit from that.”

Tucker Carlson

From the Debate: Murphy is allowing “drunk drivers” over the border

By Rubashov

At Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate, Governor Phil Murphy compared those who choose to remain unvaccinated to “drunk drivers” who not only endanger themselves but endanger others as well. Fair enough, except that “drunk drivers” do not endanger everyone equally – as Governor Murphy suggested they do.

The threat that “drunk drivers” pose to the general population is relative and depends on a number of risk factors. For example, “drunk drivers” pose a greater risk to people in automobiles and on highways than they do to people in buildings.

The Governor should also consider that a law to prevent someone from putting too much of a controlled substance into their body – in this case alcohol – is very different from a law that forces someone to put a controlled substance into their body, like a pharmaceutical product. At Tuesday night’s debate, Murphy actually mocked that heretofore sacred phrase, “my body my choice”.

And then there’s this recent warning from the administration of President Joe Biden – in the person of the Secretary of Homeland Security – who explained that 20 percent of the folks who illegally come across the border are sick with an “unidentified illness”. In Governor Murphy’s parlance, that’s a whole heck of a lot of potential “drunk drivers”. Except that Murphy doesn’t have a plan to find out what ails them – to make sure they don’t spread it to the communities he’s responsible for protecting. In fact, the Governor plans to hand them a subsidized driver’s license to help put them on the road to spread it around.

Here is a very interesting segment from Tucker Carlson. The entire video is worth your time, but if your time is somewhat constrained, go to the 8:50 point of the video and hear the words of President Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security.

Towards, the end of the video, Carlson plays a clip of Murphy’s “drunk drivers” analogy and invites the Governor on his show to explain the logic behind it. Don’t hold your breath.

“We are confronted with a population of people that as a general matter have a rate of illness of approximately twenty percent.” United States Secretary of Homeland Security - Alejandro Mayorkas

Wow. That’s a lot of “drunk drivers”.

Given this… is Murphy’s “drunk drivers” analogy just more of his bullshit? Does he really believe his own words?

Or is he applying to each and every individual community in the state, the same logic he applied to each and every nursing home? Does Governor Phil Murphy intend to bring people into New Jersey – without testing them for COVID and knowing that 20 percent are sick (according to the Biden administration) – and inject them into the mainstream of our communities the same way he did with our nursing homes?

Maybe we should think of it as the placement of thousands of “halfway houses for drunk drivers” in each of our communities – except that these are secret, hidden, not subject to OPRA. Meanwhile, Governor Murphy promises to make life miserable for all those suspected “drunk drivers” he has in plain view. The same lips that demand clemency for some, drip with contempt for others.

Did Murphy forget that Biden closed the border with Mexico because of COVID?

By Rubashov

“Tin-foil hat”?

Phil Murphy must have a tin-foil bunghole that he’s talking out of.

Earlier today, the Governor tried to chastise Senator Diane Allen, GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli’s running mate, for suggesting that COVID-19 could be brought over the border by undocumented immigration. That’s undocumented – as in nobody got their names, let alone tested them for anything from STDs to COVID!

Murphy said that the idea that unmasked, unvaccinated people, kept in close confinement before being shepherded in tightly packed groups across the border, might pick up the virus along the way was “conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact”. He went on to suggest that even being concerned about the possibility of such a thing was “making people less healthy and putting their lives at risk”.

Murphy did not explain how, but his words do remind us of Murphy’s histrionics back when he was trying to cover up the rape of one of his staffers. He gets a little nuts, all emotional, and goes overboard – like a Wall Street pitchman trying to explain the benefits of paying young Asian women less than 20 cents an hour to work in unsafe conditions – and then locking them in after work in “dormitories” that make today’s women’s prisons seem like hotels.

In any case, Murphy’s statements today place him in direct conflict with the administration of President Joe Biden. Maybe Murphy missed those press reports last month announcing that the Biden administration was extending the closure of the borders with Mexico and Canada due to concerns over cross-border transmission of coronavirus. The ban on all non-essential travel will continue to at least August 21st, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced. The restriction on non-essential travel began in March 2020 “due to the coronavirus pandemic” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

President Biden shares the same concerns as Senator Allen about cross-border transmission of COVID-19. Of course, being able to test those crossing the border is essential to containing the spread of coronavirus and its variants. Illegal border-crossings by undocumented immigrants totally defeats the ability to test, treat, and contain the virus.

Only a complete festered bunghole would fail to recognize this. Governor, we hate having to say this, but it appears you is it. And to compound this bungholery further, the Governor juiced up his crazy hyperbole…

“It’s just fantasyland. Folks are saying stuff and believing stuff that’s just not true. Irresponsible behavior, irresponsible words – actions or words that are not based on fact have to be called out.”

Hey Governor, stop dumping on President Biden. Old Joe is taking prudent and cautious steps to keep us safe. Senator Allen gets it. God only knows what you are up to.

“The entire business model of the Democratic Party is to avoid dealing with its own populists’ concerns, so they’ve never seen the Sanders wing of the party as anything but a threat to what they do for a living, which is basically take corporate money and then sell themselves as socially progressive. That’s what they do for a living. That’s their business.”

Matt Taibbi
Journalist and author of Hate, Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.