Democrats, the ruling party in NJ, need to stand up for police

By Rubashov
 

Police officers are wage-earning, blue-collar members of the working class.  They enforce the laws made by the Legislature, signed into law by the Governor, and upheld by the Judiciary.  The Legislature and the Governor are elected by the people.
 
Unfortunately, in New Jersey as elsewhere, wealthy elites who have the money to influence public policy have corrupted our elections.  Some elites, like Governors Corzine and Murphy, have used their vast wealth to get their hands directly on the levers of power.  The result of this corruption is summed up by that famous Princeton University Study into whether our nation was still of democracy.  It concluded… 

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

For more on this, we suggest you watch this short video from the reform group, Represent.Us:
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

 The wealthy elites who dominate this country are not content with simply owning everything and getting their way… they want to tell YOU how to live too.  And  because they always get their way, their censoriousness results in new laws to promote the things they like and ban things they don’t like.  

This results in hypocrisies like Tammy Murphy’s advocacy for a so-called “green” energy plan that will raise costs for working people while allowing her comrades at Goldman-Sachs to pocket billions. 

 Like Phil Murphy’s quarantine of fellow Americans who live in states he feels have too many cases of COVID-19, while adopting a no-questions-asked “Sanctuary State” policy for people coming from foreign countries with not only high levels of COVID but high levels of TB, which kills 1.5 million people worldwide each year (including 200,000 children). 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis

In one of his most famous essays, writer George Will argued that political "overcriminalization" by a state legislature was responsible for the death of Eric Garner, a sidewalk merchant killed in a confrontation with police ordered to enforce a new law on sales tax scofflaws.  

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394392/plague-overcriminalization-george-will

 Will raised the question of how many new laws are created by state legislatures and by Congress in the rush to be seen to be "doing something"?  Will's brilliant column is a must read for legislators thinking about proposing their next round of ideas that will end up being enforced by men with guns.  Will, a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist at The Washington Post, wrote his column before governors like Phil Murphy were sending police to break up church services and to arrest the owners of gyms and diners.  In his column, Will writes:
 
“Harvey Silverglate, a civil-liberties attorney, titled his 2009 book Three Felonies a Day to indicate how easily we can fall afoul of America’s metastasizing body of criminal laws. Professor Douglas Husak of Rutgers University says that approximately 70 percent of American adults have, usually unwittingly, committed a crime for which they could be imprisoned.
 
In his 2008 book, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, Husak says that more than half of the 3,000 federal crimes — itself a dismaying number — are found not in the Federal Criminal Code but in numerous other statutes. And, by one estimate, at least 300,000 federal regulations can be enforced by agencies wielding criminal punishments. Citing Husak, Professor Stephen L. Carter of the Yale Law School, like a hammer driving a nail head flush to a board, forcefully underscores the moral of this story:
 
Society needs laws; therefore it needs law enforcement. But ‘overcriminalization matters’ because ‘making an offense criminal also means that the police will go armed to enforce it.’ The job of the police ‘is to carry out the legislative will.’ But today’s political system takes ‘bizarre delight in creating new crimes’ for enforcement. And ‘every act of enforcement includes the possibility of violence.’
 
It’s unlikely that the New York Legislature, in creating the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes, imagined that anyone would die for violating it. But a wise legislator would give the matter some thought before creating a crime. Officials who fail to take into account the obvious fact that the laws they’re so eager to pass will be enforced at the point of a gun cannot fairly be described as public servants.”
 
Law enforcement actions will inevitably go wrong.  You can never mix men with guns – charged by the political class with preventing some form of human behavior – and humans under the influence or suffering from substance abuse or mental issues, without the possibility of something going wrong.  And every time some law enforcement interaction goes wrong, we can always count on the very same people who sent the police in the first place – the political class – to turn on them and “blame the police.”
 
The blue-collar police always get blamed – not the white-collar legislators or the governors who make the law and then send the police to enforce it.  The kick in the balls is that it’s some of those white-collar legislators who made the law who end up leading the protests against the police for enforcing the law they made.

In this moment of BLM/Antifa madness, many Democrat politicians are actively blaming the police who enforce the laws they made.  They are providing moral and legal support to those who target police officers and their families with acts up to and including terrorism.  Their friends in the economic elite are providing financial support to those who bear some measure of responsibility for incidents of  terror against the families of police officers, like the one below…

Police officers come in all races, creeds, and genders.  It is the best job available to folks of their class in a job market that has grown increasingly thinner (courtesy of the politicians and their paymasters).  If the politicians could find a way to outsource the work, they would... and maybe, they will, someday.  But for now, our police are our neighbors, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, moms and dads.  For now, they are just ordinary members of our communities called upon to do some very important and often unpleasant work.  Blue-collar work at blue-collar pay. 
 
How many of Phil Murphy's One-Percenter neighbors would perform CPR on a homeless man if he needed it?  A cop will. 

"Every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered…History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

George Orwell
(Eric Arthur Blair)

Don’t use COVID-19 bailout money to cover-up Gov. Murphy’s fiscal mismanagement.

By Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein

In an April 23 article published in the NJ Globe, Jose Arango, titular Chairman of the Hudson County Republican Committee came out playing defense for Democrat New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Murphy’s effort to get federal tax dollars to bail out decades of bad budgeting, overspending, risky investments, and a swollen political bureaucracy has been highly criticized by responsible government advocates. Both an increased cost of living and exodus of native-born New Jersey residents out of state prior to Covid-19 has been attributed to the policies Governor Murphy wants the federal tax payer to now subsidize.

Arango, who collects a tax payer fundedsalary, perpetuated the mythology that the federal government’s refusal to subsidize the pre-Covid-19 partisan agenda and bad decision making of left wing run states “will lead to more economic hardship.” Sadly, he ignores the fact that most economic hardship New Jerseyans face comes from trying to navigate the high taxes, surprise fees, hidden fines, and red tape and regulations that come with living in a blue state. Some speculate that Arango, himself on the government dole at what many believe is a low-to-no show job as “Director of Economic Development” for Jersey City, does not want reform of New Jersey’s politically blue bureaucracy as he is part of its system putting patronage and loyalty over competency and efficiency.

In keeping with the far-left propaganda points coming from Governor Murphy’s office, Arango misidentified the cause of the state fiscal challenge as he stated “we would hope President Trump would not support states going bankrupt in the wake of this illness.” Yet the reality, published by NJ.com on April 24, is that the federal government has so far sent the State of New Jersey, our municipalities, small businesses, and residents $14 billion dollars in response to the Covid-19 crisis. This historically unprecedented amount of aid for New Jersey’s governments and residents includes, but is not limited to, the $1.8 billion from the Corona Relief Fund that Governor Murphy and Arango are arguing should be used as a slush fund to cover for municipal and state mismanagement going back decades. This fund, a subset of aid within the overall $14 billion dollars in aid New Jersey has received, is meant for states to cover expenses due to the Covid-19 crisis not systemic bad budgeting and lack of fiscally responsible practices going back decades.

While Governor Murphy, Arango, and fellow far-left partisan New Jersey Representative Gottheimer, who stated (in a NJ.com article published on April 23) that he “can’t understand why we would stick it to firefighters, law enforcement, EMS, and our schools,” may pretend that this portion (less than 15% of the federal aid New Jersey has received) does not support first responders and public education, the Federal Treasury Guidelines on Corona Relief Funds show this is to be false. The Treasury Guidelines include everything from the duties of law enforcement, hospitals, and EMTs/ambulance corps during the Covid-19 crisis, the cost of e-learning for schools, Covid-19 testing, temporary medical facilities, medical transportation, the acquisition of PPE supplies, funding Covid-19 compliant safety measures at state prisons, and much more.

In the NJ Globe article, Arango states that “if we want to come out of this crisis better, we cannot burn it all down” to bolster his non-argument conflating aid to New Jeseryans with the desire of out-of-touch partisans to prevent the reform New Jersey needs to rebuild economically after the Covid-19 health crisis. Why Arango, supposedly a Republican, is joining a partisan line of attack which pretends that the historic $14 billion dollars in overall federal aid New Jersey has received, including support for our first responders and education, doesn’t exist may be inexplicable but burning anything down $14 billion in aid is not. Rather what Arango, Governor Murphy, and the rest of the disconnected leftists in our state fail to admit is that the tax, fine, fee, and spend policies of the state and municipal governments in New Jersey was out of control long before the Covid-19 virus. Their policies resulted in a substandard job generation, high taxes, high cost of living, and a lower standard of living than what could be for New Jerseyans across the economic spectrum.

Arango’s efforts to push left-wing attacks against President Trump at a time of national crisis and in defiance of the facts lay bare the type of Republican he is. Not only does he confuse the issues of pre-Covid-19 unsustainable state and local government spending (from which he benefits) with the economic needs of New Jersey’s working and middle classes, but he is directly contradicting a statement he made on social media earlier in the crisis about refraining from criticizing leadership.

Indeed, Arango, as covered in The Ridgewood Blog, posted on social media that people should not criticize
Governor Murphy in a time of crisis as if the constructive criticism he was responding to, offered by Jack Ciattarelli, a state GOP leader, was not giving voice to millions of New Jerseyans.  It is clear that Arango meant “grand standing” when he stated that criticism of Governor Murphy’s handling of the crisis was “political grand standards,” but the question remains - if according to Arango one cannot criticize Governor Murphy because he is the leader of the state during a crisis, how can Arango criticize President Trump, the leader of the country in his handling of it? Moreover, by the tortured “logic” that one must not criticize the governor even though that governor has increased the cost of living for residents and badly mismanaged the state, Arango must also be against the vocal disapproval of Governor Murphy’s policies the NJGOP started offering after following Ciattarelli’s lead. Like the far-left Democrats he allies himself with, if Arango didn’t have double standards, he wouldn’t have any at all.

Some speculate the Arango is publicly taking the side of the left-wing Democrats in their counterfactual battle with President Trump because he is concerned about his job security. The logic goes that if state and local governments are forced to right size due to decades of expansion and cost-of-living-increase policies, which has stymied collections and for which they have borrowed money to make up the difference on their overspending, Arango and those with low to no show jobs may be forced to retire.  Indeed, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who was a serious contender for the 2018 Democrat gubernatorial nomination before Governor Murphy’s massive round of donations to Democrat Party institutions all but ensured his nomination, has attempted to shrink Jersey City municipal government by offering early retirement buyouts to 400 municipal employees, freeze salaries, and suspend new hires.

While many public employees perform valuable functions (first responders and educators in particular), it is clear even Democrat Jersey City Mayor Fulop believes at least 400 of them to be non-essential to a functioning city. The question for New Jeseryans is how many more off the hundreds of thousands of state and municipal full-time equivalent employees are a non-essential use of our money? How many are, as many believe Arango to be, political appointees who do little to nothing other than cost New Jerseyans more and more of their paycheck? Does Arango believe that state and municipal government should continue to mismanage the people’s money and overcharge residents, reaching deeper into the people’s wallet during economically tough times such as the current crisis?

While we may never get an answer to these questions, the recent past suggests he cares more about serving the Democrat power structure than defending the New Jerseyans.  While the Jersey City Board of Education is infamously known for raising taxes in March during the Covid-19 crisis, and one of the votes in favor was Noemi Velazquez (well known for religious bigotry), what is less known is that not only did Arango use his nominal title to endorse Velazquez and her ticket but he also used official Hudson County Republican Committee funds to do so in a mailer. Surely then, as Arango has remained silent on the JCBOE tax increases by the extremist Democrats he supported, it becomes clear he does not care about lowering the cost of living for New Jerseyans during the crisis nor for creating a climate of job generation and economic prosperity. Rather, to all but those asleep or with a vested interested pretending otherwise, it is painstakingly clear that Arango only comes out publicly to support the Democrat bosses he de facto works for.

From supporting those who increase the cost of living for the people of Jersey City to attacking real Republicans leaders such as Jack Ciattarelli; from benefiting from the corrupt system of political patronage which keeps New Jersey from its full potential to taking Democrat Governor Murphy’s side in his partisan crusade against President Trump - Arango has a demonstrable history of standing both against Republicans and hardworking New Jerseyans. From always growing budgets to ever increasing regulatory fee’s, highest in the nation property taxes to risky investments, an army of thousands upon thousands of official and unofficial political appointees to a constantly rising cost of living, New Jersey cannot afford more of the same. The out of touch Democrats – Governor Phil Murphy, Representative Gottheimer, the JCBOE, “Republican” Jose Arango and many more, may never get it, but New Jerseyans understand that if we are to recover after Covid-19 we need more than complaining that the $14 billion dollars in federal aid to New Jersey is not enough, we need real reform.

Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein currently serves as a Member of the Republican State Committee representing Hudson County. 

NOTE:  We invite Jose Arango, Chairman of the Hudson County Republican Committee, as well as anyone else mentioned here, to write their own column (separately or in response to this column) and we will publish it.   

"At any given moment there
is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking
people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this,
that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian
times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone
who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising
effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair
hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."
(George Orwell, aka Eric Blair)

Quoted by Chris Hedges, in his
bestseller, “Death of the Liberal Class" (2010).

Pallotta demands explanation from Murphy on Second Amendment shut-down

MAHWAH – Governor Phil Murphy’s Executive Order 107, issued on March 21st in response to the Coronavirus crisis, mandated the indefinite closure of all “non-essential” businesses.  The order applies to all businesses except those specifically exempted.  Gun stores and ranges were not listed as exempt.

The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs (ANJRPC) obtained a “clarification” from the Governor’s office that specified the following:

“Gun stores are not deemed essential and are therefore ordered closed; The National Instant Check System in NJ (NICS) for processing all firearms and ammunition transactions has been shut down completely; and All ranges (indoor and outdoor, public and private) are ordered closed under a restriction on recreational activities.”

The ANJRPC makes the point that “two major parts of the Second Amendment (means of firearms acquisition and means of developing firearms proficiency) have been shut down completely, without an end date, by a single government official, by executive order. Social distancing protocols, utilized elsewhere to justify keeping certain other supposedly essential businesses open, are not even part of the equation when it comes to firearms, ammunition, and ranges.”

Congressional candidate Frank Pallotta (R-CD05) asked: “Given the Governor’s statements and record regarding the Second Amendment, I have to ask if this is anything more than a crass attempt by Governor Murphy to use a health emergency to pursue a political agenda?”

Pallotta noted the abysmal level of testing in New Jersey – home to many of the world’s pharmaceutical giants: “In South Korea, they have tested one of every 150 citizens.  That is 30 times the capita we are doing.  Instead of aggressively testing, the Governor has opted to, in essence, “jail” most of the population by stripping them of their freedoms under the Bill of Rights.”  Pallotta added, “Who gave him the power to use a health crisis to specifically target the First and Second Amendments?”

Pallotta is formally asking the Governor to be transparent and to explain the decision-making processes that led to including Second Amendment-related businesses and activities in his office’s “clarification” of Executive Order 107.  Pallotta also asked for a full disclosure of the Attorney General’s legal advice in this matter.

“Everyone is suffering, the economy is being destroyed, and the Governor has no plan to preserve the financial wellbeing of the citizens of New Jersey.  If, in addition to this, he is using the emergency to advance his own partisan political agenda, I would ask him to think about it and reconsider his decision to exclude Gun stores from the exempt list and deem them essential businesses”.

For those of you who would like to thank Frank Pallotta for his stance on protecting the Second Amendment and Bill of Rights, you can contact him at Info@PallottaforCongress.com

NOTE: If any campaign would like to submit a press release on this subject or any other, please feel free to do so.  Thank you.