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.

Is Gottheimer a racist and terrorist? The media has lowered the bar.

By Rubashov

Is the America of “Innocent until PROVEN Guilty” dead? 
 
Despite the best efforts of groups like the Innocence Project, the American media at large is quite happy to pronounce guilt of major crimes, such as terrorism, without even so much as making a case or presenting evidence.  And they will do this even if the person they are condemning is little more than a private citizen – and with scant regard to what the label “terrorist” means or the horrors it confers on the family and children of such a citizen.  Pure evil.
 
Last evening, the New Jersey Globe website moderated a live debate between incumbent Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat, and his opponent, Republican Frank Pallotta.  In the course of that debate, Gottheimer employed a tactic he used in 2016 – to link the Republican to what Gottheimer alleged was a “domestic terrorist” group. 
 
This isn’t anything new with Gottheimer, who learned how to use such histrionics from his time as the Number Two man at the global lobbyist and public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.  Who is Burson-Marsteller?  Well, here’s MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to give her view on the firm…

Yep, Josh Gottheimer learned his skills while at what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called “the PR firm from Hell.”  Cute.
 
Nevertheless, we can expect such exaggeration from a politician in the heat of a live debate.  It’s what politicians do.  When they can’t defend – or explain – their record, they deflect.  They lie.  Heck, lying and politicians go together like peanut butter and jelly.   

But the media isn’t supposed to reinforce the politicians’ lies.  The media is there to catch the lies that politicians tell, examine them, and then place them into perspective – and report the truth.  That’s not what happened when Nikita Biryukov, of the New Jersey Globe, reported on the debate.  Biryukov wrote:

Pallotta was unabashedly pro-Trump, siding with an administration suit that seeks to strike the affordable care act, pushing aside calls to condemn a domestic terror group while condemning Antifa and downplaying the threat posed by COVID-19.
 
“1992 called and they want their definition of racism group,” Pallotta said when asked whether he would condemn the Oath Keepers. “My supporters are my supporters. They’re not racist, they’re not xenophobes. They’re not homegrown terrorists. They’re good people. They’re your people. They’re in your district.”

The New Jersey Department of Homeland Security named the Oath Keepers and another far-right militia organization as domestic terror groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League both list the Oath Keepers as an extremist group.
 
The Oath Keepers were in issue in the incumbent’s 2016 race against Rep. Scott Garret (R-Wantage), who held a fundraiser organized by the regional director of the extremist group’s New Jersey Chapter. Garrett also declined to denounce the organization.
 
Skylands Tea Party President Bill Hayden, a member of the Oath Keepers, is involved with Pallotta’s campaign.
 
“They are anti-government, anti-law enforcement, anti-Semitic, blatant racists,” Gottheimer said. “I’m just saying this group that he’s arm-in-arm with one of the guys who runs it, will he please denounce the group?”

Now, let’s remember that terrorism is a crime.  As Congressman Gottheimer well knows, Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover domestic, as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act “dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to:  (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.” 

Now a responsible journalist would have asked Congressman Gottheimer to back up his allegation.  He made the allegation about a private citizen who is a constituent in his district.  Gottheimer called Bill Hayden a domestic terrorist, a criminal.  Now back it up.  Using the legal definition, make your case.

Look, we all have opinions.  It is often said that opinions are ubiquitous as arseholes.  But when you label someone a criminal, you need to back it up with a little more than, “it’s my opinion.”  And that goes for the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League.  If it is going to be worth something more than your arsehole – take those you accuse to court, make a case, present your evidence… and convict!  Or just keep your labels tucked up where the sun don’t shine.  Because they are worthless.  Mere name-calling.

Otherwise, it would be just as fine to label every Democrat who supports indoctrinating eighth graders in the joys of anal sex a pedophile… and it’s called grooming.  Wouldn’t that be a treat?  In the future, the parties won’t be donkeys and elephants or blue and red… but pedophiles and racists.  Nice.  A real step forward for democracy.  That’s where we’re heading. 
 
The New Jersey Globe should understand this.  It just so happens that the owner of the website, the guy Nikita Biryukov takes his marching orders from, is an actual convicted criminal.  Knowing the rules of evidence, as he must, he should have called a time-out on Josh Gottheimer and asked the Congressman to reconsider his rash and inevitably false accusation of criminality against one of his own constituents.  But he did not. 

Yes, the hypocrisy in this Nikita Biryukov piece was ladled out so thick – and yet is so deliciously Trenton – that if you think about it too long you’d never stop throwing up.  That in midst of a debate, wherein a Member of Congress is making false accusations about criminal behavior, for him to purposefully overlook the fact that the debate moderator is, in fact, a self-confessed and convicted criminal is rich indeed.  In agreeing to such a moderator, was Gottheimer endorsing his crimes – or just making light of them?  Well… we all have our opinions.   

And now for some real terrorism that the Trenton media studiously overlooks.  We call it real because an actual national government has ruled it so – and that government is an ally of the United States.  Our troops are deployed there.  And if you go there, and are a member of this group, there will be legal consequences.  Not opinions.  Legal consequences.
 
We’re talking here about CAIR – and the far-Left group aligned with it and Linda Sarsour, called Action Together.  Congressman Josh Gottheimer is a supporter of Action Together.  Even made a video pushing their agenda.  And District 25 Assembly candidate Darcy Draeger was happy to accept the endorsement of Action Together.
 
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.  Yes, CAIR is officially outlawed.  By law.  Legal.  Not someone’s “opinion”.  That said, the same Anti-Defamation League in Nikita Biryukov’s story doesn’t have a very high opinion of CAIR.  In the manner of Josh Gottheimer, they have repeatedly called on CAIR to "denounce anti-Semitism” at their rallies and events. 
 
To add further to the confusion of “opinions” is the fact that Congressman Josh Gottheimer opposes the pro-Palestinian BDS movement.  That makes Gottheimer a “racist” in the opinion of some.  Some of U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s biggest supporters think so.
 
Going by “opinions” instead of legal definitions… does that make Josh Gottheimer a terrorist and a racist?   

““Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.”

E.B. White”