Governor Murphy caught in an act of cultural appropriation?

The Left calls it “cultural appropriation”. It’s what they complain about when a member of the so-called “dominant” culture appropriates elements of another culture – especially a disadvantaged “minority” culture. Well, Phil Murphy is certainly a mega-wealthy one-percenter, so having a can of PBR would probably count as cultural appropriation. But in this case, he dressed up…

This photograph was posted by the Governor’s own communications guy, a “proud alum” (as he puts it) of Hillary Clinton, Bill DeBlasio, and Barack Obama. So he should know all about the rights and wrongs of political correctness. Or is it only incorrect when someone you don’t like does it? Of course, that could be anyone from Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.

Was this a case of cultural appropriation or just an attempt at pandering? Will the Governor wear a kilt on St. Andrew's Day? A sombrero on Cinco de Mayo? Will he do a dance too… maybe end up on a remake of Coldplay’s Dancing Politicians (Violet Hill)?

Governor Murphy is always up to something. One day he is issuing directives on providing Sanctuary and millions in aid to illegals – while slashing education funding to the children of taxpayers. The next he is instructing local law enforcement on how to incarcerate the sexes together – can’t wait for the lawsuits that will result from this brainstorm. But somehow he can’t seem to address the highest property taxes in America, or the worst foreclosure rate in America, or the lousiest business climate in America.

Phil Murphy runs away from the big stuff. He likes to meddle in the lives of “lesser beings” (average folks like us) and he like photo ops. And he likes to feel morally superior to everyone else (we suppose it goes along with being economically superior). What you see here is what you are going to get. This is what he is good at.

Bhimani, Draeger, Mandelblatt, Fortgang, Lykins… The One Percenters of the so-called “Resistance”

Once upon a time, Marxism was pretty clear about who the “enemy” was. It was the rich. Money equaled power and influence to make the world as you wished it to be – to serve you and to make you feel good about yourself (while enjoying all the best food, the best housing, the best education, the best creature comforts, the best life style). Money even gave you the power to extract sex from unwilling victims… just ask BIG Democrat donor and “Friend of Hillary” Harvey Weinstein.

During the 1960’s a group of Leftist academics – tenured, cosseted, well-off and wanting to remain so – devised a new “Marxism” that replaced the central tenet of “class” with that of “identity”. Economic status no longer mattered. Now it was all about your gender, your color, or who you slept with. It was a neat trick and one that allowed a class of increasingly prosperous academics and those they launched on professional careers to remain “Marxists” while growing increasingly rich.

In place of the traditional bogeyman of the working classes – the rich – these new “Marxists” offered something called the “White Race”. Suddenly the very peasants and workers who launched Soviet Marxism in 1917 were the enemy, based solely on their skin color. It didn’t matter if you were a mill worker or a miner or a subsistence farmer in Appalachia… you were one of the hated “privileged” class.

Yes, a lot of blind faith was required to accept such nonsense – and a lot of ignorance to the facts and actual conditions of how people lived, regardless of their skin color or gender or sexual habits. Reflecting on his own Marxism of the 1930’s, the poet W.H. Auden noted the religious aspect of it. Similarly, this new “Marxism” took on a theological bent, as more and more faith was required to maintain it.

Enter the repentant sinners…

In some religions, “good works” are the pathway to salvation. And so it was for our new “Marxists”. And who is in the best position to do “good works”? Why the rich of course. They can spread money about like fertilizer.

And so, little by little, the very richest amongst those guilty of “white privilege” escaped its taint. They and their families, their corporations and institutions, fell into the column of those “saved through good works”. They got a pass when, for instance, they poisoned a generation with opioids. Or when they deliberately marketed a product that caused uterine cancer. Or when they passed laws to collect taxes in poor neighborhoods that led to young men being killed. They were not held responsible… it was that vast “white privileged class” that was responsible, as if one’s skin color had the capacity to fill one’s belly.

And strangely enough, herded together as part of those hated people of “privilege” were members of religious and ethnic groups who had suffered the most appalling persecution in the history of man. We wonder if, while exempting themselves, are these new “Marxists” giving leave for a new persecution of these groups, based on designations such as “of color” or “not of color”?

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist…

And the greatest trick the One-Percenters who now make up the “new” Left have pulled is to convince people that economic class matters less than skin color. That being George Soros doesn’t imply “privilege” but that the weather-beaten white skin of a homeless veteran does.

You can see this at work in New Jersey, where – to an unprecedented degree – One Percenters dominate the Democrat Party and account for its most woke candidates. And we’re not just talking about Governor “Goldman-Sachs” Murphy, who is happy to excuse criminal behavior in a politician if he is of the right identity group. Or Congressman Tom Malinowski, who bangs on endlessly about the sins of “white privilege” while ignoring his genuinely privileged – economically privileged – background.

Just look at this harvest of woke “resistance fighter” Assembly candidates the Democrats are putting up to address the sins of “privilege”. You could not find a more economically privileged bunch if you tried.

In District 25, there’s Lisa Bhimani – who went to Brown University, has a degree in medicine that she doesn’t need to use, because she is so rich. How rich? Rich enough to have a $1.6 million condo in Manhattan to hang in when she’s shopping in NYC. Her husband is… wait for it… the Managing Director at JP Morgan Chase.

You remember those guys, don’t you? They helped crash the world’s economy in 2008. Lay-offs, unemployment, foreclosures followed. Not for them though, they bought their $1.6 million condo after the crash. Nice.

Lisa Bhimani’s running mate is Darcy Draeger… of Wall Street. Draeger’s daddy was a newspaper executive and she worked in New York City for the Swiss UBS Investment Bank. During her time at UBS, the bank got up to some mischief and attracted the attention of federal investigators. In 2015, UBS pleaded guilty to the “biggest financial scam in history”. Cool.

Nowadays, Draeger calls herself a “farmer” – although her “farm” appears to be little more than a way to avoid paying the full whack in property taxes. We’re sure that Draeger herself will admit that her farm is nothing like the farms she remembers growing up in the Midwest. She bought her farm six years ago, for $1.3 million. 1.7 acres are fully taxed at $23,572 a year (2017). 9 acres are taxed at $25.65 (2017). According to the USDA, the average size of a “small” sustainable family farm is 231 acres. Hey, we aren’t judging… but you do seem mighty darn privileged to us.

Over in District 21, we have Democrat Lisa Mandelblatt, whose husband was Managing Director at Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt… and crashed the world’s economy. Ouch.

And what can’t you say about Laura Fortgang? She practically started her own New Age religion – while teaching the Masters-of-the-Universe how to better shill their b.s. to a public already drowning in their b.s. A remarkable person, if you go for that kind of happy-clappy, rainbow-fantasy nonsense that obfuscates the genuine problems faced by the vast majority of working stiffs. Fortgang is hoping to ride her winged unicorn of delusion into office in District 26.

In District 24 the Democrats have found a Lobbyist for the insurance industry to represent them. Deana Lykins actually lobbied to screw the surviving family members of fallen first responders out of their benefits. That’s right, the insurance industry she worked for needed to make a little more profit on top of their already obscene profits – so screw those working class first responders. Heck, some of them are white and therefor guilty of the most heinous privilege!

This is the Democrat Party in New Jersey. A party who once claimed to represent the “working class” but who now just represent various “identities” – led by One Percenters.

And what of the working class? Who represents them? Well… nobody, of course, especially the white ones – privileged as they are.

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. Is this “Resistance” movement beginning to feel more like a “counter-revolution” to you too? A long-suffering working class, under-represented in Congress and the Legislature, screwed-over by BOTH political parties votes for Obama in 2008 (and is promptly screwed again) then in its pain and desperation turns to Trump in 2016… and now the “Resistance” has come, to put us all back in our place!

Hey Democrats… how about some diversity?

From Katie Brennan to at-risk children: Why are the Democrats ignoring Rape?

Does it seem like the administration of Governor Phil Murphy and his allies in the Democrat-controlled Legislature care more about keeping up appearances than they do about addressing actual sexual assaults against women and children? As the unresolved crime against former Democratic Party staffer Katie Brennan made clear – Murphy’s Democrats will close ranks (even against one of their own) if it threatens to tarnish their image or expose them for who they are.

Katie Brennan was one of several women who said that a top Murphy political operative had sexually assaulted them. The Murphy administration’s response was to try to cover it up and to intimidate whistleblowers who came forward.

This mirrors what is going on nationally in the liberal media, where NBC was caught trying to cover-up the sexual assault and exploitation of women by a critter named Harvey Weinstein – a top Democrat donor and “friend of Hillary”. The work done by investigative journalist Ronan Farrow to expose this corporate media cover-up has been impressive…

This is journalism today. So it’s not just the boys at InsiderNJ or Julie O’Connor and Jonathan Salant at the Star-Ledger – corporations owned by rich benefactors who are in the “news” business because it serves as a public relations tool for their other enterprises. Journalism is very sick, maybe on life-support, and unless measures are taken to ethically correct its degradation, it may well perish.

Journalists like Ronan Farrow, Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Douglas Murray, and Ross Douthat offer a way forward. But will the corporations who own the media follow?

Meanwhile the Murphy administration and the Murphy Democrats are getting away with ignoring sexual assaults on women and children.

Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme – a major campaign promise he made to secure far-Left votes – is allowing accused rapists and child predators to be released back into the community. And when asked to come before the people who pay his salary – Murphy has refused, ignoring all requests to explain whether his Sanctuary State scheme was created with law enforcement goals or was it simply a matter of politics.

It is noteworthy that while the European Union and the British government are in frantic negotiations aimed at maintaining border-security cooperation between all levels of law enforcement – Governor Murphy and his Democrat allies have willfully destroyed such cooperation, creating a safe-haven for criminals not seen since Post-World War Two Argentina. As the United Nations reminds us, un-policed porous borders are an enhancement to the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation, the illegal importation of narcotics and opioids, and the trafficking of illegal firearms.

And on top of all of this, now the Murphy Democrats are blocking legislation that will protect at-risk children from being raped.

The Democrat leadership is holding up legislation designed to protect children from sexual assault at state supervised health care facilities. These are the same politicians who are pouring money into the campaigns of Democrat Assembly candidates Bruce Land and Matthew Milam in District 1, Gina LaPlaca and Mark Natale in District 8, Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman in District 21, Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger in District 25, Christine Clarke and Laura Fortgang in District 26, and Deana Lykins in District 24.

The legislation would require psychiatric health care facilities to provide 24-hour-a-day monitoring of children under their supervision and was proposed following documented horrific sex attacks on children. So why is there no action after 18 months?

Why are children being exposed to violent sexual assault by the Democrats?

Because the Murphy administration doesn’t like the bill, that’s why. And the Democrats – dependent on assorted Murphy donors for their campaign cash – do what they’re told.

Would the legislation have a better chance of passing if the vulnerable children who are exposed to rape were to renounce their citizenship and apply for Sanctuary Status? But hey, shouldn’t health care facilities under the supervision of the state be sanctuaries free from fear of violent sexual assault anyway? We are talking children here.

Republican Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-24) has championed the victims of the Murphy administration’s lack of action. Wirths was quoted in a New Jersey Herald article:

“This is a parent’s worst nightmare. What this family has had to endure is horrendous. We urgently need to address these facilities’ inadequate supervision policies through legislation by requiring them to properly supervise and protect children who are in their care due to psychiatric crises. More children are put at risk every day that this legislation remains at a standstill.”

In response, the Democrats trotted out Joann Downey, who sounded decidedly less enthused about helping protect children at risk of sexual assault. She told the New Jersey Herald:

“As chair of the Assembly Committee on Human Services, it’s my first priority to make sure that the vulnerable families, children and communities of New Jersey are well cared for and supported in their times of need… I appreciate Assemblyman Wirths’ interest in our state’s psychiatric facilities and look forward to reviewing this legislation as we develop the Committee’s agenda for the coming months.”

In other words… screw you and the kids and their parents. We’ll get around to it when Boss Murphy tells us we can. Real scumbags.

Meanwhile the question remains: How many kids were sexually assaulted over the last 18 months while the Democrats have been waiting for permission to advance the bill? How many more will be raped while their parents wait for action from the Democrats?

Democrat Suleiman’s racialist comment about “GOP base”

Atlantic County Democrat Party Chairman Michael Suleiman today issued a press statement in which he made racialist comments about the “GOP base”.  Suleiman said:  “They (the GOP) never miss an opportunity to not stand up to their base.” 

What does Suleiman mean by the “GOP base”?

Does he mean “property taxpayers”?

Maybe he means “religious Christians and Jews”?

Or the “unionized working class” that his own party once represented?

Or is he making a snide reference to “white Christians”?

Suleiman needs to explain himself because he holds a taxpayer-funded patronage job and some of the people he might be disparaging pay his very generous salary, benefits, and perks.  In March 2018, the Democrats gave Suleiman a public job as the lobbyist for the South Jersey Transportation Authority.

While the Democrats cut school funding across New Jersey, guys like Suleiman get paid.  Of course, Suleiman supports Murphy’s illegal Sanctuary State scheme that bullies law enforcement into ignoring the findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission).

Suleiman is a made member of a corrupt political machine.  He would support a horseshoe crab for office if his party told him to.  Suleiman’s Twitter page is filled with selfies featuring the love-struck Suleiman with Hillary Clinton, Phil Murphy, and Cory Booker.  Talk about having some explaining to do – we’re surprised this moron didn’t feature panegyrics to Jeff Epstein and Al Alvarez. 

Oh, and we wonder what Suleiman thinks about this stunt by Cory Booker…

While attacking taxpayer advocate Seth Grossman, Suleiman ignored this anti-Jewish prank by Cory Booker.  What does Suleiman have against taxpayers like Grossman?

But wait… in his statement, Suleiman compounds his racialism by making ethnic (and racial) assumptions about who comes into the United States illegally. He makes the claim that it is “race-baiting” to oppose illegal immigration.  That is a horrible generalization.  The term “illegal” does not denote a racial or ethnic group.

For Suleiman’s information of the 707,265 LEGAL immigrants who became LEGAL naturalized American citizens in 2017, 17 percent were from Mexico (118,559), followed by 7 percent from India (50,802), 5 percent each from China (37,674) and the Philippines (36,828), and about 4 percent each from the Dominican Republic (29,734) and Cuba (25,961).  Nationals of these six countries accounted for 42 percent of all naturalizations.  Other leading countries of origin included Vietnam (19,323 or 3 percent), El Salvador (16,941, 2 percent), Colombia (16,184, 2 percent), and Jamaica (15,087, 2 percent).

In common with many Democrats, Michael Suleiman uses race as a measurement for every human interaction.  People who do this – who think in terms of “people of color” – are called racialists.  Wikipedia notes that “Racialism is the belief that the human species is naturally divided into races, that are ostensibly distinct biological categories.”

The philosopher W.E.B. DuBois argued that racialism was merely the philosophical position that races existed, and that collective differences existed among such categories.  DuBois held that racialism was a value-neutral term and differed from racism in that the latter required advancing the argument that one race is superior to other races of human beings.

But science has largely erased such arguments.  Aside from some genetic correlations in the incidence of diseases in this subset or that, the idea of “racial identity” that is forced down every American child’s throat, that haunts our society in everything from census forms to employment applications, is entirely a political construct.  The American idea of “race” is nonsense and calling people “racist” is a nonsense game.  The actor Morgan Freeman got it right…

The Democrats’ insistence on the primacy of race is an inverted return to their past.  Like then, Democrats today are obsessed with what measure of blood from this group or that flows through someone’s veins.  They seem to forget that our blood – the blood of our common humanity – is categorized, not in terms like Black or White or “of color” or “not of color” – but as O, A, B, and AB.

The Democrats need to end their obsession… and embrace humanity.

The same NJ media that covered up for Clinton, tries to do the same for Menendez

Remember how the newspapers tried to discredit the source for the claim that Bill Clinton had seduced Monica Lewinsky in the White House?  Remember how the media told us that Linda Tripp was a “liar” and that she used “right wing” media outlets to peddle her "meaningless" allegations?

All part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton assured us.  And NOW – the National Organization for Women – stood by their man, and so did legions of Democrat women politicians.  They all assured us that Bill Clinton would NEVER act so inappropriately.

Yep, the media was right on that!  We all know today that Bill Clinton DID NOT have sex with Monica Lewinsky, right???

And as more and more evidence piled up, the media just dismissed it.  When other women came forward and said they were raped.  The media trashed them, called them trailer park trash, said it was all a plot to damage the good name of William Jefferson Clinton.  They advised us to Move On…

One New Jersey newspaper published an editorial with the title:  "GOTCHA" POLITICS HIT A NEW LOW WITH STARR'S SEX INVESTIGATION. 

Another New Jersey newspaper did an editorial that simply said:  TIME TO END IT.

Well, it’s déjà vu all over again!

On Wednesday, there was United States Senator Bob Menendez and, like Bill Clinton once upon a time, he was surrounded by NOW and a bevy of female Democrat office holders whose political fortunes (for better or for worse) are tied to the Senator’s.  There was Bob Menendez himself, doing his best… “I did not have sex…” imitation of Bill Clinton.  And there was the media, once again failing to read what they wrote last time, talking about “gutter” politics and “right wing blogs” and trashing the women, and the prosecutors, and the GOP. 

Hey Tom Moran, Fred Snowflake, Hand of Hand, Moe of Moe, and all those media mavens who want to shake their tallywhackers at us to make it so…

Guys, you bullshit us once.  Then – along comes Brett Kavanaugh – and you went back on your bullshit and said the opposite of everything you said when it was Bill Clinton.  Now (and it’s just been a few weeks for Christ sake!) you want to go back on everything you just said about Brett Kavanaugh and tell us there’s a new set of rules – and why?  Because it’s about Bob Menendez???

Fellas, keep your bullshit.  You have the collective credibility and moral authority of an unwiped ass.  Nobody is buying it besides those phonies from NOW.

InsiderNJ is owned by an insurance vendor grease machine: So why did they get to choose who’s who in NJ media?

There’s an old saying among machine politicians in Philadelphia.  It goes like this, “If you say you’re the boss, and nobody says you aint the boss, then you’re the boss.”

John F.X. Graham probably heard it back in the day, when he was prowling around amongst the ward healers in that sainted city of brotherly love.  Back when “ethnic” meant second or third generation Irish or Polish or Italian and individual neighborhoods developed their own dialects (yes, people really did talk like Rocky back then).

John F. X. moved to New Jersey where he followed the yellow brick road of selling insurance to government entities.  Unlike South Jersey’s George Norcross, John F. X. wasn’t really interested in building a political machine.  He was content with a money machine – the old-fashioned kind, the grease machine that uses campaign contributions to lube the representatives of the taxpayers, so that their money pumps out in a nice, steady stream.

Last December, the Observer wrote about John F.X. and his operation – the Fairview Insurance Agency – in a “special report” about “How Insurance Brokers Reap Public Funds Without Disclosure.”  It makes for interesting reading:

Insurance brokerages that make political donations are declining to disclose large amounts of money received indirectly from public entities.

One of the biggest goldmines for contractors in New Jersey is selling insurance plans to public entities, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers across the state.

But an Observer review of dozens of public documents shows that in some cases, it’s difficult or impossible to get a complete accounting of the money going back and forth between insurance brokerages — some of which are deep-pocketed campaign donors — and the public entities that award lucrative insurance contracts.

For instance, Fairview Insurance Agency Associates is one of the largest political donors in New Jersey, giving more than $120,000 to various candidates and committees in 2016, the ninth-highest among businesses in the state, according to the state’s campaign finance watchdog agency.

The Verona-based brokerage is also a big contractor, raking in at least $1.1 million through public contracts or agreements across New Jersey in 2016.

Under state law, the firm is required to report annually all of its political donations and public contracts to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, provided it gets at least $50,000 in public contracts and makes at least one political donation of any amount. Curiously, however, some of the money Fairview gets indirectly from public entities is then reported to ELEC as $0.

The effect is that, to the average observer reading ELEC reports, Fairview would appear to have made much less from public entities and institutions than it actually got — directly and indirectly — in a given year.

Observer reviewed ELEC disclosures for five companies, only three of which were required to itemize their contracts and donations.

A review of six ELEC disclosure forms, 29 invoices, four contracts and eight resolutions by school boards and local councils revealed a loophole in state law that allows brokerages such as Fairview to not report to ELEC tens of thousands of dollars, or more, that they receive as a result of working for governments or public entities.

In 93 cases, three brokerages reported receiving $0 from public agreements in 2016 on their disclosure forms filed with ELEC...  In one case, Observer found that Fairview was paid $54,000 indirectly from Jersey City’s school board but later disclosed $0 to ELEC.

It works like this. Brokerages — which sell insurance plans to local governments — are often paid commissions or fees by third-party companies. In this scenario, the actual contract does not go to the brokerage, but to the third-party company, while the brokerage still gets a cut of the business.

In some cases, the dollar amount of these fees or commissions can be traced back by filing public records requests with local governments. Some public entities that answered such requests from Observer provided copies of the original public contracts, which in turn detailed the actual fees or commissions paid to insurance brokerages that were reported to ELEC as $0.

In other cases, there is no mechanism to piece together what a third-party company paid to a brokerage in commissions. Some public entities did not disclose or could not say how much their brokers were paid indirectly by their contractors.

In March 2015, the Jersey City Board of Education passed a resolution to award Fairview a $54,000 contract to be the school district’s prescription insurance broker for fiscal year 2016.

Fairview did not end up receiving an actual contract. The school board struck a deal two months later with Express Scripts to manage its prescription benefits plan, and in that contract, it directed Express Scripts to pay Fairview $4,500 per month on its behalf, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Jersey City school board. The school district essentially paid someone else to pay Fairview.

In the end, Fairview reported that it received $0 in 2015 and 2016 from its work for the Jersey City Board of Education, according to its annual reports filed with ELEC. The firm noted that the amounts it disclosed “do not include commissions received from the insurance carriers.” (Observer, December 6, 2017) 

Campaign contributions flowing one-way, huge contracts flowing the other… minimal to no transparency. That’s New Jersey. 

The problem is… the Fairview Insurance Agency owns the news agency (InsiderNJ) that just handed out the designations as to who is who in New Jersey media. 

Yep, there’s John F. X. Graham who owns both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ (he holds titles of founder and publisher, respectively).  Michael J. Graham is Chief Operating Officer of both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ.  Ryan Graham is the Director of Business Development for the Fairview Insurance Agency and the Associate Publisher of InsiderNJ. 

That’s it folks… John F.X.’s grease machine has its own media mouthpiece with which to skew perceptions.  And that’s a handy thing to have in an age of hollowed out local coverage and a dearth of what was once called “investigative journalism.”  The press is now routinely used to punish the whistleblower, the taxpayer advocate, citizen activist, the underdog.  It’s easy to see why.

Now don’t get us wrong, just because John F.X. is all about the money… and the money… and the money… and the money… That doesn’t mean he’s not above playing the part of the noble, the enlightened, crony capitalist.  Hey, didn’t some notorious mob boss put a roof on a church?  Doesn’t Johnson & Johnson make up for failing to warn women that their product could cause uterine cancer by being oh so woke on LGBTQ?  It pays to have fashionable connections and to assist those connections in the higher causes of fashion.

John F.X. is a friend of Hillary.  Yes, that old wind bag.  You could forgive him being a friend of Bill because, heck, who wouldn’t want a night out on the town with Bill Clinton?  He’d make a Saturday night seem like a month of weekends.  But Hillary?  You know that’s just fashion.

Nevertheless, John F.X. has been called “a top Democrat fundraiser” by newspapers like the Bergen Record and the Newark Star-Ledger.  In addition to Hillary Clinton, John F.X. raised money for John Kerry in his 2004 presidential race, and he’s been a big giver to United States Senator Bob Menendez.  In fact, it was John F.X. who pushed the idea of Menendez on a national ticket as vice president:

In January 2008, the Jersey Journal along with other media outlets reported that “John F.X. Graham, one of Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Co-Chairs, thinks that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez would make a great choice if Clinton wins the Democratic Primary… Graham fired off an email this morning to Clinton Campaign Manager Terry McAuliffe listing politicians who would make good vice presidential material, including the choices most often brought up:  Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Joe Biden.  But Menendez, a Clinton campaign national co-chair, would be the “most intriguing” choice, Graham wrote.”

“The name Richardson does not sound exactly Latino,” wrote Graham.  “The Latino voting block is becoming the most influential in this election, especially with the immigration and other economic issues confronting our prosperity.  For lack of a better term, he is the Latino Barack Obama with the experience.” 

Why would John F.X. think that encouraging people to vote along racial or ethnic lines is good public policy?  Has he not heard of the former Yugoslavia? 

Finally, John F.X. made his pronouncements while Senator Menendez was the subject of an FBI investigation.  Not that something like that matters when you are making a fashion statement.

Yes, so it seems that InsiderNJ can also be considered an outpost of the far-flung Clinton Empire.  Ahhhh, corruption at its most tasty. 

And it looks as though John F.X. is quite a big deal.  Even Wikileaks picked up loads of correspondence between John F.X. and his fellow Clintonistas.  Here is an example:

As far as the money goes, national contacts and a national reach does have its advantages.  We found dozens of John F.X.’s insurance agency’s outposts around the country.  All making him money – but northern New Jersey and Essex County in particular is his base.  It was reported in Politico (November 24, 2014) that Essex County Democrat Party boss Joe DiVincenzo’s son worked for John F.X.’s insurance agency.  He also held a full-time public job as well.   

So it was no surprise that the most corrupt political machine in the state – the Essex County Democrats – inducted John F.X. into their “Hall of Fame” in March of 2015.  InsiderNJ editor, Max Pizarro wrote the panegyric, which we suppose was less messy than the alternative. 

Now can we ask this again?  What are these people doing handing out the rankings on New Jersey journalists?  Shouldn’t some organization, like the Society of Professional Journalists, be doing it?  Or the Columbia School of Journalism?  Or anything but the god-damned grease machine itself!

Ten years ago, the authors of The Soprano State – two old-school investigative journalists – joined with journalists like Josh Margolin to decry the corruption tax that added to the cost paid by New Jersey taxpayers on everything to do with government.  Could they have guessed that, ten years later, not only would the tax be more imbedded and less transparent, but that the very news agencies responsible for exposing and reporting on it would now be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the same grease machine responsible for the corruption?

New Jersey… you can’t make this stuff up.

Why is the Grease machine picking who’s who in the media?

There’s an old saying among machine politicians in Philadelphia.  It goes like this, “If you say you’re the boss, and nobody says you aint the boss, then you’re the boss.”

John F.X. Graham probably heard it back in the day, when he was prowling around amongst the ward healers in that sainted city of brotherly love.  Back when “ethnic” meant second or third generation Irish or Polish or Italian and individual neighborhoods developed their own dialects (yes, people really did talk like Rocky back then).

John F. X. moved to New Jersey where he followed the yellow brick road of selling insurance to government entities.  Unlike South Jersey’s George Norcross, John F. X. wasn’t really interested in building a political machine.  He was content with a money machine – the old-fashioned kind, the grease machine that uses campaign contributions to lube the representatives of the taxpayers, so that their money pumps out in a nice, steady stream.

Last December, the Observer wrote about John F.X. and his operation – the Fairview Insurance Agency – in a “special report” about “How Insurance Brokers Reap Public Funds Without Disclosure.”  It makes for interesting reading:

Insurance brokerages that make political donations are declining to disclose large amounts of money received indirectly from public entities.

One of the biggest goldmines for contractors in New Jersey is selling insurance plans to public entities, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers across the state.

But an Observer review of dozens of public documents shows that in some cases, it’s difficult or impossible to get a complete accounting of the money going back and forth between insurance brokerages — some of which are deep-pocketed campaign donors — and the public entities that award lucrative insurance contracts. 

For instance, Fairview Insurance Agency Associates is one of the largest political donors in New Jersey, giving more than $120,000 to various candidates and committees in 2016, the ninth-highest among businesses in the state, according to the state’s campaign finance watchdog agency.

The Verona-based brokerage is also a big contractor, raking in at least $1.1 million through public contracts or agreements across New Jersey in 2016.

Under state law, the firm is required to report annually all of its political donations and public contracts to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, provided it gets at least $50,000 in public contracts and makes at least one political donation of any amount. Curiously, however, some of the money Fairview gets indirectly from public entities is then reported to ELEC as $0.

The effect is that, to the average observer reading ELEC reports, Fairview would appear to have made much less from public entities and institutions than it actually got — directly and indirectly — in a given year.

Observer reviewed ELEC disclosures for five companies, only three of which were required to itemize their contracts and donations.

A review of six ELEC disclosure forms, 29 invoices, four contracts and eight resolutions by school boards and local councils revealed a loophole in state law that allows brokerages such as Fairview to not report to ELEC tens of thousands of dollars, or more, that they receive as a result of working for governments or public entities. 

In 93 cases, three brokerages reported receiving $0 from public agreements in 2016 on their disclosure forms filed with ELEC...  In one case, Observer found that Fairview was paid $54,000 indirectly from Jersey City’s school board but later disclosed $0 to ELEC.

It works like this. Brokerages — which sell insurance plans to local governments — are often paid commissions or fees by third-party companies. In this scenario, the actual contract does not go to the brokerage, but to the third-party company, while the brokerage still gets a cut of the business. 

In some cases, the dollar amount of these fees or commissions can be traced back by filing public records requests with local governments. Some public entities that answered such requests from Observer provided copies of the original public contracts, which in turn detailed the actual fees or commissions paid to insurance brokerages that were reported to ELEC as $0.

In other cases, there is no mechanism to piece together what a third-party company paid to a brokerage in commissions. Some public entities did not disclose or could not say how much their brokers were paid indirectly by their contractors.

In March 2015, the Jersey City Board of Education passed a resolution to award Fairview a $54,000 contract to be the school district’s prescription insurance broker for fiscal year 2016.

Fairview did not end up receiving an actual contract. The school board struck a deal two months later with Express Scripts to manage its prescription benefits plan, and in that contract, it directed Express Scripts to pay Fairview $4,500 per month on its behalf, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Jersey City school board. The school district essentially paid someone else to pay Fairview.

In the end, Fairview reported that it received $0 in 2015 and 2016 from its work for the Jersey City Board of Education, according to its annual reports filed with ELEC. The firm noted that the amounts it disclosed “do not include commissions received from the insurance carriers.” (Observer, December 6, 2017) 

Campaign contributions flowing one-way, huge contracts flowing the other… minimal to no transparency. That’s New Jersey.

The problem is… the Fairview Insurance Agency owns the news agency (InsiderNJ) that just handed out the designations as to who is who in New Jersey media. 

Yep, there’s John F. X. Graham who owns both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ (he holds titles of founder and publisher, respectively).  Michael J. Graham is Chief Operating Officer of both the Fairview Insurance Agency and InsiderNJ.  Ryan Graham is the Director of Business Development for the Fairview Insurance Agency and the Associate Publisher of InsiderNJ. 

That’s it folks… John F.X.’s grease machine has its own media mouthpiece with which to skew perceptions.  And that’s a handy thing to have in an age of hollowed out local coverage and a dearth of what was once called “investigative journalism.”  The press is now routinely used to punish the whistleblower, the taxpayer advocate, citizen activist, the underdog.  It’s easy to see why.

Now don’t get us wrong, just because John F.X. is all about the money… and the money… and the money… and the money… That doesn’t mean he’s not above playing the part of the noble, the enlightened, crony capitalist.  Hey, didn’t some notorious mob boss put a roof on a church?  Doesn’t Johnson & Johnson make up for failing to warn women that their product could cause uterine cancer by being oh so woke on LGBTQ?  It pays to have fashionable connections and to assist those connections in the higher causes of fashion.

John F.X. is a friend of Hillary.  Yes, that old wind bag.  You could forgive him being a friend of Bill because, heck, who wouldn’t want a night out on the town with Bill Clinton?  He’d make a Saturday night seem like a month of weekends.  But Hillary?  You know that’s just fashion. 

Nevertheless, John F.X. has been called “a top Democrat fundraiser” by newspapers like the Bergen Record and the Newark Star-Ledger.  In addition to Hillary Clinton, John F.X. raised money for John Kerry in his 2004 presidential race, and he’s been a big giver to United States Senator Bob Menendez.  In fact, it was John F.X. who pushed the idea of Menendez on a national ticket as vice president:

In January 2008, the Jersey Journal along with other media outlets reported that “John F.X. Graham, one of Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Co-Chairs, thinks that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez would make a great choice if Clinton wins the Democratic Primary… Graham fired off an email this morning to Clinton Campaign Manager Terry McAuliffe listing politicians who would make good vice presidential material, including the choices most often brought up:  Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Joe Biden.  But Menendez, a Clinton campaign national co-chair, would be the “most intriguing” choice, Graham wrote.”

“The name Richardson does not sound exactly Latino,” wrote Graham.  “The Latino voting block is becoming the most influential in this election, especially with the immigration and other economic issues confronting our prosperity.  For lack of a better term, he is the Latino Barack Obama with the experience.” 

Why would John F.X. think that encouraging people to vote along racial or ethnic lines is good public policy?  Has he not heard of the former Yugoslavia? 

Finally, John F.X. made his pronouncements while Senator Menendez was the subject of an FBI investigation.  Not that something like that matters when you are making a fashion statement.

Yes, so it seems that InsiderNJ can also be considered an outpost of the far-flung Clinton Empire.  Ahhhh, corruption at its most tasty. 

And it looks as though John F.X. is quite a big deal.  Even Wikileaks picked up loads of correspondence between John F.X. and his fellow Clintonistas.  Here is an example:

As far as the money goes, national contacts and a national reach does have its advantages.  We found dozens of John F.X.’s insurance agency’s outposts around the country.  All making him money – but northern New Jersey and Essex County in particular is his base.  It was reported in Politico (November 24, 2014) that Essex County Democrat Party boss Joe DiVincenzo’s son worked for John F.X.’s insurance agency.  He also held a full-time public job as well. 

So it was no surprise that the most corrupt political machine in the state – the Essex County Democrats – inducted John F.X. into their “Hall of Fame” in March of 2015.  InsiderNJ editor, Max Pizarro wrote the panegyric, which we suppose was less messy than the alternative. 

Now can we ask this again?  What are these people doing handing out the rankings on New Jersey journalists?  Shouldn’t some organization, like the Society of Professional Journalists, be doing it?  Or the Columbia School of Journalism?  Or anything but the god-damned grease machine itself!

Ten years ago, the authors of The Soprano State – two old-school investigative journalists – joined with journalists like Josh Margolin to decry the corruption tax that added to the cost paid by New Jersey taxpayers on everything to do with government.  Could they have guessed that, ten years later, not only would the tax be more imbedded and less transparent, but that the very news agencies responsible for exposing and reporting on it would now be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the same grease machine responsible for the corruption?

New Jersey… you can’t make this stuff up.

Malinowski and Kim embrace the dangerous Left

There’s a group called BlueWave.  It comes out of one of the most radical places in America… Amherst, Massachusetts… a far-left academic enclave where they fly the flag of the United Nations over their town hall.  Yep, they are “citizens of the world” not the United States of America.

In New Jersey, BlueWave is organized out of Montclair in Essex County.  That’s right, Montclair – a town that gave Barack Obama 83 percent of its votes.  Where Hillary Clinton got 18,000 votes to Donald Trump’s 2,300.  Does this sound like your town?

The deal with BlueWave is that they send people from places like Montclair – into communities like yours.  They go door-to-door and raise money to bring their vision of how the world should be to you… and you better accept it!

Now BlueWave is raising money for Tom Malinowski and Andy Kim – two career bureaucrats who were so imbued with leftist “government-knows-best” ideology that rather than give the newly elected President the benefit-of-the-doubt, they quit government to join Leftist groups to undermine his administration.  Wow, refusing to accept the outcome of a democratic election, and then working to undermine the government you work for, is kind of like…

Well, tonight BlueWave is hosting an event for Malinowski and Kim – two bureaucrats whose tenure in government so screwed the American people that they reacted by electing Donald Trump.  And to place an exclamation point on just how dangerously far-Left they are, they’ve invited in Senator Elizabeth Warren… who represents Amherst, Massachusetts. 

Senator Warren is an academic and the sponsor or supporter of a number of far-Left initiatives that obviously Tom Malinowski and Andy Kim stand for as well.  These include…

1.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands for the abolition of ICE;

2.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands for higher taxes;

3.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands for government, run single-payer healthcare;

4.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands for extreme partisanship;

5.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands for increased job-killing regulations;

6.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands against Israel;

7.     Warren, Malinowski, and Kim stands against free trade.

Tom Malinowski needs to quit lying to his donors.

Tom Malinowski needs to quit lying.

We all understand that he needs money.  Every candidate does.  But to use the confirmation of a United States Supreme Court Justice to get it is an injustice to his donors.  One of them was so pissed-off that he sent us the Malinowski campaign’s latest fundraising plea… the one in which he pretends that (1) the next Supreme Court nominee will be confirmed after the next Congress is seated in January 2019, and (2) that the United States House of Representatives has something to do with confirming Justices of the Supreme Court.

Hey Tommy, did you fail to pay attention to that lesson in your high school civics class?  The United States Senate, not the House of Representatives, confirms Justices of the Supreme Court.  Maybe you think you are running for a different office?

And here is another lie by Tom Malinowski… or his campaign (or both)…

“Big Money has been chipping away at the integrity of our elections at a breakneck pace since Supreme Court Justice Kennedy authored the decision on Citizens United. We risk an even bigger hit with Trump’s Supreme Court justice pick, Brett Kavanaugh… We can’t allow another Big Money justice get to the Supreme Court.”

Hey, it didn’t begin with Citizens United and Princeton University proved that!

In fact, every good-government group knows that the problem started decades before Citizens United.  They also know that BOTH political parties are funded by special interests looking out for number one. 

Tom Malinowski’s old boss – Hillary Rodham Clinton, Incorporated – could teach a master class at how to make government work for NUMBER ONE.  And like so many Democrats, she tried to play the game of saying she wasn’t taking money from corporate PACs, while taking millions from corporate leadership and lobbyists.  Even the Left called her out on it…

So quit the b.s. Tommy… nobody is more BIG MONEY than your old boss Hillary Clinton.  Stop spreading the fantasy that ending Citizens United is all that needs to be done.  That is a lie.  Tell us the truth about what YOU intend to do about ending BIG MONEY’s chokehold on Congress… and don’t raise money by inferring you will vote against Brett Kavanaugh.  Sheesh.

The return of Dave Fanale and the anti-police wing of the GOP

We all remember the sorry episode of Dave Fanale.  He was an up-and-coming Sussex County politician in the orbit of Freeholder boss George Graham.  He was elected to the GOP county committee and to the Franklin Borough Council.  Some had him marked for bigger and better things.

And then it all started to come unraveled.  It turned out that Fanale didn't like law enforcement very much.  He had a problem with cops and started posting weird stuff on Facebook in this regard...

Yep, GOP Councilman Fanale posted a cartoon of a kid pissing on the thin blue line (representing the police) while giving them the finger.  The cartoon above was just one shot in a series of verbal and written attacks on the police.  Councilman Fanale's anti-police campaign got particularly disturbing, as it stretched on for months.

There was a huge backlash amongst the conservative, pro-police residents of Franklin... and Dave Fanale quit the Council.  For a time, Fanale moved in with Freeholder Jonathan Rose, another member of Freeholder boss George Graham's entourage. 

And now he's back. 

Among those present at Freeholder Jonathan Rose's fundraiser last month, was former Franklin Councilman Dave Fanale... the same controversial figure who resigned from the Council after leading his anti-police campaign.  Freeholder Rose shares a somewhat libertarian political philosophy with Fanale and the former Franklin Councilman is pushing for his re-election. 

At the same fundraising event for Freeholder Rose, attended by former Councilman Fanale, Rose formally threw his support to John McCann, formerly of the Democrat Bergen County Sheriff's office, and now a GOP candidate for Congress. 

Yes, that's Sheriff Michael Saudino -- the Bergen County Sheriff who was elected as a Republican, then switched to Democrat in order to destroy the Republican Party in that county, and then who ran for re-election on a ticket with Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer. 

The Bergen Record has identified McCann as the "right hand man" to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino.  It was Saudino's feud with the Republican County Executive that undermined and ultimately lost Republicans control of Bergen County.  The coup de grace came when Saudino, a one-time Republican, joined Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer on a ticket that crushed Republicans in Bergen County. 

John McCann remained Sheriff Saudino's consigliore through it all and ran for Congress (as a Republican) with Saudino's blessing and while still on the Democrat's payroll.  Sheriff Saudino has formally endorsed fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer for re-election this year. 

The media has recently reported on 22 Bergen County police officers who claimed they were wrongly terminated or mistreated.  In a class action suit, the officers accuse Sheriff Saudino of demoting or firing qualified officers out of spite or for political retaliation.  Saudino, who supported Gottheimer for his stance on LGBT issues, is accused of allowing the "despicable and dehumanizing treatment" of a gay police officer.

A federal lawsuit filed last year contains the personal testimony of dozens of veteran law enforcement officers who fell victim to a power play by the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  Here are a few of their stories:

"In 2014 my wife and I decided to have our 2nd child even though there were talks of merging The Bergen County Police with the Sheriff's Department.  we both agreed that we could afford to make this life changing decision based on the fact that the merger specifically stated there would be no layoffs, and no decrease in pay.

We had purchased a smaller home, which needed improvements... We are not going to be able to make these improvements or expand our home due to the impending layoff or pay decrease.  In fact we may lose our home if these changes take place.

My wife and I were discussing the possibility of having a third child as recently as February of this year.  However this will not happen now because of these layoffs."

***

"In 2015, I got engaged.  In 2016, I got married and purchased a home.  In 2017, I welcomed another child into my family... I have a wife and two children, ages 6 and 3 months.  Now with the threat of a potential layoff, not only will my life be affected, but my family will be negatively affected as well."

***

"I have been employed by Bergen County as a Police Officer since July, 2004.  I have recently re-financed my 30 year mortgage to a 15 year mortgage due to the promise that the Sheriff, County Executive, and Freeholder Board made that my job was safe when they merged us.  I am also the caregiver to my elderly parents... If I am demoted, I will not be able to afford the extra payments that a 15 year mortgage brings as well as care for my parents in a way that they deserve."

***

"I can personally say the moral and pride I had as a County Police Officer has been stripped away and this entire process has affected me personally.  I never knew what it was like to go to work and be unhappy.  I've always loved my career and the organization I worked for.  There are often times I get sick to my stomach thinking of how the politicians have destroyed this place and everything it represented.  My mind is consumed with thoughts of whether or not I will be able to retire..."

***

"I am a single father of two children.  I have full custody of my children... I had financial plans in place to send my oldest daughter who is currently in high school to attend specific colleges she had picked out.  With this demotion I will no longer be able to pay for my daughter's college education..."

***

"In August of 1996 I joined what I believed was a dedicated profession and well known department... I joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1982... I was activated in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm... I retired with 20 years of service in 2003.

...I have made many life choices on the promises and assurance my family and I would be able to live without the threat of losing our home or not being able to afford the basic simple lifestyle we have had in our lives.  Upon the assurance of the County of Bergen, the politicians and the Bergen County Sheriff my family committed to providing an education for my son that now involves the payment of an incredible amount of education loans."

***

"I am currently a Police Officer with the Bergen County Sheriff's Department... I am also a United States Disabled Combat Veteran.  I served four and a half years with the 82nd Airborne Division, with a fifteen-month deployment to Iraq as an Infantryman... With the promise of job security, I continued my life as any other reasonable person would have.  I recently purchased a home and have plans to marry my longtime girlfriend, whom this layoff also affects tremendously..."

***

Rose-Fanale-McCann... It's amazing how these people found each other.  That you have, in the same room and supporting the same candidate, an avowed cop-hater and the guy who destroyed Bergen County's police department.  Small world.

Is Democrat Andy Kim "embellishing" his resume?

Recently, our friends at the Burlington County Times caught this flowing out of the mouth of Democrat congressional candidate Andy Kim...

“I feel like I have a track record for this,” Kim said Tuesday during a roundtable meeting with supporters in Moorestown. ”(The MacArthur campaign) calls me a partisan hack, but I was a career public servant. I served under Republican and Democratic administrations. 

Well... No.

Andy Kim is a career ideological activist.

Kim was a career college student and far-left community organizer pushing for some genuinely screwed up legislation before he got a job with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2005.

Kim wrote that the reason he wanted the USAID job was to "help shape the path that I take and will help me to decide what graduate school track and career path I would like to take."

Those are his words, from his USAID application.  That wasn't his career so much as an extension of his endless summer of college employment.  Kim's own LinkedIn page reports that he quit the USAID job after less than a year so that he could go back to school for five years and continue that long quest of self-discovery.  For Kim, that meant going abroad... to England.

It must be nice.

And when Andy Kim emerged to start his career, it was as an ideological warrior in the regime of Democrat President Barack Obama.  Andy Kim served the Obama administration the whole of his career in government. 

When that administration ended and Hillary Clinton's candidacy for President was rejected, Andy Kim did exactly what you would expect a committed ideological radical to do -- he formed a radical far-left group to "resist" the incoming Republican administration.

That isn't being a career public servant.  That's called being a committed ideological radical.

Hey, whatever floats your boat, Andy... but don't play like you were ever a Republican.

On gun-control, McCann tries to have it both ways.

When phonies want to appear as though they support the Second Amendment, they have a nice photograph taken of themselves with a firearm of some kind.  So following in the footsteps of John Kerry and Barack Obama, candidate John McCann posted a photo of himself playing with a gun.

(FYI:  Gilson works for McCann.  One lies, the other swears by it.)

All this play-acting aside, when John McCann was asked to fill out a questionnaire that would put in writing where he stood on the issues affecting the Second Amendment, hunting, school safety, and such -- McCann refused.  He will show up and spew some b.s. (so long as he isn't video-recorded) and take a picture, but he won't put in writing where he stands.

McCann dissed the NRA when they asked him to step up and tell them where he stood on the issues of importance to their members.  McCann wants it both ways.  He wants NRA votes and Brady Campaign votes.  That's dishonest.

Typical lawyer?  Well, there are good, pro-Second Amendment attorneys out there, so we think it is more a case of typical urban political machine lawyer.

Candidate John McCann served as the right-hand-man to the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County (according to the Bergen Record).  He's the guy who switched Bergen County from GOP red to Democrat blue.  In 2016, the Sheriff ran on a ticket headed by Democrats Hillary Clinton for President and Josh Gottheimer for Congress.  John McCann worked for the Democrat then, celebrated that victory with his boss, and continued to work for the Democrat until late last year, when he departed to run for Congress as a Republican.

Why would McCann do such a thing?  He had 167,000 reasons a year plus benefits.  That was reason enough for McCann.

John McCann has been in bed with Democrats for years.  A case in point is John McCann's sneaky little way of getting contributions to Democrat candidates.  Take this example from Passaic County.

McCann's wife used her maiden name and her office address in New York City to slip $1,000.00 to a Democrat running in Wayne Township.  Here is a copy of the report, filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC):

SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR VIEW

John McCann is a phony -- a b.s. artist.  He is supported by corrupt convicts and thug life.  Politics is worse for his presence on a ballot.

What kind of "enterprise" is Gottheimer really about?

"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Lenin, aka Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870 - 1924), Founder of the Soviet Union

The corporate lobby has always been transactional.  They will place short term profits ahead of long term goals every time. 

It is important to remember that the corporate community isn't "conservative" in any recognizable way.  Corporations exist to make a profit and to expand market share to make more profit.  They naturally seek a monopoly and, to that end, employ thousands of lobbyists and expend billions of dollars to subvert the free market and hobble competition.  Their monument is the crony-capitalist state.

American corporations have done more than New Left Marxism to undermine traditional values and deference paid to the religious and cultural institutions of the West.  These corporations were far more effective because they put massive resources behind this transformation.  Money does change everything.  So it was out with the church and in with the mall as the center of human life.  Instead of a community with a common culture, we had atomized consumers -- the easier to (endlessly) market to.

The corporate community isn't even American in outlook, but rather it is globalist and acts accordingly.  The international trade deals favored by the corporate community have brought Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters together, have united main street business with organized labor. 

Organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have promoted outsourcing of jobs to countries overseas and the illegal immigration policies that suppress wages and drive-up unemployment here at home.  And they've backed bailouts for Wall Street while recommending foreclosures for the rest of us.  They get the property tax breaks in places like Jersey City -- and everybody else just keeps on paying more.

On the U.S. Chamber's website there is an entire globalist agenda with sections on "international affairs", "international agenda", "international policy", "global initiatives", "global regulatory cooperation", "Africa", the "Americas", "Asia", "Eurasia", "Europe", the "Middle East and Turkey", and "India".  But there is no section on the American worker.  Nowhere is he or she listed.  Nowhere.

All this came to mind the other day, when Democrat Congressman Josh Gottheimer scored the U.S. Chamber's "Spirit of Enterprise Award" -- something bestowed each year on whatever lackey in Congress happens to be advancing the globalist agenda in a way that attracts attention.  As an expert in public relations, Josh Gottheimer has the inside track on such things.  He knows the ropes.

How?  Well, before getting elected to Congress in 2016, Josh Gottheimer followed his buddy Mark Penn, the Clintons' polling guy, to take over an international public relations/lobbying corporation called Burson-Marsteller.  These folks are a real piece of work. 

Hey, don't take our word for it.  Here's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had to say about the firm where Josh Gottheimer held the number two position as International Vice President (his buddy Mark Penn was International President):

Yep, Josh Gottheimer and his pal Mark Penn ran the "PR Firm from Hell"!  And now you know what kind of "enterprise" the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is talking about.

Trump fired speaker for McCann event

Why is candidate John McCann rummaging through the detritus of the Trump administration to find supporters?  And can he really argue that being endorsed by someone who was fired by Trump makes him more of a Trump supporter?

Apparently, McCann thinks so.  On the same day that President Trump fired his Secretary of State, the McCann campaign announced that it was bringing in a former White House foreign policy appointee who was also fired by Trump. 

The guy's name is Gorka.  No, not that Gorka.  He's cool.  You can catch his act here...

No, McCann's Gorka was linked to some weird groups,  like the  Hungarian Guard, a paramilitary group described by various sources as "neo-fascist".

And on August 25, 2017, President Trump had enough of McCann's guy's bullshit and his White House tenure ended, one week after Steve Bannon's departure.  Of course, McCann's guy stated that he had resigned because White House officials were "undermining" the Make America Great Again platform, but the White House disputed his claim that he resigned and confirmed he was no longer employed there and did not have further access to the White House grounds.  Yep, it certainly sounds like Trump canned him.

But it's typical of "Stumbling John" McCann and his campaign to think that bringing in a guy who was fired by Trump will get you support from Trump voters.   Of course, someone like McCann has to work real hard to act like he's a Republican, because he was working for Bergen County's Democrat Sheriff just last year.

McCann pocketed $167,000.00 a year to work for the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  McCann held this patronage appointment because he had helped the Democrat Sheriff turn Bergen County into a one-party county belonging to the Democrat Party.

The Democrat Sheriff that John McCann worked for ran for re-election in 2016 on a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton for President and Josh Gottheimer for Congress. So now we know where John McCann is coming from.

McCann brings in speaker fired by Trump

"Stumbling John" McCann has done it again.  On the same day that President Trump fires his Secretary of State, the McCann campaign announced that it was bringing in a former White House appointee who was also fired by Trump. 

That's right.  On August 25, 2017, McCann's guy's White House tenure ended, one week after Steve Bannon's departure.  McCann's guy stated that he had resigned because White House officials were "undermining" the Make America Great Again platform, but the White House disputed his claim that he resigned and confirmed he was no longer employed there and did not have further access to the White House grounds.  Sounds like Trump canned him.

But it's typical of "Stumbling John" McCann and his campaign to think that bringing in a guy who was fired by Trump will get you support from Trump voters.   Of course, someone like McCann has to work real hard to act like he's a Republican, because he was working for Bergen County's Democrat Sheriff just last year.

McCann pocketed $167,000.00 a year to work for the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  McCann held this patronage appointment because he had helped the Democrat Sheriff turn Bergen County into a one-party county belonging to the Democrat Party.

The Democrat Sheriff that John McCann worked for ran for re-election in 2016 on a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton for President and Josh Gottheimer for Congress.  So now we know where John McCann is coming from.

Selling out: Media's decline from Al Doblin to Jonathan Salant

New Jersey's establishment media -- its editors and reporters -- are in a freefall and have lost their sense of decency.  Job security is such that they have all become free agents, writing articles to please prospective employers. 

So we have Star-Ledger Editor Tom Moran performing a masochistic panegyric to please Democrat machine boss George Norcross.  Over at the Bergen Record, that newspaper's editor was turning out pro-Democrat columns non-stop while engaging in backdoor negotiations with Senate President Steve Sweeney's office.  A few years ago, boss Norcross tried to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer, now his machine is getting all the talent on the cheap.

The NJGOP's answer to this was predictably self-defeating.  It's idea of a GOP counterbalance to the growing Democrat hegemony over media was to bring back Bridgegate mastermind David "Wally Edge" Wildstein, possibly the only person more hated in New Jersey than his old boss, Chris Christie.  To fund Wildstein's operation they found former Jamestown alumnus Ken Kurson.  It was Kurson who ran such memorable efforts as incumbent Marcia Karrow's loss to Mike Doherty in 2009 and incumbent Jeff Parrott's loss to Parker Space in 2010.  But losing has never been a bar to advancement in the NJGOP.  In fact, it generally is an asset.

Yep, Kurson has been accused of sexual harassment by writer and cancer-survivor Deborah Copaken.  This comes at a time when Kurson's old firm is trying to convince the women of New Jersey that the NJGOP's choice for U.S. Senate -- Bob Hugin -- is a new kind of man, when it comes to women (whatever that is supposed to mean).  You can read about what Kurson gets up to here: 

https://www.mediaite.com/online/author-deborah-copaken-accuses-ex-observer-editor-ken-kurson-of-sexual-harassment-in-powerful-op-ed/

It was Wildstein who outted Al Doblin as the ethical-free-zone he is.  Doblin plainly hated the kind of attention he's bestowed on others his entire working life.  In a series of whines, he complained to Wildstein:

“I am the editorial page editor.  If someone makes me an offer, I have the right to consider it,” Doblin explained.

Doblin called a request for information regarding his employment search “truly horrific.”

“This is unfair.  Truly unfair,” he said.

But Doblin is not the worst of the bunch.  That "honor" must surely go to Jonathan "short-ass" Salant, a reporter worthy of his own Duranty Prize for consistent blindness to all but the party-line.  In case you've forgotten Walter "the hand" Duranty.  He's the assbandit who denied that Stalin was starving to death millions of human beings in the Ukraine and elsewhere in what was once called the "Soviet Union".  He even won a Pulitzer Prize for it. 

Duranty wrote for the New York Times, which later was forced to admit that his articles denying the famine constituted "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."  There have been calls to revoke his Pulitzer, but you know how tough it is to get elitist filth to admit they made a mistake.  So Duranty's award -- for 1930's era Fake News -- still stands.  And so much for journalism.

Salant's latest dry-humping of the news came a few weeks back, when he attempted to write an update of the various congressional races in New Jersey. 

He started off by being childishly giddy about Republican Leonard Lance's district having gone for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while failing to mention that Democrat Josh Gottheimer's had done the same for Trump that year.

Salant never fails to describe a Republican donor negatively, offering bits of color, always dark.  On the other hand, old short-ass describes such creatures as George Soros in this light:  "Malinowski (received a donation of) $5,400 from investor George Soros, a major Democratic donor."

Investor?  A major Democratic donor??  How about convicted financial scammer who liberal economists have criticized for his callous manipulations of currency? 

Perhaps Salant is displaying his talents for the consideration of one of the many Soros media organs?  That seems to be the way these days.

In writing about the fifth district, Jonathan Salant somehow missed the fact that a third Republican, Jason Sarnosky, had dropped out of the race weeks before.  He wrote about him as if he were still campaigning. 

He went on to cover the race in southern New Jersey's first district.  And once again, Salant behaved like he was on a job interview.  He never once mentioned the machine that bears the Congressman's name and wrote as if it didn't exist.

Not to place Donald Norcross in the context of the machine of which he is a part is misleading and unethical.  It promotes bad government by purposefully covering up the truth and it gives aid and comfort to one of the most authoritarian political machines in America.  Don't want to see it, Jonathan?  Well just try being an ordinary citizen when the machine decides it wants to use eminent domain to take your property in order to give it to one of their corporate friends.  That's what you are shilling for.

The southern region of New Jersey is an example of a dominant-party system or one-party dominant system of government.  According to South African political scientist Raymond Suttner, such a system occurs when there is "a category of parties/political organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future".  It is a de facto one-party system, often devolving into a de jure one-party system, a semi-democracy. Usually, the dominant party has a tendency towards "suppressing freedom of expression and manipulating the press in favor of the ruling party." 

Well, short-ass, that is who you are shilling for.  That is who you are now.  All those romantic post-Watergate notions about doing right... well you're over that, right?  Expensive restaurants and sexy vacations got the better of you, didn't they?

Sell-out.

McCann trashed law enforcement officers. Read their stories.

The Bergen Record has identified McCann as the "right hand man" to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino.  It was Saudino's feud with the Republican County Executive that undermined and ultimately lost Republicans control of Bergen County.  The coup de grace came when Saudino, a one-time Republican, joined Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer on a ticket that crushed Republicans in Bergen County. 

John McCann remained Sheriff Saudino's consigliore through all of this and ran for Congress (as a Republican) with Saudino's blessing and while still on the Democrat's payroll.  Sheriff Saudino has formally endorsed fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer for re-election this year. 

The media has recently reported on 22 Bergen County officers who claimed they were wrongly terminated or mistreated.  In a class action suit, the officers accuse Sheriff Saudino of demoting or firing qualified officers out of spite or for political retaliation.  Saudino, who supported Gottheimer for his stance on LGBT issues, is accused of allowing the "despicable and dehumanizing treatment" of a gay police officer.

A federal lawsuit filed last year contains the personal testimony of dozens of veteran law enforcement officers who fell victim to a power play by the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  Here are a few of their stories:

"In 2014 my wife and I decided to have our 2nd child even though there were talks of merging The Bergen County Police with the Sheriff's Department.  we both agreed that we could afford to make this life changing decision based on the fact that the merger specifically stated there would be no layoffs, and no decrease in pay.

We had purchased a smaller home, which needed improvements... We are not going to be able to make these improvements or expand our home due to the impending layoff or pay decrease.  In fact we may lose our home if these changes take place.

My wife and I were discussing the possibility of having a third child as recently as February of this year.  However this will not happen now because of these layoffs."

***

"In 2015, I got engaged.  In 2016, I got married and purchased a home.  In 2017, I welcomed another child into my family... I have a wife and two children, ages 6 and 3 months.  Now with the threat of a potential layoff, not only will my life be affected, but my family will be negatively affected as well."

***

"I have been employed by Bergen County as a Police Officer since July, 2004.  I have recently re-financed my 30 year mortgage to a 15 year mortgage due to the promise that the Sheriff, County Executive, and Freeholder Board made that my job was safe when they merged us.  I am also the caregiver to my elderly parents... If I am demoted, I will not be able to afford the extra payments that a 15 year mortgage brings as well as care for my parents in a way that they deserve."

***

"I can personally say the moral and pride I had as a County Police Officer has been stripped away and this entire process has affected me personally.  I never knew what it was like to go to work and be unhappy.  I've always loved my career and the organization I worked for.  There are often times I get sick to my stomach thinking of how the politicians have destroyed this place and everything it represented.  My mind is consumed with thoughts of whether or not I will be able to retire..."

***

"I am a single father of two children.  I have full custody of my children... I had financial plans in place to send my oldest daughter who is currently in high school to attend specific colleges she had picked out.  With this demotion I will no longer be able to pay for my daughter's college education..."

***

"In August of 1996 I joined what I believed was a dedicated profession and well known department... I joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1982... I was activated in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm... I retired with 20 years of service in 2003.

...I have made many life choices on the promises and assurance my family and I would be able to live without the threat of losing our home or not being able to afford the basic simple lifestyle we have had in our lives.  Upon the assurance of the County of Bergen, the politicians and the Bergen County Sheriff my family committed to providing an education for my son that now involves the payment of an incredible amount of education loans."

***

"I am currently a Police Officer with the Bergen County Sheriff's Department... I am also a United States Disabled Combat Veteran.  I served four and a half years with the 82nd Airborne Division, with a fifteen-month deployment to Iraq as an Infantryman... With the promise of job security, I continued my life as any other reasonable person would have.  I recently purchased a home and have plans to marry my longtime girlfriend, whom this layoff also affects tremendously..."

***

It's no wonder then that candidate John McCann is so agitated by questions regarding the cummulation of power by Democrat politicians (and the concurrent loss of power of local elected Republicans).

Lonegan: GOPers who push "moderation" while cutting deals with Dems are an existential threat to our party.

An important and timely message from the father of New Jersey's conservative movement:

Fellow Republicans,

You all know me.

No matter what you think of me, you all know where I stand on the issues. Some of you might accuse me of being too unwavering, unwilling to compromise, but nobody has ever doubted where I'm coming from.

As we watch the Christie era in the rear-view mirror, we need to decide on what kind of party we intend to be. We need to chart a course for the road ahead.

That's very easy for someone like me. The course is free market conservatism, defending freedom at home, and our interests abroad. It is the message of our Republican Party Platform. Simple enough. If you call yourself a Republican, you should value Republican principles.

Unfortunately, that is not who is leading the Republican Party in Bergen County these days. There are too many who look to cut deals with the Democrats -- and not for idealistic policy aims -- but for their personal benefit. Their vision of the Republican Party is a defeatist one, where they seek to benefit from the crumbs swept from the Democrat table. The policies they advocate consist of slavishly mimicking a watered down version of the Democrats' own post-Western, post-Christian, anti-Freedom agenda.

You've probably heard it around the county, and around the state, that a conservative cannot win -- anything. The fact is that the only Republican to win statewide office in over twenty years was both Pro-Life and Pro-Second Amendment. The fact is that those Republicans who get the most votes in New Jersey are consistently the most conservative. The liberal wannabe Republicans can't turnout their base and those they want to convince have someone better to vote for -- a Democrat.

This "moderate" nonsense is like a religion with some of our so-called "leaders" -- those who practice the Janus-faced religion of being all things to all voters. Even though every study and every poll shows that they will not convince a Democrat to vote Republican in this starkly divisive climate, they hold true to the faith that turning-off a dozen conservatives is worth every liberal vote they pick-up.

The way forward is clear for 2018: Maximum Republican and conservative turnout. A full effort.

Of course, there are some within our party who are working against this. Some who are personally enmeshed with the Democrats. It's happening in other parts of the state as well. Democrats are playing in our primary. In every congressional battleground in the state, there is a former Democrat running as a Republican or a liberal Republican with Democrat-ties claiming to be a conservative. Every one.

They are there for one reason: To make us spend money so we won't have it to hit the Democrats in the General Election. Here in Bergen County, I am facing an opponent who was described by the Bergen Record as the "right hand man" to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino. Let's not forget that it was Saudino's feud with the Republican County Executive that lost us control of our county. Saudino, followed that up by joining Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer on a ticket that crushed the BCRO. Through it all, my opponent remained employed by Sheriff Saudino, as his trusted consigliore, and actually started his campaign while still on the Democrat's payroll.

Now we all know where Sheriff Saudino stands on this election. He's backing fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer for re-election this year. So are Mayors Harry Shortway of Vernon and Harry Shortway of Midland Park. They held an event for my opponent at their family bar in Passaic County. Did you follow that? They are endorsing Democrat Josh Gottheimer in the General Election but held an event to help my opponent in the Republican primary. Meanwhile, in a neighboring district, the insider-backed "Republican" candidate wouldn't tell a room full of Republicans how he voted for President in 2008 (Obama vs. McCain), 2012 (Obama vs. Romney), or 2016 (Clinton vs. Trump). And like my opponent, this fellow seems to be allergic to voting in a Republican primary.

Our party faces an existential threat from those who cut deals with Democrats and then preach the religion of "moderation" while pushing fake Republican candidates on us. We must resist them, whether they are well-meaning and stupid or slick and treacherous. It is time to use the Republican Party Platform and our conservative principles as the measure by which we judge our candidates. If some of our so-called "leaders" don't like that platform or our principles, they are free to leave the party and start their own. I, for one, am sick and tired of being dictated to by a small group of professional political "leaders" who are totally out of touch with the thoughts and views of most Republicans. It is time for them to go.

A party that knows what it is about, is a party that can convince people to get involved, contribute, and win. This holds true up and down our ticket. The message of lower taxes, less government, and individual freedom is a winning one. The Democrats' warmed-over socialism, leavened with coarse identity politics has, in the end, always lost.

Thank you for your time and I hope I will have your support to secure our primary in June and defeat the Democrats in November. If you have any insights you would like to share with me, please feel free to send me an email at steve@lonegan.com.

Thank you,
Steve Lonegan

McCann skips GOP primaries but works for Democrats

Every Republican with a pulse knows what happens in a primary.  Two or more candidates duke it out -- sometimes it gets downright nasty -- but after the votes are counted and the dust clears, all sides get together behind the winner of the Republican primary and go and beat up the Democrat and win the election in November. 

That's how it was in 2016, when a lot of good conservatives worked for presidential candidates like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie, among others.  They fought for their candidates and against Donald Trump, but then got behind Donald Trump once he became the Republican nominee at the convention. 

Some Republicans, like Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, said that they couldn't support Donald Trump for President.  But at least they didn't support the Democrat ticket led by Hillary Clinton.   Later, Guadagno would be forgiven by many Republicans, including Mayor Carlos Rendo, who agreed to serve on her ticket in last year's gubernatorial race.

A very few Republicans, like candidate John McCann, continued to serve their Democrat paymasters (in McCann's case, Bergen Sheriff Michael Saudino) while Saudino was running for re-election as a Democrat on Hillary Clinton's ticket.  In our view, this is unconscionable.  Any Republican with a spine and worthy of the name should have campaigned against Michael Saudino in 2016.  He shouldn't have been taking a check from him.

But maybe John McCann doesn't understand the primary process too well because he doesn't vote in Republican primaries too often.  If his voting record is correct, McCann has showed up for one Republican primary in the last decade.  That's pretty darn lame.

Many see McCann as a Democrat straw man.  The Bergen Record has identified McCann as the "right hand man" to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino.  It was Saudino's feud with the Republican County Executive that undermined and ultimately lost Republicans control of Bergen County.  The coup de grace came when Saudino, a one-time Republican, joined Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer on a ticket that crushed Republicans in Bergen County.  McCann remained Saudino's consigliore through all of this and ran for Congress (as a Republican) with Saudino's blessing and while still on the Democrat's payroll.

Sheriff Saudino has formally endorsed fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer for re-election this year.  All this meddling in the Republican primary has the Democrats resembling the Russians.

Have a good weekend.

McCann doesn't do primaries but works for Democrats

Every Republican with a pulse knows what happens in a primary.  Two or more candidates duke it out -- sometimes it gets downright nasty -- but after the votes are counted and the dust clears, all sides get together behind the winner of the Republican primary and go and beat up the Democrat and win the election in November. 

That's how it was in 2016, when a lot of good conservatives worked for presidential candidates like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie, among others.  They fought for their candidates and against Donald Trump, but then got behind Donald Trump once he became the Republican nominee at the convention. 

Some Republicans, like Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, said that they couldn't support Donald Trump for President.  But at least they didn't support the Democrat ticket led by Hillary Clinton.   Later, Guadagno would be forgiven by many Republicans, including Mayor Carlos Rendo, who agreed to serve on her ticket in last year's gubernatorial race.

A very few Republicans, like candidate John McCann, continued to serve their Democrat paymasters (in McCann's case, Bergen Sheriff Michael Saudino) while Saudino was running for re-election as a Democrat on Hillary Clinton's ticket.  In our view, this is unconscionable.  Any Republican with a spine and worthy of the name should have campaigned against Michael Saudino in 2016.  He shouldn't have been taking a check from him.

But maybe John McCann doesn't understand the primary process too well because he doesn't vote in Republican primaries too often.  If his voting record is correct, McCann has showed up for one Republican primary in the last decade.  That's pretty darn lame.

For so many reasons, John McCann is a non-starter.  And this being America, we thought that we were free to express our opinion under the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.  Apparently, there are those who believe these rights should be suppressed by political power.  To this end, the first threats have arrived, from elected officials and those who are employed by elected officials.  We will be collecting them, so please, feel free to keep sending them.

Of course, those who wish to suppress us could send along their thoughts and ideas and join in the discussion that is democracy.  We would be happy to publish their thoughts and ideas if, indeed, they have any thoughts and ideas.

Have a good weekend.