LGBT+ allies should monitor calls for violence within their community

By Rubashov

People make more of words than of actions. A councilman in Hopatcong gets a headline in the Star-Ledger for angrily complaining about the $8 million in cuts to children’s education in his town.

Apparently, nobody is interested enough to take the man behind the most recent cuts – Governor Phil Murphy – to task. Cuts to education are simply accepted, even though they represent an historic case of bait-and-switch. Back when the income tax was proposed, voters were promised that if they accepted the income tax, their property taxes would go down. Instead, government promptly reneged on its promise and voters got higher property taxes on top of the new income tax.

So now New Jersey has one of the highest income taxes in America and the nation’s highest property taxes. But that’s not a story. Somebody complaining about it is.

Oh, but they’ll argue, that naughty councilman used “bad” words. Wow. What year is this? We thought America got past its puritan obsession with “bad” language back in the 1960s. Didn’t comedian George Carlin cure us of all that? He’s the funny guy who got up on stage and read out a whole list of “bad” words that you couldn’t say – but he did – and in doing so, broke the taboo. But it looks like the taboo is back.

And speaking of comedians…

Jimmy Dore is a comedian and a Left-wing political activist. Dore was a big supporter of Bernie Sanders for President in 2016 and 2020.

In the aftermath of actor Will Smith’s attack on comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, Dore noted that members of the “trans” and LGBTQ+ “communities” targeted comedian Dave Chappelle in social media statements advocating violence against him. And, of course, we all know that recently such violence actually happened.

Dore points out that some of these social media statements got more than 50,000 “likes” but were not removed – even though they targeted someone with violence. Which is kind of what is happening to some of America’s Supreme Court Justices on the basis of a leaked draft.

Is this what happens when you are so certain that you are right? Is violence – political violence – the child of certainty?

Murphy extremists are fighting to keep control of School Boards

By Rubashov

On Monday, Governor Phil Murphy’s state Democrat machine put out a press release attacking the concept of parents and property taxpayers having a voice in education by running for local school board. Calling it a “troubling trend among candidates running for school boards all over New Jersey” the Chairwoman of the NJ LGBTQ Democrats, Lauren Albrecht, issued the following statement:

“What we’re seeing is a very small but very loud group of individuals who are running for seats on Boards of Education all over New Jersey in a campaign coordinated by, and funded by an extremist and Evangelical agenda, with the singular goal of pushing animosity aimed at LGBTQ+ students and the LGBTQ+ community in general. These candidates, and their backers, have one goal: to fill school boards with fringe extremists whose sole aim is to destroy the progress that’s been made for the LGBTQ community in our state.”

“An extremist and Evangelical agenda”? Is Ms. Albrecht preaching hatred towards specific religious groups? And why does her organization not embrace the “+” in LGBTQ+? Her statement specifically accuses this “extremist and Evangelical agenda” of “the singular goal of pushing animosity aimed at LGBTQ+ students and the LGBTQ+ community in general.” But her group lacks the “+” so, why is that?

Could it be that part of that “+” is “K” for Kink? Is it that Ms. Albrecht understands sado-masochism as a life-style choice, at least for the moment, makes even politically fashionable suburbanites pause? Ms. Albrecht needs to explain just which part of “+” her organization is so uncomfortable with.

This attack by Governor Murphy’s NJ LGBTQ Democrats could be in response to the success of a group, formed by Pastor Phil Rizzo last year, which successfully fulfilled its mission under the leadership of Lafayette school board president Josh Aikens this year. The group, AriseNJ, has recruited more than 400 candidates statewide – representing both major parties, some belonging to no party or third parties – who are bracketed and running together in over 100 school districts.

AriseNJ helps people to run for school board who believe in parental and taxpayer control over education, who embrace the Bill of Rights, and who oppose Trenton authoritarianism in the form of unfunded mandates and curriculum diktats. That is not “extremist” but rather the very idea of democracy for which the Democratic Party is named.

As Ms. Albrecht knows, the Democrat Party has non-profit groups set-up to train and run candidates for school board. They understand the existential importance of this level of government. Unfortunately, the Republican Party does not.

Contrary to Ms. Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats’ assertion that the parents and property taxpayers who now want a say in their children’s education are “well-funded” – the NJGOP is not helping them at all. Quite the opposite.

The Chairman of the NJGOP, Bob Hugin, appears to favor funding a very different agenda. The former Big Pharma executive has busied himself with changing the face of the GOP. Since his 2018 campaign, Hugin appears to have more deeply embraced identity politics.

For example, an independent expenditure committee controlled by Hugin called Women for a Stronger New Jersey spent around $30,000 on direct mail, text-messaging, robo-calls, and social media in an attempt to defeat a conservative State Committeewoman in Mercer County and replace her with what would have been the first transgender State Committeewoman to represent the GOP. The effort ultimately failed, but one can only ask why such resources – scarce in the best of times – would be wasted on such a silly primary, for such a silly cause. $30,000 would be better used to defeat Democrats – or to fund parents and property taxpayers who want a say in their children’s education.

Lauren Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats are pushing for an agenda that interferes with the traditional role of parents – teaching their children how to negotiate their sexuality in the world – and with the traditional role of consumers – the right to choose which product they pay for. Property taxpayers are consumers. They pay for a product. They shouldn’t be forced to pay for a product they don’t like. Not without a way of exercising their right to petition the governing body. No consumer should. Democrats once understood that. Liberals – true liberals – still do.

But liberals are few and far between in the Democrat Party of today. Even Leftists – honest Leftists who don’t buy into the security state or the permanent war machine or bailouts that help Wall Street infinitely more than Main Street or executive orders that throw you out of a job but don’t make sure you have a means to pay for health care – Leftists like that don’t inhabit the Democrat Party. Instead you have Wall Street operators like Phil Murphy and government authoritarians like… also Phil Murphy. That’s your Democrat Party today, which is why they need Trump so much as a hate object to unite them.

Apparently without considering the institutions that founded education in America, Albrecht writes: “These candidates no more belong on Boards of Education than religion belongs in our public schools.”

So, is that the position of the New Jersey Democrats under Phil Murphy? If you believe in God or some form of higher consciousness or even possess a spiritually informed conscience of your own, you have no place on a school board? Do they really believe that education belongs only to those who make money from it? To greed alone? To the education establishment, the fat-paid administrators, the insider vendors (like Garden State Equality), and to all those politically-connected who trouser the green from the grease machine? Everybody else shut-up and just keep paying?

Even more disturbing, given recent moves by the National School Boards Association and the Biden administration to criminalize speech at school board meetings, is this weird threat from Lauren Albrecht and the NJ LGBTQ Democrats:

“It’s time for our community and allies to identify and expose these extremist candidates (and their backers) who are exploiting this fraught moment for their own brazen political gain with little regard for the support, safety, and academic achievement of New Jersey public school students. It’s time to send a clear message at the polls that again, hate has no home in New Jersey.”

Lauren Albrecht proves Hank Bukowski right again: “The best at hate are those who preach love.”

Here Tucker Carlson exposes the Biden agenda for restricting the right of parents and property taxpayers to petition the governing school boards that tax them:

Will the Biden administration criminalize speech at school board meetings and use the Patriot Act against those who petition a governing body?

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
George Orwell

Gubernatorial Debate: Murphy laughs about violence against women.

By Rubashov

There is a disturbing intensity about Phil Murphy -- and it’s something his campaign team evidently approves of and draws upon. In his recent attack ad on GOP opponent Jack Ciattarelli, his team selected a clip of a wildly gesticulating Murphy waving his arms up and down in the manner Fidel Castro. Disturbed as much as it is disturbing?

At last evening’s debate, Phil Murphy didn’t appear to listen to or consider the questions posed to him. At no point could you catch the wheels turning in the back of his brain somewhere. Instead, Murphy rabbited back his replies with all the thoughtfulness of a child repeating his catechism. Murphy exists not so much in a world of ideas as in one of certainties, which become more certain the more often repeated. This he did, stopping only to relish the “sacredness” of certain words. For example, Murphy genuflects before the phrase “Planned Parenthood” the way another Murphy, a generation or so ago, might have before the phrase “Virgin Mother.”

He seems genuinely beyond discussing anything with. A post-rational politician who is pursuing his own way into “heaven” – trying to be his version of “good” and unable to imagine any other versions. In short, an invincibly intolerant man.

Then there is Phil Murphy’s pride. He seems incapable of apology – even of acknowledging his own humanity. Phil Murphy does nothing wrong. There is no fault he needs to acknowledge. No wrong done that he needs to apologize for. It is always someone else’s fault or responsibility. To disagree with him is existential, to “go backwards” as he tells it. Murphy accuses others of inciting “them against us” divisiveness while he speaks incessantly about people based on the color of their skin or who they have sex with. Did he even once refer to the human whole – to people – as opposed to “black and brown” people or “LGBTQ plus” people or "white" oppressors???

A man, so lacking in original thought, unable to discuss ideas, hangs desperately on to the life preserver of mantra. A strange, distant man – ultimately tragic in his isolation.

That’s why Phil Murphy makes such callous gaffs – like treating the rape of one of his own staffers as if it were a systems flaw to be corrected with the right amount of training or the right number of female appointments (and then patting himself on the back for “getting it right”). His comments concerning the horrendous crimes faced by women realtors – sneering, dismissive, mocking – were particularly telling. Here is Murphy:

“He (Ciattarelli) supports concealed carry… for certain professions like that really dangerous one, realtors…”

The Democrats in the audience hooted very loudly and laughed with Murphy.

Well, Governor (and all your laughing supporters) please consider this video:

Play those screams, Governor. Hear her tell about how she feared she would be raped, Governor. Then tell us, Governor, if this is a laughing matter.

And here are a few headlines for you to consider before your next bout of laughter:

Attacks on Real Estate Agents Are Increasing Every Day
09/09/2019
“In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, 48 real estate professionals died while on the job in 2017.”

The Concerning Rise of Real Estate Agent Attacks
03/02/2019
“Experts on real estate safety agree that the reason so many real estate agents are attacked is because their job requires them to be alone with random members of the public. Unlike customer service jobs that typically include working with coworkers, many real estate agents work alone. They also make scheduled appointments to show homes and advertise when they will be having open houses, so it is easy for a potential attacker to ascertain a real estate agent’s whereabouts.”

Trend of Violence Against Women Real Estate Agents
04/04/2020
“It’s no secret that real estate agents do fear for their personal safety. According to a 2018 Inman survey, 41% of women surveyed said it was a major concern.”

How a Real Estate Agent Survived Attack By Man She Was Showing a Home to
02/12/2015
"And finally I said, we really need to go. So, we started out the door, and I reached down to pick up the lock box. That's when he struck me over the head."

Broker beware: From robbery to assault, realty agents face big risks
12/02/2017
“…in May, while showing a client a vacant property in Avondale, Figueroa heard footsteps and conversation on the second floor. She believes it was a drug deal. All she knows for sure is that a man began running down the stairs toward where she was standing.”

Should Realtors Wear Body Cameras?
03/01/2018
“An Elizabeth City real estate agent found herself in a scary and dangerous situation while showing a rental property this March. A man pretending to be working with a group of investors ended up touching the agent several times and refusing to let her leave the property once he had her inside.”

Are open houses too dangerous to justify?
11/13/2019
“Jen Geisinger was holding an open house alone about a decade ago when she heard what sounded like someone rummaging through the master bathroom’s medicine cabinet…”

The Disturbing Reality of Real Estate Murders
04/15/2019
“According to Psychology Today, real estate professionals face a significant risk when they show homes to strangers. Every meeting with a client means trusting somebody new… Sarah Anne Walker’s body was found in a model home by a couple coming to view it. She’d been beaten, stabbed, bitten, and robbed of her jewelry. Police arrested Kosoul Chanthakoummane for Sarah’s murder thanks to DNA-related discoveries. He’d seemingly been targeting real estate agents he could rob.”

“She’d been beaten, stabbed, bitten, and robbed… and then murdered.”

Imagine if it was someone you knew? A neighbor perhaps? Or a family member?

Still laughing?

This is what happens when a politician stops listening and becomes too certain of his or her own bullshit. Because thinking you are “good” when you are just a fallen human fool like the rest of us is bullshit. It allows you to the laugh at the plight of people who don’t have 24-hour armed security, like Phil Murphy has. Who have to go out and maybe not come back just to put food on the table – something Phil Murphy doesn’t need to worry about.

It comes from an over-abundance of Pride. And a lack of empathy for others who don’t share your good fortune. And a lack of tolerance for those whose perception of the world was shaped differently from yours.

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
Mahatma Gandhi

Goldstein a Democrat first. Supported Eliot Spitzer even after corruption.

By Rubashov

Trenton has a very selective memory. That’s why a blog, run by the “Mastermind” of one of the worst political scandals in memory, can express horror at someone having an opinion not in line with that conjured by Trenton pollsters, and then trot out someone like Steve Goldstein as a corrective.

When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was mired in scandal, the Trenton blog PolitickerNJ (funded by Jared Kushner) trotted out Steve Goldstein to defend the embattled New York Governor. Goldstein lavished praise on Spitzer, reminding readers: “I was Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary in his successful 1998 campaign for New York State Attorney General.” Indeed.

Well, not even the pollsters could save Spitzer. The infamous “Client 9” resigned from office. And despite his Princeton-Harvard background and “Sheriff of Wall Street” reputation (not to mention all that polling) Spitzer could not win a victory and return to public office. Even his wife left him.

Nothing is ever “settled” in politics.

Steve Goldstein is a Democrat operative and the founder of a political lobbying organization called Garden State Equality. GSE has morphed from a group concerned with issues like same-sex marriage into a government vendor that uses political pressure and vendor money to lobby government for even more taxpayer money.

Like so many good ideas that turn into scams, GSE succumbed to mission creep once they achieved the goal of same-sex marriage. The current controversy they’re embroiled in has to do with teaching children a new, unfunded mandate from Trenton, called the LGBTQ+ curriculum. And everyone in New Jersey who pays property taxes is going to foot the bill.

One of the controversies surrounding the new curriculum is how it presents such sensitive issues as anal sex – and to what age groups. Now a clinical presentation, run by a group like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would focus, at least in part, on the spread of specific diseases associated with this manner of sexual activity (not to mention the wear and tear on muscles not particularly designed for the purpose).

Unfortunately, Trenton’s political class handed the job to its allies and campaign underwriters – Garden State Equality. This is the corrupt Trenton Establishment all over, isn’t it? Take a serious issue – turn it into a scam for the boys to make money from.

The central question in this debate is who owns your children. Are they part of a million individual social organisms, called families – or does the government own your kids?

Governor Phil and Tammy Murphy certainly act like government owns your children. They don’t hesitate inserting the government between child and parent on the most sensitive of levels.

New Jersey enjoys a great diversity amongst its millions of families. Whether agnostic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or any of the thousands of permutations possible, it has been the role of each individual family to pass along its moral values and manners, generation to generation. This, above anything else, preserves the idea of diversity.

Phil and Tammy, who had the opportunity to pass on their moral values and manners to their children, now wish to take that opportunity away from you. They want conformity. On that most personal issue of sexuality, they wish to cut out the parent, and to bring in a lobby group looking for a payday – Garden State Equality.

Hey GSE, it is not our fault that you won and did not have the dignity to declare victory and fold your tent. You became addicted to the money and the power. You will never return to the private sector because of this. You will never mind your own business and seek to live and let live. For you there can only be crisis and turmoil and the endless froth of campaigning… because that is how you are paid.

If Phil and Tammy want to cut out the parent, at least they should be prepared to pick up some of the expenses of raising a child.

Government certainly doesn’t pay for your children. From the child poverty and food insecurity figures in New Jersey, we know that government doesn’t care enough to feed them. From the foreclosure figures, we know that government doesn’t care enough to house them. And we damned well know that government doesn’t give a hang about ensuring they have adequate health care.

So, we suggest a compromise. If government wants to cut out the parents and impart its moral values and manners to the next generation – then government owes the parents of that next generation a tax cut to cover the raising of that generation. The government’s generation. Generation “G”.

Finally, why has Steve Goldstein gone so prudish? Why is it such a big deal to him to call anal sex, anal sex? Or oral sex, oral sex? The legal term for that – and Goldstein can ask Spitzer about it – is “sodomy”.

The legal definition of sodomy includes any sexual penetration aside from vaginal intercourse, including oral and anal sex. Neo-Victorians like Steve Goldstein appear to want to banish such coarse and realistic definitions from our language and replace them with saccharine formulations that make references to “love”.

Love may become part of it. But more generally it flourishes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Any honest person will acknowledge this.

Be honest, humans are attracted to these practices because we derive pleasure from them. It isn’t so much a case of “love is love” but rather, “pleasure is pleasure”. An attachment may follow, or it may not, or it may and then be broken. These are deep waters that no lobby group-turned government vendor can adequately plumb. Leave it to the families. Preserve diversity.

Douglas Murray Explains The Internal Politics Of The LGBT Community.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer

Are we one generation away from scrapping the First Amendment?

Journalist Collin Anderson did some excellent work reporting on a recent poll conducted by The Campaign for Free Speech. According to the poll, a majority of Americans believe the First Amendment should be rewritten and are willing to restrict free speech, as well as the media. Anderson writes:

More than 60 percent of Americans agree on restricting speech in some way, while a slim majority, 51 percent, want to see the First Amendment rewritten to "reflect the cultural norms of today."

The Campaign for Free Speech said the results "indicate free speech is under more threat than previously believed." Bob Lystad, the group’s executive director added: "The findings are frankly extraordinary. Our free speech rights and our free press rights have evolved well over 200 years, and people now seem to be rethinking them." Anderson continued:

Of the 1,004 respondents, young people were the most likely to support curbing free expression and punishing those who engage in "hate speech." Nearly 60 percent of Millennials—respondents between the ages of 21 and 38—agreed that the Constitution "goes too far in allowing hate speech in modern America" and should be rewritten, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers and 47 percent of Baby Boomers. A majority of Millennials also supported laws that would make "hate speech" a crime—of those supporters, 54 percent said violators should face jail time.

Hostility towards the First Amendment did not stop at speech. Many would also like to see a crackdown on the free press. Nearly 60 percent of respondents agreed that the "government should be able to take action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false." Of those respondents, 46 percent supported possible jail time.

Here is a five-minute explanation of the First Amendment by constitutional attorney Floyd Abrams…

In an era of politically-correct curricula – with laws like the one that Governor Phil Murphy and Democrat legislative leaders used to force a silly LGBTQ curriculum on New Jersey school districts – it is clear from the numbers above that we are forgetting to teach the basics of citizenship. The maintenance of our Bill of Rights and the preservation of American freedoms depends on electing the right people to the Legislature and to local school boards. School boards are a vital line of defense in the effort to curb the embrace of openly fascist, anti-freedom ideologies by future generations.

What we teach America’s children is now more important than ever.

Has the NJBIA become a voice of woke capitalism?

Remember when Republicans were the party of business and Democrats the party of the working class? While the GOP still loyally votes on behalf of the interests of business, the days of business rewarding that loyalty with its support appear to be long gone.

Today’s corporate class votes Democrat because they (1) know the Democrats will do nothing to threaten their economic position in society, and (2) they get to publicly assure themselves that they are "good people" by doing so. Yes, for them the modern Democrat Party is a religious experience – but one that doesn’t require sacrifice.

Government intrudes on business so much these days that instead of organizing resistance to those intrusions, many businesses have made politics their partner. Government is, after all, run by politicians – so corporations hire lobbyists, fund candidates, and more importantly adopt political and social policies that signal the virtues they want the world to see. And for some, it’s sort of like the pious mob boss who makes a great show of paying for the new roof on the church, so that possible critics look the other way when his real work comes to light.

Woke capitalism is crony capitalism with a social justice cover.

Here is a succinct but very much on-point explanation by Kajal Iyer, who boils down a New York Times editorial by Ross Douthat, called “The Rise of Woke Capital.”

Ms. Iyer outlines how corporations are embracing a woke identity to couch their “malpractices” and market their products. These corporations have disrupted the traditional balance between Left and Right in America, between business and labor – its yin and yang.

Woke corporations are like hip middle aged husbands who have successfully found a young mistress, content in the continued loyalty and forbearance of the dutiful wife at home. Guess which political party is “the wife at home”?

Take the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) and its political action committee, New Jobs PAC, which calls itself “The Voice of Business”. When the NJBIA and the Chamber of Commerce rolled out their “Plan for an Affordable New Jersey” in July, who handled the messaging?

If you answered “the Clinton grease machine” you would be correct.

Yep, MWW, the firm that is so close to Bill and Hillary they even found a job for disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner when he was too controversial to be hired elsewhere. The biography for the firm’s founder notes that he is “known for his political contributions and fundraising for the Democratic Party” and he’s served as a Deputy Finance Chair of the DNC.

So how pro “leave me alone and let me create jobs” kind of business is this firm and what kind of messaging are you going to get out of them? The answer can be had just by going through the media section of the NJBIA website, which offers lectures on climate change and diversity as well as a host of other left-wing incantations. The rest is a course in “politics/government is your wingman”. Do what they want, pay them what they want, support who and what they tell you to support, and they will allow you to do business.

For the non-woke businessperson who just wants to make a living and create jobs, the message is one of subservience. Pay the Danegeld or the Vikings will pillage your business.

On the other hand, if you are a big pharmaceutical firm mired in controversy over the fallout from one of your products… being uber-LGBTQ can change the focus and make you one of the “good guys”. Yep, too bad about the cancer… or the opioids.

Is this the only voice for business in New Jersey?

Is it time for Republicans to quit playing the loyal “wife at home” and ask for a divorce? Why take the blame for all that corporations do, only to watch them hire the Left to provide a Leftist message that helps Leftist politicians to run against you? Wouldn’t it just be better to leave the Democrats and their crony capitalist backers in the muck and run on a message of reform and clean government?

Does anyone really believe that the “corruption tax” (so labeled in the Soprano State) has gone away? Or would the average voter say that crony capitalism has made it stronger than ever?

Democrats target another college trustee over Free Speech

Rob Jennings of the Newark Star-Ledger is reporting how some far-Left Democrats are, once again, attempting to muzzle free speech and shut down the expression of any differing opinion. This time their victim is a trustee at Raritan Valley Community College. Her name is Dr. Felecia Nace.

Her crime? Speaking at an event in Boston, where she criticized the Legislature’s recent implementation of an unfunded mandate – the newly imposed “LGBTQ” curriculum requirement. Dr. Nace posed the question: “Where is the overwhelming need to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history that supersedes basic academic success.”

The Legislature imposed the new requirement without any additional funding – while it slashed education funding in most of New Jersey’s school districts.

Dr. Felecia Nace

Dr. Felecia Nace

Dr. Nace argues that the emphasis on LGBTQ education distracts from academic achievement and could even distort history. Citing examples from a similar curriculum used in California, she noted that it questioned the sexuality of President James Buchanan, the only unmarried U.S. president, and 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson.

“This reckless questioning sets children on a slippery slope. We have honored these individuals for their contributions to society, and what a slap in the face to their memories to now question their sexuality," Dr. Nace said.

"For most children, their gender is a fundamental part of who they are. The vast majority of children are not confused about their sex, and it’s something that they were never, ever preoccupied with until today.”

Dr. Nace taught language arts in the Montclair public school district, was an adjunct professor of English at Mercer County Community College, and worked as an education specialist with the state education department.

The community college issued a statement on Dr. Nace, who has been a trustee since 2017, pointing out that Dr. Nace was “present as a private citizen” and made her views accordingly. Of course, that wasn’t enough for the anti-speech, far-Left Democrats, who called for Dr. Nace’s resignation.

One such authoritarian politician – a certain Melonie Marano – put out a statement in opposition to intellectual diversity: “At a time when our county is becoming more diverse, and our young college students are becoming more understanding about LGBTQ+ issues, we cannot have board members who actively try to exclude gay studies from education.”

Marano’s statement reeks of religious conversion rather than democratic debate. Of course, true Democrats (those worthy of the name) understand that ALL unfunded mandates thrust upon the property taxpayers by the Legislature are open to question and debate. That is the very idea of democracy – a concept Marano apparently hates.

Marano is a long-time politician and candidate for Freeholder in Somerset County. She is affiliated with the far-Left group Indivisible and is endorsed by the Somerset County Democrats. In August, the Somerset Democrats went on social media to encourage those who “hate our country” to run for office. The media reported:

Somerset County Democrats disavowed a since-deleted Facebook post encouraging those who “hate our country” to run for public office, donate to political campaigns or otherwise engage in politics that drew fire from the county’s Republicans.

The leadership of the Somerset County Democrats did not take responsibility for what was posted on its social media and instead blamed a “volunteer” who they claimed was angry with… you guessed it… Donald Trump. The Democrats refused to name the volunteer.

Apparently, HATING AMERICA is now a qualification for office with some Democrats, so it should come as no surprise when we read statements from Melonie Marano in opposition to the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

State Dems scrap direct attack, use Politico’s Friedman to attack Christian religion.

Sources from within the Democrat Party in Trenton now say there will not be a “direct attack” on traditional Christian religions (and, by implication, traditional Judaism and Islamic traditions as well).  We are informed that the Democrats had planned to issue a press release yesterday, which would have attacked the Baptist pastor who has been asked to review the Sussex County GOP’s Twitter page to remove objectionable content, in keeping with the party’s platform and its traditional values. 

Two sources within the Democrat Party informed us that this attack would focus on the fact that the Baptist faith in particular (and traditionalist Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in general) is not “pro-LGBTQ+ enough” to satisfy the Democrat Party and the media, as represented by Politico’s Matt Friedman.  We all remember Friedman as the “hatchet man” for the “mastermind of Bridgegate” when said “mastermind” ran the blog PoliticsNJ.

Apparently, Friedman got his assignment this morning.  Generally, his handler is Jay Lassiter, a pro-LGBTQ+ Democrat operative from South Jersey.  We understand that Friedman is pursuing his assignment as we write.  This will be interesting, so stay tuned…

New Harris poll: LGBTQ… has overplayed its hand.

They couldn’t leave it at marriage.

Society could have adjusted to that and we could have all lived happily ever after.

But oh no… they had to go after gender… had to argue for allowing people with penises into high school girls’ dressing rooms, to shower with them.  Had to threaten women’s athletics.  Had to push “drag queen story hours” on little children.

Now a new Harris Poll shows that Americans aged 18-34 are becoming less and less enamored with the LGBTQ perspective every year.

In 2016, 63 percent of millennials considered themselves "allies" of the LGBTQ movement. But that number fell to 53 percent in 2017, and plunged to 45 percent last year.

Adopting a pseudo-religious intolerance towards all differing opinions has led to a rise in discomfort amongst millennials, with 36 percent now saying they are not comfortable when they learn a family member is homosexual (up from 29 percent a year ago).

A startling 42 percent of millennial males are uncomfortable learning that their child has had a lesson on LGBT history at school or has a homosexual teacher. That's up from 27 percent a scant two years ago.

The poll was conducted by a pro-LGBTQ polling firm.  The CEO of Harris Polling was quoted as saying, "These numbers are very alarming." 

Of course, the real reason why the LGBTQ movement can never be satisfied is that it is all about the money.  Contentment, getting on with one’s life, does not raise money for the professional LGBTQ activists.  They don’t get paid that way.  They get paid by raising the alarm… by labeling their fellow human beings as “enemies… haters… who must be destroyed.”  They live off hate.  No hate… no dough.  They must have hate.

We have been warned about this before, in another context, by that good liberal, Mrs. Lillian Smith.  A Southern writer, she was a pioneer in the battle to end segregation. We recommend her book, The Winner Names the Age.  In it, you will find this passage she wrote when she accepted the Charles S. Johnson Award for her work:

“It is his millions of relationships that will give man his humanity… It is not our ideological rights that are important but the quality of our relationships with each other, with all men, with knowledge and art and God that count.

The civil rights movement has done a magnificent job but it is now faced with the ancient choice between good and evil, between love for all men and lust for a group’s power.” 

“Every group on earth that has put ideology before human relations has failed; always disaster and bitterness and bloodshed have come.  This movement, too, may fail.  If it does, it will be because it aroused in men more hate than love, more concern for their own group than for all people, more lust for power than compassion for human need.”

“We must avoid the trap of totalism which lures a man into thinking there is only one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now.”

Wirths and Space block Chinese Communists from gaining foothold in Princeton

America won!  Thanks to Assemblymen Hal Wirths and Parker Space, the Chinese Communists will not be buying a college in Princeton.

Alerted by businessman-philanthropist Mike Hennessy, the Assemblymen got to work generating grassroots opposition to the all but done sale of Westminster Choir College to a Chinese company controlled by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and the Communist Party of China (CPC).  Westminster is a division of the Westminster College of the Arts, and is part of Rider University.

Last June, Rider University had signed a purchase and sale agreement with a newly created entity called Kaiwen Education, which is controlled by the Chinese navy and its Communist Party masters.  Assemblymen Wirths and Space were concerned that the sale could give the Chinese government a foothold on the Princeton campus, with all its sensitive research and technology facilities.

Rider had provoked the ire of Hennessy and others, when it banned Chick-Fil-A from opening on campus, despite a majority vote by students asking for a Chick-Fil-A restaurant on campus.  It seems Rider’s administration thought that Chick-Fil-A’s ownership was too Christian and therefore “controversial”.  Apparently Kaiwen, the PLA Navy, and the CPC were just the right amount of communist.

Along with other Rider benefactors, Hennessy organized a grassroots effort to stop the sale, while there were protests by students and faculty, as well as legal challenges. Federal authorities were contacted and had become interested in the matter.  Under this pressure and the pressure from legislators like Wirths and Space, the state attorney general's office delayed the pending sale in March, asking Rider for more information about the deal.

Westminster Choir College is the world’s foremost college of religious music.  A residential college located on a 23-acre campus in the heart of Princeton, it is a four-year music college and graduate school that “prepares men and women for careers as performers and as music leaders in schools, universities, churches and professional and community organizations.”

Rider University announced on Monday that the two sides had mutually agreed to not extend the agreement.  This essentially cancelled the sale, although the money-hungry Rider administration still publicly held out hope for an “alternative relationship” with the Chinese Communists.

Assemblymen Wirths and Space, who introduced a resolution (ACR-222) in opposition to the sale, called the announcement a big win.

"It took many vocal opponents, but our efforts paid off.  Rider University made the right decision to stop the sale," Wirths said. "From the very beginning, the company's interest in the music college for the purpose of academia seemed suspicious."

Kaiwen Education has no experience in higher education.  It was a made-up subsidiary of a government-owned Chinese defense contractor.

"Today's announcement is a big win against the authoritarian Chinese government who we feared might be using the guise of academia to access Princeton's world-class scientists, researchers and institutions for nefarious purposes," Space said.

State Senator Steve Oroho introduced the Senate version of the resolution, SCR-160.  Surprisingly, no Democrats and few Republicans saw it as a battle worth fighting, let alone one that they could win.

“Standing up to one of the world’s most repressive regimes – on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square – wasn’t considered important enough to most of the Legislature,” one grassroots campaigner said.  “While millions of people in Hong Kong are protesting this oppressive regime, the Democrats who run the Legislature were more than happy to turn a campus in Princeton over to them.”   

Another noted:  “Guess it lacked a connection to LGBTQ… that’s all that matters these days.”   

This could have been a real moment of unity in Trenton for Republicans and all but the most craven Democrats.  Instead, the Democrats tried to block legislative action in opposition to the sale, while most Republicans didn’t have the good sense to take a stand.  Thankfully, guys like Hal Wirths and Parker Space did, but where the hell is everybody else’s political radar these days???

No wonder so many members of the Republican base share sentiments like these…

Aside from raising property taxes, will LGBTQ mandates make children smarter?

The Murphy administration is requiring local school districts – paid for with the highest property taxes in America – to teach subjects based on the alleged sexual preferences of historical figures.  Of course, the Murphy administration doesn’t have the money to pay for this.  The state is dead broke.  The state can’t even pay for the pensions of its retired workers… so this new LGBTQ curriculum is going to be paid for in higher property taxes.  Feel better? 

Hey, making a fashion statement costs money.  And just as there are folks who go deeply into debt by failing to pay the bills while buying the latest fashions, so too has the Murphy administration chosen to pursue this path.

But are fashion statements like this making our children smarter?  Because there is only so much classroom time available.  It is finite.  Or is somebody proposing to add a week or so on to the school year to teach all this extra stuff?  And who would pay for that

One barometer of how smart we are is comedy.  For something to be funny, the widest possible audience needs to get the joke.  So comedy is a good gauge at how well people are being educated.

Okay, now let’s compare our comedy (which today is essentially an endless variation of Trump jokes and scatological humor) with what they laugh at in another English-speaking country…

The sketch above is based on a factual historical incident at the end of World War Two.  But how many people would know what this is about?  How many high school graduates in New Jersey can even provide the dates of when World War Two occurred?  And World War Two was kind of a big thing. 

Now here’s another popular television comedy sketch that requires some knowledge of basic history…

It is about the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War – a series of religious conflicts that resulted in the deaths of 8 million people in Europe.  The Treaty of Westphalia established the concepts of diplomatic negotiation and international law.  You can draw a direct line from it to the establishment of the United Nations and bodies like the International Criminal Court at the Hague.  Does the average New Jersey high school grad know any of this?

Why should he or she (Wow!  Can we even pose a question that way anymore?) know any of this when there are more important things to know about such historical figures – mandated things – like whether or not they were into anal sex?  And that raises other questions.  For instance, do we really want to have teachers engaging children in sexual discussions that could turn into exercises in grooming and add to what appears to be an epidemic of teacher-student sexual liaisons?

Finally, here’s one for all those young people who claim to be socialists (yet another fashion statement).  It is a lot older than the two videos above, but it still shows a necessary level of education that was once commonplace…

Now who would know those four socialist leaders today?  What New Jersey high school grad could identify them?  Does the average New Jersey high school student know enough history to understand an episode of English comedy on the BBC?

Not to worry… in the future, our children will know all about who these historical figures took to bed.  After all, what else do you need to know? 

Nothing more than that.  And your property taxes will be paying for it – courtesy of that mandate by Governor Phil Murphy.

Before sexualizing children. Why not have a debate?

By Rubashov

Is it the ACLU’s fault?  Or is it the people who fund them who have changed? 

We all remember how the ACLU stood up for Freedom of Speech – even when it meant protecting that freedom for people with whom they had absolutely no sympathy.   It was the ACLU who famously set the parameters of First Amendment protections in the 1970’s, when the organization defended the right of the American Nazi Party to march through Skokie, Illinois, a town chosen by the Nazis for its ethnic and religious make-up.  Placing their loathing of the Nazis aside, the ACLU stood with the American Bill of Rights to argue that the Nazis had the right to transgressive speech – the right to knowingly offend. 

Of course, transgressive speech is the very foundation of comedy, and there was some wisdom in the suggestion that we laugh at the Nazis, their silly uniforms, and that flag.  Better to laugh at them, to tolerate them, than to become them, so the wisdom went. 

But times have changed.

The ACLU is under pressure from the people who fund it, from its donor class, as are politicians from all parties and persuasions.  There is a new public religion and it is in the process of driving out its competition from the public square.

And just as transubstantiation demands that its believers accept that bread and wine is changed into flesh and blood, so in this new religion, a person with a penis can be made woman.  It is mystical, faith-based, beyond debate or reason.  It is religion.

Central to this new religion is a persecution myth.  Just as the early Christians had their martyrs and their festivals of remembrance, this new religion has its Stonewall, its AIDS epidemic, its accounts of martyrdom.  The carnality of it – the sex – is all scrubbed from the accounts.  The public face of this new religion is Neo-Victorian in its use of language – “No Sex, please” – this is all about “Love”.

Proselytizing to children is central to all religions, but especially so to groups who make the oppression of the faith central to their ideology.  This was so with Jim Jones, David Koresh, the “Children of God” cult, and many others.  Did they not all operate under the banner that children be sexualized at the earliest possible moment?  Did they not preach endlessly about “Love”?  That “Love is the Answer”, “Love is Love”? 

Sex is as addictive as tobacco and like the sellers of cigarettes (or narcotics) they like to get them while they’re young.  So they come for the children.  Public libraries host “drag queen story hours” for little children, with readings by folks with names like “Lil Miss Hot Mess”.  Isn’t “hot” an explicitly sexual term?  School curriculums now include such varied activities as “condom races” – in which 10 and 11 year-old girls compete to be the first to put a condom on a model of an erect adult male penis.  All watched by their male classmates.  Magazines like Teen Vogue – specifically marketed to children – argue that prostitution is just a job, work like any other, with no moral or psychological concerns whatsoever. 

This is all part of this new public religion.  So a new law, signed by Governor Phil Murphy, mandates the teaching of people from history based on how their alleged sexual practices conform to one of a series of letters (LGBTQ…).  It’s a rather shallow way to teach, for how can the endless ways in which human beings order their lives really be bound and categorized by a half dozen letters – or indeed, a thousand? 

Within the last few days, a School Trustee in Hackensack had the temerity to express an opinion on the new mandate that failed to conform to the new public religion.  In response, Garden State Equality (GSE) – the “LGBTQ” equivalent of Hezbollah – went all jihadist on the trustee, demanding that she be forced into submission or made to resign and shunned thereafter. 

An email from GSE made it clear that they weren’t stopping with her:  “It’s imperative that each and every education official across New Jersey understands that our curriculum law must be faithfully implemented.”  Each and every.  There is no place for religious dissent. 

A GSE supporter reached out and noted that the trustee in question used the term “repugnant” to describe “the LGBTQ lifestyle.”  The term is generally used when describing something that the user finds “distasteful” or that the user is “incompatible” with.  It must be noted that many of our fellow human beings do find such sexual practices as oral or anal sex “distasteful” and that they are “incompatible” with same. 

We are not speaking here for Phil and Tammy Murphy, or Valerie Vainieri Huttle, or Jim Tedesco, or Gordon Johnson, or Loretta Weinberg, or indeed for the other politicians who have condemned the use of the term “repugnant.”  What they find “tasteful”, what they are “compatible” with, what their appetites bend towards is entirely their business.  And we would defend their endorsement of oral or anal sex as much as we defend the right of others not to enjoy such things.  Whatever floats your boat, as they say. 

But expressing one’s sexual preferences, one’s choice, is not welcome by the new “public” religion.  Blank conformity is what is expected.  Every public statement, written or spoken must conform.  The new religion allows no public expression of older religions.  All must conform… or they will be made to conform. 

Having gained significant cadres amongst elites in government, the media, in education, and with One-Percenters who control the corporate world, the new religion is attempting a top-down takeover of the public square – bullying out older religions, forcing compliance and general conformity of expressed opinion.  They seem to forget that Americans are contrarian by nature.  Nonconformity is the way with us and we will continue to practice it, even while being oppressed and punished for doing so. 

Of course, this is another reason why they want our children.  But then they forget that generations of Soviet indoctrination did not extinguish the seed of traditional faith in Russia or in Eastern Europe. 

This is an interesting topic that should be debated openly and honestly.  Instead, jihadists like Garden State Equality are concerned only with bullying and banning public dissent.  They don’t care if people dishonestly mouth those allowed saccharine platitudes, so long as they mouth them.

Instead of punishing questioning minds, why not debate them?  Before we allow government – in service of the new public religion – to continue to sexualize children, why not have an open and honest debate on the subject? 

Maybe a group like the Center for Garden State Families or the New Jersey Family Policy Council will set up a series of open discussions on the Murphy administration’s sexualization of young children.  Then they can invite folks like Senator Loretta Weinberg and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle to explain what they like and don’t like – and how they came to embrace the new religion (HINT: Check their campaign finance reports, and you will know why).

Before the Murphy Democrats force one more unfunded mandate on the property taxpayers of New Jersey… have an open and honest debate about their need to sexualize children.

So-called “Equality Act” seeks criminalization of Faith

Look into the eyes of the young girl below.  See her fear.  What civilized nation would make her endure such a thing?

wrestler.png

A male student claiming to be a female is shown wrestling a female student. Reality Check: There are distinct biological differences between the two sexes. If the so-called “Equality Act” passes, no female will ever have true equity in any physical activity. Gender specific activities will cease. No more boys or girls glee clubs, girls softball, only mixed gender activities will be allowed. It will be the death of female sports, the end of female athletes, all role models will be biologically male.  Total domination by patriarchy. Total.

Like the Law for the Protection of Blood and Honor, the so-called “Equality Act” is a monstrous violation of civil rights dressed up in some misleading frilly-sounding language. It is blatantly unconstitutional. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment. An even greater danger is posed by the presence on the Courts of  highly-polarized Leftist judges. Will they recognize this obvious attack on freedom of conscience and free speech or will they expand this barbarity and legislate from the bench?

Here is what the so-called Equality Act does:

  • Churches would be forced to host same-sex ceremonies.  

  • Churches will lose tax-exempt status for noncompliance. 

  • Colleges will lose accreditation for noncompliance. 

  • Noncompliant colleges will be ineligible to receive student loans, causing most religious schools to compromise their core mission or close. 

  • If churches or religious organizations take overnight trips, including sports or mission trips, they cannot segregate rooms by biological gender.  

  • Biological men will have access to bathrooms, showers, and nursing-mother rooms at any time, and stay as long as they please.  

  • Churches would be forced to hire staff involved in LGBT conduct, even positions of authority in affiliated daycare classes and give them complete access to all children in the restrooms.  

  • Cross-dressers could demand that they be greeters, ushers, Sunday School teachers, and more.  

  • Even the smallest slight would give someone the legal right to sue the church. For example, if a person assumed they were turned down for a staff position because of a LGBT lifestyle, they could sue the church for damages, even if that was not the reason they were denied the job! 

Every single Democrat from New Jersey is a co-sponsor of this barbaric assault on Western values and religious freedom.  This should put to rest once and for all that there is more than a nickel’s worth of difference between a Murphy Democrat and a Norcross Democrat. 

Republicans like Mike Testa should take note.  Even so-called “conservative” Democrats like South Jersey’s Congressman Jeff Van Drew are enthusiastically participating in the gang rape of our constitutional freedoms – our personal right to a life of the soul and to live according to our own conscience. 

Let there be no doubt now.  The Democrat Party is the party of crony capitalist authoritarian pigs and the sooner they are all tossed onto the dung heap of history, the better. 

Call your Congressperson NOW!

Tell them to vote NO on HR5!

Capitol Hill Switchboard

202-224-3121

For more information, or to find out how you can help defeat the anti-freedom authoritarians, visit the website of the Center for Garden State Families…

https://www.gardenstatefamilies.org/

Hugin should think before hurting the GOP any further

Bob Hugin’s campaign for the United States Senate was a disaster.  Everyone associated with it should be embarrassed, should wear the scarlet letter “L” as an external sign of their shame and contrition.

But there will be no contrition because these are people too proud to admit that their “vision” was flawed, that they outspent an extraordinarily flawed incumbent three to one and still lost badly.  Hugin lost to Bob Menendez, a Democrat incumbent so flawed that one in three Democrat primary voters rejected him.

What’s worse is that the Hugin campaign was deliberately designed to suppress traditional Republican turnout while enormous amounts were spent to create a surge amongst “soft” Democrats and Democrat leaners who had soured on Menendez.  The result of this strategy is best summed up when veterans of the Hugin campaign brag that they “won six Congressional districts.” Too bad that in five of those six districts, the Republican candidate for Congress lost, including two incumbents.  

As recently as 2016, all six of those districts had been represented by a Republican.  Now, just one remains.

Writing in the New Jersey Globe today, David Wildstein notes the re-emergence of Bob Hugin, addressing a meeting of Mercer County Republicans, placing his stamp of approval on the state’s first transgender candidate for the Legislature.  Here we go again. Let’s not learn the lesson that $40 million wasn’t enough to convince voters that Republicans are more reliable social liberals than Democrats, instead… try, try again.

The candidate Hugin spoke on behalf of is Jennifer Williams.  She is running for Assembly in the 15th Legislative District, a district that Republicans have almost no chance of picking up in 2019.  But because Jennifer Williams is the first transgendered candidate of either party to run for the Legislature, she will become a focal point of the 2019 campaign cycle.  Williams worked on Hugin’s campaign, so perhaps Hugin will provide her with the resources to make her campaign even more of a focal point.

The trouble is, 2019 will be a low turnout election, and Republicans are not fighting a statewide campaign but instead, are fighting to hold on to a few remaining Republican enclaves.  Is this the time to be highlighting “a different kind of Republican” or is it time to drag everyone who is likely to vote Republican to the polls? And as for non-traditional Republican voters, are these more likely to be LGBTQ voters or poor working class Roman Catholics?  Yes, there are choices to be made and making one choice often negates the other. So which is the surer bet?

Unfortunately, from all the hype, all we know about Jennifer Williams is that she is what some call a “transwoman”.  That is likely to be of little use in motivating traditional Republican turnout and – in the era of Donald Trump – unlikely to motivate enough LGBTQ voters to make up for what you lose.  The hoopla resulting from this “first” will most certainly bleed beyond the borders of the 15th District, turning off and giving up as it goes.  So that Republicans could neither gain the 15th or the boost necessary to save endangered seats.

For the good of her party, Jennifer Williams should play down the significance of her “gender” and instead focus on a message that aggressively defines the Trenton Democrats as what they are.  But can Williams even use the term, “Trenton Democrats”, as a negative in Legislative District 15? Williams claims to be a “conservative”, well this would be the time for her to craft a message that illustrates what that means.

Candidate Williams has secured the endorsement of the GOP establishment in Mercer and Hunterdon Counties.  We suspect that there will not be much competition for such a thankless task. We wish her well but hope that she does not become the “face” of this year’s Republican legislative campaign in New Jersey, and we hope Bob Hugin doesn’t make it his mission to make it so.

Pastor Winship takes on the anti-religion “Equality” Act

If you think the New Green Deal is outrageous, wait until you hear the details of the soon to be advanced Equality Act.  This piece of legislation will add sexual orientation and gender identity (A moral belief) to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  In prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ morality, the bill effectually legalizes discrimination against Christianity.  In this program, I explain the nature of the bill, the broad support for the bill, and how the LGBTQ agenda will (and will not) be stopped.

YouTube #64 The Equality Act

Pastor Winship can be heard at the following times:

  Bridge Christian Radio - Sunday 9 pm
        89.7 FM - Monmouth / Ocean Counties, NJ
        91.9 FM - Middlesex/ Monmouth Counties, NJ
        95.1 FM - NYC
        103.1 FM - Metro New Jersey & NYC
        99.7 FM - Sullivan County, NY
        106.9 FM - Poughkeepsie, NY

WTTP-LP - Lima, Ohio  101.1. FM  - wttpfm.com - Saturday 12:30 am; Sunday at 3:30 pm

KKMC in Monterey County, CA - Saturday 9 AM and 7 PM

Listen anytime at http://godandcountryradio.org/   * Click on Program (Left click - The audio should begin playing) (Right click - To save to your computer or device) 

Join Pastor Winship's online at www.facebook.com/groups/godandcountryradio/

Must Reads: Two important columns from Save Jersey…

With the news that the Burlington County GOP has lost yet another Republican office-holder, Dan Cirucci has some useful insights into how New Jersey Republicans can pull themselves out of the rut they are in…

N.J. GOP’ers must discard the moldy, tweedy old cloak of timidity | CIRUCCI 

https://savejersey.com/2019/02/republican-party-new-jersey-gop/

And there’s an important lesson for all those GOP hopefuls who insist on sucking up to Garden State Equality (GSE)… Hey, they don’t like you and never will because they are DEMOCRATS first, LGBTQ activists second…

Op-Ed: Leading N.J. LGBTQ group puts far-left politics ahead of its own community | DE SENO 

https://savejersey.com/2019/02/garden-state-equality-donald-trump-gay-lgbtq-community-democrat/

The hidden power we have to take back our schools.

By Gay Brandeal

Just supposing that you are confused or discouraged about a recent decision made in a NJ school system which affects your child’s safety or constitutional rights. Perhaps, it is concerning gender bathroom rules, the imposition of religious practices during a school day or did you read about the ability of many high school students to unblock sites which the school has deemed unacceptable on those daily used Chromebooks? What should one do? Well, there is the well-placed phone call to the superintendent, principal or teacher regarding the concern and an email to the board of education president as well asking some pointed questions regarding the point of disagreement. But can a parent do more? And speaking of the board of education do you know much about the state system which is in place for electing board members in NJ? The law states that every third Tuesday in April or during the fall general election (which is held the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November) there should be an annual school board election. The purpose of this election is to submit a proposal to voters for the approval of additional funds, for electing board members or for other educational purposes or immediate needs for the coming year. All school elections are held by ballot and should be conducted in the same manner as a general election. Certain specific laws govern the withdrawal of a candidate’s name prior to an election. Names are drawn by the secretary to the board of education following the last day for filing and are positioned on the ballot in the order drawn. No political party designation should accompany the name of that individual running for the board.

But Alas! Here is the new law (S868) which may influence your decision to run for your local school board. No more than a one to three word designation summarizing a theme on which bracketed candidates could choose to run is now allowed as of 2019. For example, if Mrs. Jones, Mr. Ortega and Ms. Patel are all concerned about the safety of their school aged children they may be bracketed as “Safety First” candidates during the local school board election. Having circulated a petition summarizing their focus the candidates provide voters with information on certain issues. They would vote as a block in the coming decisions therefore providing more strength for that stand. The names of those “bracketed” together after a petition had been circulated gathering the names would appear together although the order on the ballot would be chosen by the bracketed group not the board secretary.

Serving on the school board requires a strong desire to provide the best education for local children. The study of issues, dedicated time, teamwork, knowledge of the law and people skills should be pre requisites for certain. Hopefully, people of integrity with motives to protect children and improve the educational milieu would be interested in serving. Consider for a moment the decisions which consistently lie in the hands of NJ board of education members in various cities and towns in the Garden State. In recent years LGBTQ rights as well as Chromebook safety issues have arisen in our state as well as questions about mandated religious practices being allowed within the school day. It is the local Board of Education members who wield the power to decide what will or will not be allowed in that particular school system. Should there be less revisionist history allowed or what bathroom and locker room rules will be altered to meet the perceived rights of a small group of students? What actually  happens to those Chromebooks at the end of the school year? How well are they scrubbed and can someone still hack into your child’s personal information from the previous year? What policies on bullying and discipline are put into practice and what power does the principal or superintendent really have to enforce them?? The board of education is in charge. The board closely monitors the use and distribution of monies and adopts curriculum changes which can completely alter what and how children are taught. Many parents and guardians are discouraged, confused or absolutely dissatisfied with their local public school system. Many are completely thrilled and are pleased at how their child’s academic and social needs are being met. Whatever your opinion is about the quality of your local schools be aware that the real power resides in the decisions made by your board of education members. It is this powerful board which initiates or stops new programs and policies which inevitably affect your child. Consider your desire to provide your child with the best public education possible in NJ and ponder whether you or a family member or friend would be an asset to the local board of education. Then consider what common ideas could be the foundation of those who are bracketed together with shared values. Is your child’s academic future worth the investment of your time and talent by running for your local board of education? Only you can answer.  

Visit www.njsba.org/candidacy for more information.

Gay Brandeal is a retired New Jersey educator from Morris County.

Why NJ Republicans are falling behind other states.

Screen Shot 2019-02-11 at 9.29.22 PM.png
 

How come Republicans do better there than here?  That’s a frequently asked question… and is just as frequently noted.

New Jersey Republicans have lost Republican legislators throughout the Christie years.  Whether we hold the Governor’s office or not, we lose.  Why?

Could it have something to do with our message and who it’s aimed at?

As a comparison, let’s look at neighboring Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania went blue before New Jersey did… but went red in 2016 – providing the electoral margin that gave Donald Trump the presidency. 

In Pennsylvania, both parties play to their base.  As a result – according to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer analysis – blue areas are getting bluer and red areas redder.  What that means is that even when the top of the ticket loses – as it did in 2014 and 2018 – Republicans in the Legislature hold their majorities in BOTH chambers of the Legislature.  Take a look at the map of Republican representation in Pennsylvania’s Legislature in 2008.  Red is Republican and Blue is Democrat…

pennsylvania.png

Now here is Republican representation in Pennsylvania’s Legislature ten years later – in 2018:

pennsylvania1.png

In contrast, both parties play to the Democrats’ base in New Jersey.  As a result, the situation is quite different for the GOP in New Jersey… “in retreat” would be a kind way of putting it. 

According to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, 70.6 percent of Americans self-identify as “Christian” – with 25.4 percent belonging to  Evangelical Protestant denominations, 14.7 percent Mainline Protestant, and 20.8 percent Roman Catholic.  With most Evangelical denominations, there’s over a 40 percent spread in favor of Republicans when it comes to voting habits.  So it follows that it would make sense to at least keep in touch with these voters and turn as many out to vote as possible.  And that’s exactly what happens in Pennsylvania.

But not in New Jersey.   

Transgender people only make up about 0.6 percent of the U.S. population—and of that already slim minority, just two percent of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey said they were Republican.  Too often, this is who the GOP targets its message towards in New Jersey.

Don’t believe us?  Then read this statement from the Bob Hugin for United States Senate campaign:  “Bob Hugin strongly supports equality and opportunity for the LGBTQ community and will be a leader on these issues as senator.  If President Trump wants to roll back equality and opportunity for the LGTBQ community, Bob Hugin won't hesitate to stand up to the president.”

Can anyone point to a similar campaign statement made on behalf of the Pro-Life community?  Or the Evangelical community?  Or traditional values Christians of any kind?  All of these groups are far more inclined to vote Republican and are far greater in numbers than 0.6 percent.  But instead of making the most of what would come to them naturally, the GOP in New Jersey too often finds itself trying to expand that 2 percent of 0.6 percent… and hoping it will become a wave.

How else can you explain the fact that New Jersey was the only state delegation in America to send a transgendered person to the 2016 Republican National Convention?  And this is NEW JERSEY, where the party establishment selects carefully chosen insiders to run as delegates to the Republican National Convention.  In this case however, the candidate didn’t even need to run and instead was selected as a special, add-on delegate. 

How many Evangelical pastors got to go to the 2016 Republican National Convention as part of the New Jersey delegation?  How about some real diversity?

Hey, if a transgendered person can swallow the RNC platform, she or he is more than welcome in our big tent… but don’t throw out everyone else just to make it comfortable for her.  That doesn’t get you a big tent, it gets you the sack… you lose elections.

The transgendered person who got to go to the 2016 National Convention is a well-known activist for LGBTQ causes and is active with the LGBTQ Victory Institute Candidate & Campaign Training program for 2019.  The Victory Institute is in the process of training dozens of liberal candidates to take on traditional Republicans throughout the country.  In a recent news story, this LGBTQ activist/ RNC delegate had this to say about traditional Republicans:

“As a Republican, I’m disappointed.  I’m disappointed at how a minor offshoot of the Republican party—one that's very bent on religious freedom—is really directing our current administration to take away the liberty, freedom, and equality that millions of Americans who just happened to be LGBTQ currently enjoy.”

Traditional Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Evangelicals are not “minor offshoots” of the Republican Party.  It’s the majority of America.  It’s a majority that enjoys its religious freedom and holds it dear.  It is a majority that does not want to see its daughters made to shower with anatomical males.  It is a majority that doesn’t like the creep of criminalization occurring in other countries when supposedly free people fail to use the “correct” pronoun to describe someone.

Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney recently wrote a well-received call to arms for New Jersey Republicans to rediscover social issues.  As we have seen, the embedded social liberalism and ongoing contempt for Christian conservatives by well-placed Republican operatives in New Jersey will make progress towards Rooney’s goal difficult but not impossible.  There is a lot of work to do.

The week ahead in Trenton (or Brave New World).

This week we start a new feature called “The week ahead in Trenton.”  The name is self-explanatory.  We hope it will give activists and other interested parties a heads up on the nonsense about to happen – some of it shocking, much of it crazy, all of it expensive to taxpayers.

This week we focus on the Assembly Human Services Committee, which will hold a hearing on Saint Valentine’s Day – Thursday, February 14th – at 2pm in Committee Room 16, on the 4th floor of the State House Annex in Trenton.  And remember, all of those in attendance are on the ballot this year in June and November.  Don’t forget them.

Now if ever there was a Christian holiday to excite the “Love is Love” crowd, this should be it.  And for the record, the Democrats do not disappoint in handing out presents to their favorite special interest.  But is it “Love” or Fear???  We’ll let you decide. 

First on Thursday’s Valentine’s Day agenda is AR-146 – a resolution calling on the federal government to recognize what it calls “children of certain LGBTQ parents” as United States citizens.  This is something out of a dystopian novel (we’re thinking Aldous Huxley and his writings, most notably, “Brave New World”) and attempts to create a new path to citizenship. 

From what we can learn, there is a brisk business in the monetization of the wombs of working class and/or economically disadvantaged women.  Rich “gay” men can, for a fee, avail themselves of the wombs of these women in order to do what they cannot do biologically – give birth to a baby.  (And remember, in the coda of today’s woke establishment, it aint a “baby” until it is actually born… and even then not until the mother and her medical provider have had a discussion as to whether or not to kill it). 

The problem occurs when one rich American guy marries a rich guy from another country and they use the sperm of the non-American to impregnate the womb of the woman they have procured for the purpose.  Currently, the State Department can require a DNA test to determine if a child is, in fact, a “blood relationship” to an American citizen.  This messes with the plans of those who travel outside the United States to procure their women for the purposes of their wombs and who opt to use the sperm of a “husband” who is not an American citizen.   

As one can imagine, this dilemma concerns a very, very tiny group of rich men (married to men who are non-citizens) who want to travel outside the United States to obtain a womb at, shall we say, third-world prices.  It will doubtless be examined by the State Department – no bastion of traditional orthodoxy, by the way – and some rule change or accommodation will be forthcoming. 

But that is not good enough for the folks at Garden State Equality (GSE) who apparently wield so much power over the Democrats in Trenton that legislation like A-146 gets pushed to the front of the line and ahead of the more than 90 bills languishing that would address the highest in the nation property taxes… or the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act.  Every week, we hear from the Murphy administration’s own Attorney General about the rise in cases of identified human trafficking in New Jersey… but hey, it’s not about some rich jet-setter looking to buy the womb of some desperate, third-world woman or girl (Itself a case of human trafficking?  We wonder).

Next on Thursday’s agenda is AR-210, a resolution condemning the “Trump Administration’s policies towards transgender individuals.”  Specifically, the Democrat sponsors are pissed because the Department of Defense has sought to ban “transgender people” from serving in the military by proposing a definition of sex that “excludes gender identity”.  Okay, this has been covered a great deal in the national media… but does it really trump the issue of growing child poverty in New Jersey?  Yes, it is on the wish list of a private special interest group that last week bragged about whipping the Legislature into passing 222 pieces of legislation that they desired, but is it really more important and pressing than the opioid crisis?  Apparently so.

Next up is a spending bill that will cost us more in property taxes – but it will be a financial windfall for groups like Garden State Equality, who provide training programs like those mandated in A-4427.  Here is the text of the bill’s description:

“This bill provides that the Commissioner of Human Services or the commissioner’s designee, develop a training program designed to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression in the delivery of certain services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex senior citizens in the State.  The bill requires that the training program be developed no later than nine months following the bill’s enactment.

The training program would be designed to increase awareness among, and provide cultural competency to, service providers about the issues encountered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex seniors in order to ensure equal access to services for senior citizens, and improve the delivery of those services to senior citizens and caregivers in the State.

The bill requires that a provider of services or supports to senior citizens that contracts with, provides services through programs administered by, or receives funding from, the Department of Human Services, any of its divisions, or any Area Agency on Aging must complete the training program no later than six months following the availability of the program. Thereafter, each new service provider would be required to complete the training within one month of commencing the delivery of services or supports.”

Moe money, moe money, moe money for GSE and its allies... mandated higher property taxes for everyone else.

And finally on Thursday’s agenda we have A-4870, a bill that “requires modernization of all state blanks, forms, documents, and applications to incorporate new standards for collection of information about sex, gender, and sexual orientation.”  This is Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker’s personal genuflection to a special interest that he’s indebted to.  It is shocking to see the brazenness of it, but a role for the lobbyist group is specifically spelled out in the actual bill:

“…any questions relating to sex, gender, or sexual orientation are to be posed in a manner that is sensitive to the individual, and that does not infringe upon or threaten the individual’s mental and physical wellbeing; are to allow for non-binary designations; and are to be consistent with relevant best practices, as recognized by Garden State Equality and other relevant organizations that engage in advocacy on behalf of the State’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) communities”.

Hey, does this make the lobbyists over at Garden State Equality government bureaucrats and subject to the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA)?  We hope so… for the sake of transparency.  How every form in New Jersey is re-worked and re-worded should be open to public scrutiny.

Garden State Equality should fall under OPRA anyway because they already exercise a disproportionate control over the Legislative agenda in Trenton.  We all remember GSE founder Steve Goldstein’s hissy fit over the Democrats’ failure to pass same-sex marriage in 2009.  Goldstein publicly threatened Senate President Steve Sweeney and the Democrats – telling them that he would withhold “gay” money from their campaigns in future, unless they publicly recanted.  And sure enough, they did, at something resembling a religious revival meeting.

Since then, the Democrats (and some Republicans) have knelt before GSE and the “gay” lobby like attendant concubines, awaiting instructions.  Remember that in 2017, the Legislature passed a bill designed to use the power of government – and your tax dollars – to fund Garden State Equality's lobbying and political efforts.  In effect, the Democrats created a program of government -funded lobbying and political campaign activity -- but only for one side. 

Garden State Equality – a group with a history of threatening elected officials when they don't get their way – is actually three separate organizations.  Garden State Equality Educational Fund, Inc., is a New Jersey non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(3).  Garden State Equality Action Fund, Inc., is a non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(4).    Garden State Equality, LLC, is a Domestic Limited Liability Corporation organized to run a political action committee (see below).

The legislation passed in 2017 (A-4790) specifically funds Garden State Equality, LLC, the political action committee.  Here's what it did:

An Act providing for the issuance of “Equality” license plates and supplementing chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes.

   1.    a.  Upon proper application, the Chief Administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission shall issue “Equality” license plates for any motor vehicle owned or leased and registered in this State.  In addition to the registration number and other markings or identification otherwise prescribed by law, the license plate shall display the Garden State Equality, LLC (“Garden State Equality”) emblem, consisting of: an image of a silhouette of the mathematical equivalency sign in the background and the shape of the State of New Jersey in a circle in the foreground.  The chief administrator shall select the design and color scheme, in consultation with Garden State Equality.  The “Equality” license plates shall be subject to the provisions of chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes, except as hereinafter otherwise specifically provided.

     b.    Application for issuance of an “Equality” license plate shall be made to the chief administrator on forms and in a manner prescribed by the chief administrator.  In order to be deemed complete, an application shall be accompanied by a fee of $50, payable to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, which shall be in addition to the fees otherwise prescribed by law for the registration of a motor vehicle.  The chief administrator shall collect annually, subsequent to the year of issuance of the “Equality” license plates, a $10 fee for the license plates in addition to the fees otherwise prescribed by law for the registration of a motor vehicle.  The additional fees required by this subsection shall be deposited in the “Equality License Plate Fund” created pursuant to subsection c. of this section.

     c.     There is created in the Department of the Treasury a special non-lapsing fund to be known as the “Equality License Plate Fund.”  There shall be deposited in the fund the amount collected from all license plate fees collected pursuant to subsection b. of this section, less the amounts necessary to reimburse the commission for administrative costs pursuant to subsection d. of this section. Monies deposited in the fund shall be appropriated annually to Garden State Equality and shall be used to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy and educational programs in the State.  Monies deposited in the fund shall be held in interest-bearing accounts in public depositories as defined pursuant to section 1 of P.L.1970, c.236 (C.17:9-41), and may be invested or reinvested in securities approved by the State Treasurer.  Interest or other income earned on monies deposited into the fund, and any monies which may be appropriated or otherwise become available for the purposes of the fund, shall be credited to and deposited in the fund for use as set forth...

Apparently the sponsors of A-4790, along with the brain trusts at OLS and the Democrat Assembly Caucus, were so determined to secure this government funding for GSE, that they forget to properly vet Garden State Equality LLC.  If they had, they would have learned that the organization had been revoked by the New Jersey Department of Revenue in 2012 and that in 2015, they had been dissolved and terminated.

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At the time, Garden State Equality Action Fund Inc. was also under suspension by the New Jersey Department of Revenue and had been for five years.  The group had filed its last annual report in April 2010 and had been pretty much a scofflaw since.  In 2012, Garden State Equality Action Fund's  status was listed as "revoked" and it was placed on "suspension" in July of that year. 

According to the most recent (at the time) IRS 990 tax statement filed by the Garden State Equality Educational Fund, the organization was in the process of repaying a $47,581.00 loan it received from Steve Goldstein.  The loan was negotiated without a written agreement and is a "loan for operating expenses", according to the information provided to the Internal Revenue Service.  So this is how you make government work for you… and you don't even need to follow the basic rules to do it. 

The Democrats who run the New Jersey Legislature are setting its committee agendas as though it were an auction – legislation likely to fetch a high price (in campaign contributions) is being pushed ahead of the peoples’ business.  In a state where so many are, due to financial hardship, moving out of state and away from their families, one would think that cutting property taxes and creating jobs would be higher on the list than the now ubiquitous “transgendered” this or that.  But as Steve Goldstein knew back in 2009, rich guys always get what they want in the end… whether it’s a womb in a third-world country or the agenda of a legislative committee. 

Trenton Democrats: Nothing on property taxes… but 222 new laws favoring LGBT special interests.

This is from the latest begging letter from Garden State Equality (GSE) – the folks who said that all they wanted was to pass same-sex marriage and they would be satisfied.  Hey, if they ever were “satisfied” there would be no reason for groups like Garden State Equality to exist and they’d all be in fear of losing their payday.  They can’t let that happen… and so they stoke the politics of fear…

“We’ve passed 222 civil rights laws in New Jersey protecting the LGBTQ community. And we’re not slowing down, because there’s more work to do.

In 2019, we’re going to ban the gay and trans panic defense, work to end LGBTQ youth homelessness, fight back against Trump’s transgender military ban, and push to pass the Equality Act. And we’ll continue our existing work for the LGBTQ community to build safe schools, expand healthcare, and support older adult populations.

In the last 12 months, we passed six new pro-equality laws that make our state stronger and safer for LGBTQ people.

Just last week alone: Governor Murphy signed the LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum bill into law—the second of its kind in the entire nation—and the historic Babs Siperstein Law went into effect, allowing transgender New Jerseyans to update their birth certificate without restrictions.

We know this fight means just as much to you as it does to us, and that’s why we need your help. We never would have made this much historic progress without you…”

… And then they hit their donors up for money.

Meanwhile, if those donors pay property taxes… they will continue to get screwed.  And if they own businesses… screwed again.  And when it rains… screwed and screwed again.

See, it isn’t about who you sleep with that brings people together.  That’s kind of personal.  What is universal is the screwing we’re all getting from the Trenton Democrats and their master screw-up-in-charge Governor Phil Murphy.

Groups like Garden State Equality (GSE) are masters at the politics of fear – and masters at using it to get paid.  The professional political class in Trenton appreciates their services because so long as people are focused on stuff like “the transgender military ban” they won’t notice the fact that they are getting poorer, taxed more, regulated more, less free. 

222 new laws… Nothing on property taxes.