NJ Legislature and Corporate Left tries to kill small home businesses

By Rubashov

You can buy baked goods from Amazon.  They deliver. 
 
And apparently Senator Joe Vitale wants to make corporate giants like Amazon the only option for consumers.  Hey, Amazon doesn’t own hunks of the media and engage in a billion dollar corporate public relations and lobbying effort for nothing.
 
For the last ten years, the New Jersey Home Bakers Association has fought for the right to sell their products in the marketplace, but corporate crony capitalists and their allies (see Senator Joe “the Moe” Vitale) have blocked them.  So the bakers ramped up their efforts with a lawsuit, which focused the honorables’ minds.  

Allowing people to work from home sounds like a good idea, right?
 
Not to Senator Vitale, an arrogant and petty fellow, to the point that when he finally allowed the necessary legislation to be heard in his committee, he gutted the original bill (S-73, proposed by Senators Bateman, Republican, and Sarlo, Democrat).  Vitale larded up his version of the bill with unreasonable licensing requirements and fees, and restricted the types of baked goods that could be produced to a list with which it would be nearly impossible to comply.
 
Vitale actually added provisions forbidding home bakers from producing special occasion cakes or cookies.  That’s what’s called hamstringing the little guy in favor of big food corporations.  Imagine government instructing a small business that government will send men-with-guns and shut you down if you commit the high crime of writing “happy birthday” in icing!!!   As if things aren’t bad enough for small businesses already.
 
But it gets worse, Vitale is so anal and pedantic that he included a provision banning certain baked goods from being coated in chocolate!  No kidding, chocolate, the most popular confectionary in the country.  Of course, this is how you make sure that these small businesses never make it.  Senator Vitale wanted to strangle them in their crib.   
 
Facing more economic ruin at the hands of politicians, the New Jersey Home Bakers Association put together a grassroots effort to fight back.  Earlier today, the Senate Health, Human, and Senior Services committee held a hearing on Senate Bill S-73, the current iteration of the Home Bakers’ Bill.  Vitale’s version was withdrawn, but more shenanigans happened. 
 
The bill was amended just before the Committee started, without most of the members present even having the opportunity to read the amendments.  This is what goes for transparency and the democratic process in the New Jersey Legislature.  Shameful.
 
As amended, the new legislation includes inspection requirements, very high licensing fees, and restrictive regulations.  Oh well, if you want cake you will still have Amazon… they deliver.  And that’s the idea, isn’t it?
 
But wait, the political class wants you to know that it has other forms of employment for you to consider…
 
On Thursday night, Tucker Carlson aired a segment on how the coronavirus shutdown has made poor, unemployed young people so desperate they’re willing to sell their bodies, and he called out the media for promoting it.

(Click on image for video)

“OnlyFans and IsMyGirl are porn websites.  Both of them allow women to sell explicit photos and videos of themselves to men online,” Carlson said.
 
“Both sites have seen explosive growth during the coronavirus shutdown,” Carlson added, accusing the sites of “feasting off our collapsing economy.”
 
“This is unimaginably ugly,” he said. “It is the purest, most degrading form of exploitation. When you have nothing left to sell can you sell your body. The people who broker that sale are called pimps. Healthy societies do not celebrate pimps; they put pimps in prisons. And yet our pimps receive fawning profiles in daily newspapers. Our media greet this human tragedy like its progress. It’s the new frontier in the gig economy. Imagine anything more decadent than that.”
 
After shutting down businesses and making people unemployed and without access to health care, perhaps Governor Murphy will helpfully suggest this option at his next press opportunity?  Stay tuned…


 

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

(George Orwell, aka Eric Blair)

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

Voters in Washington reject Affirmative Action ballot measure… while NJ Dems push Reparations bill

In Washington State, the affirmative-action measure known as Referendum 88 has gone down to defeat after a week of counting ballots. Had it been approved, it would have implemented affirmative-action legislation known as Initiative 1000. Passed by the state Legislature earlier in the year, Initiative-1000 codified affirmative action for public contracting, employment and education.

While recognized as a generally more liberal state than even New Jersey, Washington has embraced direct democracy in a way the party bosses in New Jersey wouldn’t dare. In response to the Legislature’s passage of Initiative-1000, a group called Let People Vote was formed by a group of immigrants, many of whom were originally from China. They argued that the policy reminded them of their country of origin, that it was a divisive policy, and that it created a system of racial quotas that would allow state government to discriminate. They won.

Back in New Jersey, the likes of Democrats Phil Murphy, Steve Sweeney, and Craig Coughlin don’t have much to fear from Initiative & Referendum. Even when people do manage to get something on the ballot, Governor Murphy sends the Attorney General’s office (i.e. men with guns) to try to prevent the democratic exercise of voting. Maybe they should consider changing the name of their party? Or maybe someone should sue them for false advertising? Because the last thing these Democrat party bosses are is democratic.

In the post-election lame duck session of the Legislature the Democrats have put so-called “criminal justice reform” at the top of the legislative agenda. No, not property tax relief… criminal justice reform. You know, that hobby horse of the very rich – of everyone from George Soros to Koch Industries. This so-called “reform” argues for the decriminalization of actual crime – assaults on human beings and their property – while it seeks to make thinking the “wrong” thoughts or expressing the “wrong” opinions illegal.

On Thursday, a performance has been scheduled, hosted by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It will begin promptly tomorrow, November 14, 2019 at 1:00 PM in Committee Room 11, Fourth Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey. Proceeds benefit the Democrat Party of Phil Murphy, Steve Sweeney, and Craig Coughlin.

Among the bills being considered is A-3722/S-2055. This legislation “permits incarcerated persons to receive student financial aid.” And A-5823, which “removes prohibition on voting by persons convicted of indictable offense who are on parole or probation.”

By the way, these are the same Democrats who slashed education funding to New Jersey school children across the state… causing property tax increases. Now they are proposing to provide funding to convicted criminals.

But it doesn’t end there. The Democrats are not only going to ignore property tax relief, they intend to ignore the high rate of foreclosure and the low rate of job creation too. And instead of addressing these important issues, the Democrats will opt to discuss… reparations for slavery. The Civil War ended in 1865 but rather than discuss a problem staring them in the face – like child hunger – the Democrats want to go back and take on history. Hey, Governor Murphy could address child hunger with more jobs and less foreclosure… but nooo, let’s talk reparations. It’s the process by which rich people like Phil Murphy seek to take money from these working class folk to give it to those working class folk, in order to buy votes.

A press release was issued late yesterday by a group calling itself the “Institute”, from which we have taken the following excerpts: “NJ Legislators to Address Voting Rights Restoration and Reparations Legislation This Thursday… Institute, Partners, and Supporters Will Show Support for Full Voting Rights Restoration and Policy-Driven Solutions to Systemic Racism in New Jersey… At 2 pm, the Institute and its partners will join legislators for the introduction of legislation to create a Reparative Justice Task Force in New Jersey. The Task Force will focus on repairing structural racism in New Jersey that can be traced back to slavery in the state and around the country, and recommend targeted policies and investments…”

“Partnering” with the “Institute” include any number of well-funded lobbying organizations – including several affiliated with Rutgers University. So let’s see… property tax relief, high foreclosure rate, low job creation… or reparations? Which will they get to first? We’ll let Princeton University answer that question…

It’s like the Princeton University study says…

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