Murphy proposes French-style fuel tax that caused the Yellow-Vests Movement

Wikipedia defines the Yellow Vests Movement as “a populist, grassroots, revolutionary political movement for economic justice that began in France in October 2018.” The movement is motivated by rising fuel prices as well as government and crony-capitalist-induced escalations in the cost of living.

The Yellow Vests Movement holds that a disproportionate burden of government tax “reforms” fall on “non-elites” – the working and middle classes – particularly in rural and suburban areas. In France, the Movement has called for direct democracy through the implementation of citizens' initiative referendums.

The Movement spans the political spectrum, drawing from voters on both the Right and Left who have been pushed to the “periphery” by government policies that support crony capitalism. It gets its name from yellow high-visibility vests, which French government regulation requires all drivers have in their vehicles and to wear during emergencies.

Writers as diverse as Ralph Nadar, Chris Hedges, and Christophe Guilluy have written about a fusion of economically stressed voters on the “periphery” of the new economy coming together to challenge government and crony capitalist elites. It has been noted that the Trump prosperity has temporarily slowed down this evolution, much in the way that Watergate (1974) was simply a bump in the road on the way to a conservative resurgence and the election of Ronald Reagan and a Republican-controlled Senate (1980).

The Yellow Vest Movement started with the imposition of a new “green” fuel tax that was the last straw for working and middle class voters trying to make ends meet. Now it looks like New Jersey is heading down the same road. On Monday, the NJ Spotlight reported:

In what could amount to the most significant regional effort yet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 12 states have issued a draft policy framework to create a cap-and-trade program to reduce global warming pollution from vehicles.

The proposal, developed by the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), is modeled somewhat after the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program that for the past decade has helped clamp down on carbon pollution from power plants.

This draft framework, while sparse in details, proposes to put a cap on emissions from the transportation sector by requiring state fuel suppliers to buy allowances, which would be auctioned off for the right to emit carbon.

The draft does not describe what the level of caps would be, precisely who would be regulated, how much the allowances could cost, or how quickly the caps would go down. The transportation sector has replaced the power industry as the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In New Jersey, the sector accounts for roughly 40% of the state’s carbon pollution.

Motorists will likely pay at the pump

In the end, the cost will likely end up being paid for by motorists at the pump, a difficult choice for New Jersey and other states already pursuing new clean-energy solutions that are expected to be reflected in higher energy bills — at least for the short term.

Within the United States, New Jersey has perhaps the clearest elite vs. working class divide with more than half the state’s poor families living in rural and suburban communities subsidizing the property taxes of wealthy professionals and rich corporations nestled in the so-called Abbott Districts. Government directed, taxpayer-subsidized, crony-capitalists in Abbotts like Camden reap profits by husbanding poverty.

How will higher fuel costs go down with voters who are already stretched to the limit? How is this latest Murphy administration scheme going to help a state with a high rate of foreclosure and the highest property taxes in America?

Assemblymen Hal Wirths and Parker Space have proposed legislation to block Governor Murphy’s plans to raise the cost of fuel in New Jersey. A-5042 prohibits New Jersey’s participation in multi-state cap and trade programs like that proposed by the Transportation & Climate Initiative.

This legislation should get bi-partisan support before November 5th and the cold weather months set in. Higher fuel prices are not something anyone wants to see for the holidays.

Tom Moran shits the bed again. NJ.com editorial goes nuts with the name-calling (again).

By Rubashov

At what point did Star-Ledger/NJ.com editor Tom Moran go from a somewhat reasonable – albeit excruciatingly liberal – man of journalism, to New Jersey’s own Julius Streicher, throwing invective and hate at anyone who doesn’t see the world through the increasingly dark and confused lens he does.  Like Streicher, who edited a newspaper called “The Attacker,” Moran discards journalism and adopts a political role as the state’s leading propagandist for what has come to be known as “The Resistance.”

Of course, what he is “resisting” is the outcome (under long established rules) of a national election in the world’s foremost democracy.  Moran and his movement are not only threats to the political and economic stability of United States, but of the World.  It takes humility to live in a democracy, to preserve a Republic.  But Moran and his movement place their will above all else – and if their will should triumph, all future elections would be fought after the fact, regardless of outcome, endlessly, the way they are fighting this one.

To Moran and his movement, we are in year three of the 2016 presidential election.  This election will not be over until they get their way.  Only then will they permit us to move on to the next election. 

But who is this movement?  They are the permanent Establishment Party of government.  That’s what they would be called if they were honest about it.  In Mexico, where honesty rates higher than in Washington, DC, the longtime ruling political party calls itself the Partido Revolucionario Institucional – the Institutional Revolutionary Party.  They held power for 71 uninterrupted years – until the corruption and economic decline got so bad that voters, in their pain, sought other answers (both good and bad).  Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, like Ralph Nader and Ron Paul before them, are symptoms of a corrupt institutional party producing more pain than benefits. 

Tom Moran is a chief propagandist for global corporatists, like those who publish his newspaper, and for all those who are made comfortable and secure by government and the largesse of the taxpayers.  These include the crony capitalists, pay-to-play government vendors, the Wall Street operators (like Moran’s heroes Jon Corzine and Phil Murphy), and the legions of lobbyists and senior bureaucrats who might as well be interchangeable.  It includes too, those well-off academics, like Brigid Harrison of Montclair State University.  A failed Democrat candidate, Harrison was provided a second life as an Establishment propagandist whose work has been pushed as required reading.    

The permanent Establishment Party straddles both established political parties in America – where our political choices are limited to faux chocolate and faux vanilla – and where propagandists like Tom Moran direct members of the working class to battle each other over race, ethnicity, and gender.  Using the last, they are now in the process of endlessly expanding the opportunities for internal division amongst the 99 percent. 

Candidates like Mikie Sherrill are the face of this “Resistance” to working class pain – to those same voters who bet on Barack Obama to rescue them in 2008, and who, in their pain, reached for Donald Trump in 2016.  A wealthy, expensively trained, representative of the Elite – whose career path was to “check the boxes” on the way to being given “power” as a safe pair-of-hands for those who actually wield it.

The means to Sherrill’s rise to celebrity are notorious.  Along with her Antifa-inspired thugs, she stalked and hounded the aged Congressman and Vietnam War Vet, Rodney Frelinghuysen.  They spat insults at him and lied about his record – acting as if this most bi-partisan and gentlemanly of public servants was akin to David Duke.  In this, they are not so different from Tom Moran and the NJ.com editorial board who over the weekend used words like “fraud” and “fanatical” to describe those who oppose their nurtured-by-hand celebrity, Mikie Sherrill.  If anything, they are using others as a mirror to reflect back what they see in themselves… frauds and fanatics.

Over the next two weeks and beyond – until they get their way and the result from the 2016 presidential election that they believe they are entitled to – Tom Moran and company will continue to behave the way they have been, calling names, spitting hatred, urinating down their own trousers.  They are like beings possessed, confirmed in their certainties, their righteousness and indignation.  They can not think outside of it… just ask Jonathan Salant. 

Ralph Nader’s speech to conservatives re. crony capitalism

The American Conservative (TAC) is the publication that predicted the fall of the Bush dynasty and the rise of Donald Trump.  They wrote about the populist shift in GOP politics when most Washington-based journalists were confidently predicting that Paul Ryan was the next big thing.

The American Conservative recently held its 2nd annual conference on crony capitalism, "Cronyism in Action: Government's Cozy Ties to Big Tech & Big War." Ralph Nader gave a special address on the Military Industrial Complex entitled, "Eisenhower's Warning: Prophetic and Presently Understated."  You can watch it here:

The conference began with opening remarks by the Hon. C. Boyden Gray, former ambassador to the European Union, and a board member of The American Conservative.  The first panel, on the military-industrial-congressional complex, featured journalist and TAC contributing editor Mark Perry as moderator, POLITICO reporter and defense editor Bryan Bender, investigative journalist and TAC contributor Gareth Porter, Mandy Smithburger, director of the Project on Government Oversight, and Caroline Dorminey, a defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute. You can watch a video of the first panel here:

The second panel debated the role of cronyism in the technology industry and featured TAC executive editor Lewis McCrary as moderator, writer and Open Markets Institute fellow Matt Stoller, Washington Examiner commentary editor

Tim Carney, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Stacy Mitchell, and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation founder and president Robert D. Atkinson. You can watch a video of the second panel here:

For more information or to subscribe to The American Conservative, please contact John Burtka, at… jburtka@theamericanconservative.com. 

The grassroots Left rejects ACR-4 and SCR-188

Matt Friedman made an interesting observation today on the attempt by a few Democrat machine bosses to re-write the state constitution to establish a one-party democracy.  He noted that even the liberal groups that sought the Democrat Party's support in reforming the redistricting process oppose what they are trying to do with ACR-4 and SCR-188.

He quoted Ms. Analilia Mejia of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, who wrote:  "NJ Working Families has advocated for a comprehensive package of voting rights and process reforms that together would ensure New Jersey voters interests come first.  We were deeply disappointed to see just one element of this comprehensive voter empowerment package make it to this stage of the legislative process, but we look forward to working with legislators in strengthening New Jersey's democracy and making sure every eligible voter has a real voice."

Of course, the only part of that comprehensive package that the bosses care about is the bit that can be manipulated to give them more power -- in this case, unfettered power.

We think activist Ralph Nader is on to something in a book he published in 2014 called "Unstoppable:  The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State."  Nader cites several examples of successful Left-Right alliances and argues that, regardless of ideology, activist grassroots groups represent the same disenfranchised electorate.  It is for the benefit of the political class and its corporate crony partners that we are effectively split and set at each other's throats.  Together, we represent over 90 percent of the voters and we could bring real reform to the political process if we could see our common dilemma and common opponent.

So we applaud Analilia Mejia and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance for refusing to support one-party democracy and its plainly fascist intent.  Every legislative seat is the people's seat.  No seats should belong to an innately corrupt enterprise like a political party.  Bring in the Iowa redistricting plan and cut 40 competitive districts.  Let everyone's vote count equally regardless of where he or she lives.

Friedman makes the point that not one citizen or organization testified in support of ACR-4 or SCR-188, which in our opinion, exposes the move for the top-down boss scumbag deal that it is.  He cites Assemblyman John McKeon, one of the sponsors, as deriding some of those who showed up to testify against his fascist attempt to impose one-party democracy:  "...much of the opposition was from tea-party Republicans, some of them married to each other."

Wow, what a hand job!  What's the big deal with bringing your spouse to Trenton to exercise your rights as a citizen and human being to address those of "power"? 

We understand that some of those honorables who exercise such power would never consider bringing a spouse to Trenton, but that's only because they wouldn't want them to meet the she or he who occupies the same role in Trenton.  It must terrify some politicians to see married couples showing up in Trenton.  It could start a trend..