Pro-Murphy candidate runs as Republican in Sussex/Warren/Morris

By Sussex Watchdog

Dan Cruz was invited to discuss his views with conservatives in the state – leaders from the Second Amendment Society, the Pro-Life movement, Steve Lonegan, and groups concerned about illegal immigration. Cruz ignored them and instead asked a blog run by Democrats to publish a public relations profile of him. The owner of the blog was outed by no less than Wikileaks for his connections to Hillary Clinton’s fundraising operation in New Jersey.

So, it appears that the Democrats – after having been resoundingly crushed by Sussex County Republicans year after year – have simply given up on finding a candidate to run under their own party label against Sussex County’s top local Republican on the ballot this year. That’s right, the April 5th filing deadline came and went, but no Democrat filed against Sussex County’s Republican Senator, Steve Oroho (LD24) this year.

Instead, the Democrats are lavishing their attention on Dan Cruz – formerly a loyal Democrat primary voter – and are using their social media presence to push him on blogs like the one that did the public relations piece. In that piece, Cruz played loyal wingman to Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, defending his record on COVID just one day after Sussex County residents gathered for a prayer-vigil to remember the victims of Murphy’s Executive Order 103 – which hit Sussex County particularly hard and killed over 8,000 loved ones statewide.

Governor Murphy isn’t stupid. He knows that this election is about him – not Donald Trump. The last time he was on a ballot in Sussex County, in 2017, Phil Murphy received 36 percent of the vote, buoyed by an anti-Trump backlash. Bob Menendez got just 33 percent of the vote in Sussex County in 2018 – in midst of the Trump era. Murphy is also aware of just how low it can go if you can’t make it about Trump. In 2013, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono scraped together a mere 25 percent of the vote.

In 2019, at the last legislative election, Republican Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths got 69 percent of the vote. Republican Sheriff Mike Strada received 94 percent – and the Republican Freeholder candidates had the same 94 percent.

Governor Murphy knows Steve Oroho’s record as a candidate and knows that it’s formidable. As an outsider, Oroho defeated an incumbent Freeholder Director and an incumbent Legislator supported by the entire Trenton machine to get where he is. Against Democrats he has won with excess of 70 percent of the vote. At his last primary, in 2017, Oroho won re-election by 49 percentage points – 74 percent to 25 percent.

Before Steve Oroho became Sussex County’s Senator, county Democrats could console themselves with victories on the municipal and county levels. They could elect a Freeholder or a Mayor. But not under Steve Oroho. They haven’t held a single county seat while he’s been Senator – and the only mayors they can win hide their party registration and run as fiscal conservatives in non-partisan elections.

Murphy is concerned about Oroho’s ability to power turnout in Sussex County – hence, no Democrat opponent – but at the same time Murphy needs friendly “Republicans” to speak up for him and help cut the margin. This is where Cruz comes in.

George Will or Pee-wee Herman?

Results??? Cruz is running against the only Republican legislator to make the NJ media’s list of most effective legislators.  Senator Oroho's tax cuts were praised by conservative groups like Americans for Tax Reform and conservative publications like Forbes, which called his tax cuts “one of the 5 best state and local tax policy changes in 2016 nationwide.”  Of course, Cruz is still learning his lines in his new role as "conservative Republican".  We can’t expect him to know all this.   
 
Cruz’ connections to the Paterson Democrat machine and its allies is reinforced by yesterday’s public relations piece.  He is trying to present himself in ways that he imagines a conservative Republican would, but it comes off as a cross between George Will and Pee-wee Herman.  In preparation for his post-primary role as Murphy apologist, Cruz is adopting the kind of cringeworthy, defensive phrases that corporate Democrats find so acceptable in “Republicans” – like they did “The Lincoln Project”.
 
For example, the Democrats’ public relations piece about Cruz, notes that he wants “to ‘break the stigma’ associated with the Republican party before they lost their grasp.  He acknowledged that some of that came from President Donald Trump’s term in the White House… ‘We cannot just serve one side, we have to serve everyone and bring everyone together to make decisions on a collaborative effort.  Many people disliked the party because of President Trump’s message and what he stood for, but that doesn’t mean all of us are like that.’”
 
And this: “As far as Cruz is concerned, Republicans can do better by reaching out to areas that they traditionally have not campaigned in.  Republicans’ failure to try to appreciably make the big tent bigger is detrimental to their long term success.  Regarding the gubernatorial election, he said, ‘My impression is this.  Murphy has the leg.  Right now, he is ahead in the most populous cities—Paterson, Newark, Trenton—he is ahead there.  You don’t have a Republican who can go into these cities and say ‘Vote for me.’  They aren’t going into the inner cities, speaking to the people.’” 
 
“When asked what he thought of Governor Phil Murphy’s performance handling the pandemic, Cruz was candid.  ‘Regarding Governor Murphy there are some things that he could’ve done better, and there are obviously some things he has done that you can say he did OK.  I think with the COVID plan, he did what he thought was the best possible solution in his eyes and administration,’ a seemingly rare instance in the current climate where an opposition party acknowledges the perceived sincerity of another.”
 
Cruz completely avoided mentioned Executive Order 103 or the 8,000 people who died or the fact that the worst hit nursing homes were in the county and district he says he wants to represent.  And the vigil to remember those who died had just been held in the town in which he lives!  Now, that is shilling. 
 
Cruz went on to compare Murphy to Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida.  Cruz said Murphy had done better… “Balancing governmental direction with laissez faire has been a perilous tightrope act for Governor Murphy since the start of the pandemic.  ‘When you read the news and listen to people,’ Cruz said, ‘I believe that New Jerseyans have been extremely responsible during this time.’”
 
But Dan Cruz’ utility for Murphy doesn’t end with protecting his flank with Republicans.  Cruz’ background as a teacher and education activist provides a perspective to launch attacks on attempts by more fiscally responsible Democrats to rein in some of Murphy’s more bewildering excesses.  And so, Cruz has bitterly attacked Senate President Steve Sweeney and the Path to Progress, which is the work of a bi-partisan coalition of Democrat and Republican legislators.
 
Cruz opposes the reduction in education administrators that the consolidation advocated in the Path to Progress would produce.  Fewer individual units delivering education equals a smaller education bureaucracy and fewer administrators.  By coincidence, it just so happens that Cruz’ wife is an education administrator making six-figures and all the benefits.  She works for the New York City school system at a high school with problems not unlike those in New Jersey that the Path to Progress is looking to address: Only 2 percent of students have taken an Advanced Placement Test, just 37 percent are proficient at mathematics, only 32 percent are proficient at reading, and the graduation rate is 29 percent. 
 
Is Steve Sweeney and the Path to Progress right?  Will consolidating bureaucracy help?  While admitting that it would save taxpayers’ money, Cruz doesn’t think so. He’s concerned that local school superintendents and the boards they control would lose too much power – and if that were to happen, what might become of taxpayer-funded positions like he enjoys, and all those perks and benefits that mere legislators can only dream of?
 
Maybe he’d have to fall back on his business – a sideline to top off two taxpayer-funded incomes (with perks and benefits) – called Opulent Creations Events, L.L.C.  The upside is that Cruz would have more time to attend to it and not have the problems he had with the NJ Department of Revenue which, according to them, suspended Cruz’ business (he is listed as COO) from January 16, 2016 to May 15, 2017.  A silver lining?  
 
 

“Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.”

Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa)

After RICO conviction of Opioid maker, Trenton should come clean on Big Pharma connections

By Rubashov
 
On Monday, as Trenton Democrats failed in their attempt to forcibly mandate a Big Pharma product, federal prosecutors in Boston were securing tough sentences in their first Big Pharma conviction in an opioid crisis that has resulted in more than 400,000 deaths.
 
NPR called the criminal trial of top executives at Insys Therapeutics a “landmark case” and the “first successful prosecution of high-ranking pharmaceutical executives linked to the opioid crisis, including onetime billionaire John Kapoor.” 
 
Kapoor and his four co-defendants were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy – a charge that is often used to prosecute drug dealers and mob bosses.  In this case the federal government used racketeering to go after corporate executives.
 
The Big Pharma executives were found guilty of running a nationwide bribery scheme. According to court documents, from 2012 until 2015, the pharmaceutical company paid doctors to prescribe opioids in high doses and give it to patients who did not necessarily need it.
 
To facilitate their scheme, the Big Pharma executives created a sham "speakers program” where doctors were paid if they wrote a lot of prescriptions.  It’s the same kind of scam that was used by special interests to pay-off friendly politicians. 

Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senate Democrat Leader Loretta Weinberg have promised their political bosses that they will remove the rights of people to have religious and conscientious objections to the use of Big Pharma products, in this session of the Legislature.  There is a real concern here, because pharmaceutical companies like the one sentenced in federal court on Monday have used their billions to shout down average voters.
 
In 2016, Insys Therapeutics underwrote an effort to defeat a ballot initiative in Arizona.  This included an advertising campaign claiming that opposing the measure was to "protect children".
 
Insys Therapeutics’ allies included major state politicians, the Association of County School Superintendents, the Hospital and Healthcare Association, and several other community organizations.  Big Pharma won… defeating the ballot initiative 51.3% to 48.7%. 
 
That’s why it is so important for New Jersey reformers to demand that a fully transparent website be created that details all of Big Pharma’s influence in New Jersey.  There have been too many deaths as a result of that influence and the resulting lax oversight by government.  400,000 dead and counting…
 
The time for transparency is now.

Video links Sweeney push on mandatory vaccination to Big Pharma

An explosive new video has been posted on YouTube by the media group News In Jersey.  The video has already been viewed by over 12,700 people.

News in Jersey writes:
 
Many have wondered why New Jersey State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has been so adamant in regards to passing Senate Bill S2173, to the extent that he would remove Health Committee Board Members to push this Bill and then to try to influence other Senators to Vote Yes to the most controversial bill that New Jersey has seen in decades. We investigated and found that there is one constant when Sweeney becomes defiant, those are the bills that he is protecting or pushing that George Norcross has demanded.
 
Welcome to the swamp of New Jersey politics. General Majority is the George Norcross run Super Pac pushing politicians into their positions. New Jerseyans see thru the millions that Norcross has spent to put his personally selected order takers into office.
 
He has been buying votes and influence to steer insurance contracts to his firm for years. He has used the Quid Pro Quo to build his firm and is now doing the same thing for other companies who need influence and are looking to get laws passed that will help their net profits.
 
George Norcross and Stephen Sweeney have crossed the line. We are putting our politicians on notice, we are watching you and we will be investigating your connections…
 
We welcome any additional commentary, rebuttals, clarifications, etc. on this very interesting topic.  Stay tuned…

Sweeney camp says African-American legislators guilty of endangering children’s lives

By Rubashov
 
There is an increasing sense of desperation in the attempt by Senate President Steve Sweeney and his camp to pass a series of controversial and unpopular bills that they waited until after the November election to spring on the voters.  That’s right, everyone who is now pushing so loudly for things like this forced  vaccination bill didn’t have the balls to make so much as a squeak before the election, when the voters could do something about it. 
 
Everyone party to this lame duck scam now is being dishonest with the voters – and the voters know it.
 
Sweeney’s latest act of desperation happened late yesterday, when the Democrat Senate President trotted out Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) to suggest that Assemblyman Jamel Holley (D-20) would be culpable in the deaths of children.  Yes, that is how desperate they’ve become.  In an exchange on InsiderNJ, Senator O’Scanlon made this statement about Assemblyman Holley:
 
“Let’s be absolutely clear, the science is overwhelming, vaccines save lives.  Children’s lives.  As our solid, high levels of vaccination rates have fallen the occurrence of outbreaks of preventable, potentially life-altering or even deadly diseases has increased.  If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.
 
“It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.  And please don’t try to compare the infinitesimally smaller risk of vaccines to the dramatically greater risk of failure to maintain a high level of vaccination.
 
“Lastly, it isn’t just the optionally non-vaccinated that are at risk.  The elderly, the very young, the immunocomprosmised who can’t be vaccinated, the 1 in 10 children who are vaccinated who don’t develop immunity and wide swaths of the population whose immunity has lessoned over time. It will be these potentially permanently impacted lives that Assemblyman Holley will have to answer for.”
 
The Sweeney camp – with Republican Declan O’Scanlon as its spokesperson – are a group of non-scientists playing with science.  They make the claim that New Jersey’s vaccination rates have fallen and we are now facing a crisis.  Like it wasn’t a crisis before the election, but it is one now.  Now, in lame duck, children are going to die – and it’s going to be Assemblyman Holley’s fault!
 
But this simply isn’t true.  According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), New Jersey’s vaccination rates are higher than the national average.  So why did this crisis suddenly materialize after an election.  Isn’t that what you have an election for – to discuss issues like this, openly and honestly? 
 
Everyone know that the lame duck session is when you sneak through all the legislation average voters don’t want or care about as paybacks for those special interests who supported you during the election.  You know, the election where you didn’t discuss all these controversial issues in an honest and transparent manner.
 
Skepticism towards the pharmaceutical industry is not without reason.  After all, didn’t they tell us that opioids were the bomb, that they were just the thing for all our troubles, and not to worry?  Didn’t a court just rule that a major pharmaceutical company suppressed evidence that their product gave women uterine cancer?  And they suppressed it for three decades! 
 
So why should we listen to Sweeney and O’Scanlon’s assurances that Pharma knows best?  Isn’t that how the opioid crisis came about?
 
This is why you don’t do this kind of legislation after the election.  You do it before the voters have cast their votes, so that they have a say, so democracy can work.  Instead, we have the lame duck scam, and a lot of chest beating about a problem that wasn’t a problem the politicians wanted to talk about just a few months ago. 
 
And the desperation of the Sweeney camp is palpable.  Just look at the madness of the language employed by Sweeney spokesperson O’Scanlon:  “If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.  It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.” 
 
O’Scanlon is employing a very weird, highly unethical, form of bullying.  Afterall, given so loose an argument, wouldn’t this make Sweeney and O’Scanlon responsible for all the deaths resulting from their exemption?  If you really, really believed the b.s. you are laying on Holley, why would you exempt ANY child?  Would not their amendment be a kiss of death for those students? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases reports the risk of death from measles is higher for adults than for children.  So why isn’t the Sweeney camp mandating the vaccination of every public employee, everyone on any form of public assistance, every incarcerated adult and juvenile, and everyone attending a state supported institution of higher learning? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases recommends that all adults born in 1957 or later get “at least one dose of the MMR vaccine” and that all college and university students, healthcare personnel, and international travelers “receive two doses of the MMR vaccine.”  Heck, if we are talking science, that’s what the actual scientists are advising.
 
And the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases makes this politically-incorrect observation…
 
FACT: Most cases of measles in the US result from infections acquired in other countries or are linked to imported cases.
 
Holy dog crap!  So how come Sweeney, Murphy, and the Democrats are so committed to porous borders???  Like… if they were really committed to stopping the measles and protecting children…
 
Why is O’Scanlon silent on this point?
 
Have you noticed yet that the Democrat Senate President has successfully co-opted a Republican and got him to do his dirty work?  Sadly, this has happened before, on issues ranging from the imposition of the state income tax to the repeal of the death penalty.
 
Meanwhile, a host of very important issues go entirely unaddressed – beginning with property taxes.  Yeah, that thing that New Jersey leads the world in.  The highest property taxes in America, along with the highest foreclosure rate, along with the worst for business climate and job creation.  Why are none of the issues that average voters actually care about being taken up by the Legislature?
 
Why?  Because average voters don’t pay lobbyists, that's why… 

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.”
 
The Democrats know this – just as they know that they will always be able to find a Republican to help them push one of their special interest scams over the line.  Maybe Republicans should just refuse to participate in Sweeney’s scams until he agrees to actually address the important jobs that the average voters want the Legislature to do – like lower property taxes. 

LUPE should lead investigation on Trenton sex scandal

By Rubashov
 
Yesterday, Latinas United for Political Empowerment (LUPE) PAC sent Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-37) the names of four Latina women who they asked to be added to the “ad-hoc committee” that Weinberg is proposing address “misogyny and sexual harassment” in Trenton.  LUPE president Laura Matos put out this statement (in part):

“While the ongoing coverage of the #MeToo movement has touched upon the topic of the diversity of the women victimized by sexual harassment and assault, women of color are still underrepresented in this coverage.  It has been shown over the past three decades that women of color have vastly different experiences in terms of sexual harassment and assault.”

Let’s leave aside the false construct of “women of color” for the moment and concentrate on things that matter like economic class and the barriers that language may impose on people.  We recall a case in Hudson County in which a judge (yes, a judge) was specifically targeting and sexually preying upon economically disadvantaged working class women, many of whom were not proficient in the English language. 

Cases like this are obviously different from what is suffered by more powerful, economically secure women, so Ms. Matos’ point should be seriously addressed.

On the other hand, if Ms. Matos is arguing that those in power perceive Latina women as especially vulnerable to coercion, that is a different matter.  Is there data on this?  If so, Ms. Matos' group might be in a good position to collect testimony.  We should note that this was a factor in a recent report we received about a senior member of the Speaker’s office who appeared to be targeting a junior staffer.
   
According to press reports, Senator Weinberg has invited veteran lobbyist Jeannine LaRue, political operative Julie Roginsky and Patricia Teffenhart, executive director of the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Senate Majority Counsel Alison Accettola and Senate Minority Executive Director Christine Shipley to serve on the panel, whose membership will be finalized later this week.  Outside of Ms. Teffenhart, this appears to be an insiders’ panel and we seriously doubt that someone like Ms. Accettola will actually call out her bosses or a lobbyist like Ms. LaRue will be in an economic position to serve as an independent whistleblower.  It simply isn’t credible.

Senator Weinberg knows this – and her efforts appear more and more to be along the lines of an attempt to seize a potential scandal, control it before it gets out of hand, and then brush it under the rug.  Like they did the rape case, still unresolved, of Katie Brennan. Nobody was charged.  Blame was sufficiently obfuscated and dispersed.  The Trenton way.     
 
In her statement on Monday, we found it particularly hypocritical of Senator Weinberg to condemn the New Jersey State League of Municipalities and the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce for what she called their “see no evil responses.”  In fact, the same can be said of Senator Weinberg – and not just concerning what goes on at some annual event – but about what happens every day, day in, day out, in Trenton.
 
Senator Weinberg is part of the power structure in Trenton.  So how many of those in that power structure sleep with staff members who they have the power to fire at will?  How many of her colleagues have sexual dependents on their payrolls?  Would the taxpayers approve of paying for this?
 
The military doesn’t allow such fraternization.  Neither do enlightened corporations.  What message does it send?  What tone does it set – when powerful people are allowed to hire paramours or groom them at the workplace? 
 
This is where the rot begins.  Everyone knows what is going on, everyone sees it, people are rewarded, predators are lauded and further empowered – and nothing is said.  And Senator Weinberg is somehow surprised when it goes outside the Trenton workplace and occurs at the social gatherings of such people?  Don’t start at the fringes – clean it up at the source!     
 
If Senator Weinberg is serious about what she put out in her press release, she might wish to start with her Democrat colleague in the nearby 32nd District…

This has been out in the public domain since 2011 – nearly a decade – and it happened just down the road from where Senator Weinberg lives!  And she’s putting out press releases in 2019 suggesting that this kind of misogynistic behavior is news to her?  We have to ask… are you for real?
 
And why haven’t the members of Congress who represent Bergen and Hudson Counties spoken up about this State Senator?  Why haven’t we heard from Congressmen Josh Gottheimer (D-5), Albio Sires (D-8), Bill Pascrell (D-9), or Donald Payne (D-10)?  These men have all been quick to blame political opponents for indiscretions but are mute when it comes to their political allies.  Don’t they understand that nothing will ever change that way?    
 
There are many serious people in politics and public policy.  You have people like Sue Altman on the Left and Regina Egea on the Right.  But there are a lot more jumped-up, wannabe political celebrities.  And like all celebrities, they think they are special.  They think taxpayers’ money is their money.  They think the voters are their subjects – to be bossed, mandated, manipulated, and ordered about.  They think people are put on earth for them to consume.
 
The institutional misogyny that pervades the Trenton Establishment will never be adequately addressed by a pillar of that Establishment.  Senator Weinberg has too many deals in place and, as a member of the legislative  leadership, she’s part of the problem.  One need only be reminded of how she single-handedly prevented the bi-partisan Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act from even getting a hearing in committee – in spite of this legislation having enough co-sponsors of both parties to ensure its passage.
 
Instead of a committee composed of people who knew about this for years but remained silent, how about bringing in some average taxpayers – the people who foot the bill for all this hanky panky – and let them get outraged.  Maybe a few heads would roll? 
 
Not to worry though, this will get reported on and written about… thanks to Senate President Steve Sweeney’s mighty efforts to piss-off as many working women authors as is possible, thanks to his efforts to destroy their careers.  It’s just another facet of Trenton’s non-stop WAR ON WOMEN.  And this time, you won’t get to contain it using an insider committee like you did with the Brennan cover-up.  

When it comes to screwing working moms. Sweeney Dems are fighting a losing battle.

Just got this missive from some of Senate President Steve Sweeney’s minions:

S-4204 (sponsored by Senate President Sweeney) & A-5936 (sponsored by Assemblymen Joe Egan and Wayne DeAngelo) seeks to reform this broken system.

Send a pre-written e-mail to your State Senator and two Assembly representatives RIGHT NOW by CLICKING HERE to ask them to vote “YES” on these important bills.

Really? A pre-written email? What, literacy not a big thing in Sweeneyland?

The Senate President has got himself tangled up in a fight led by a group of women writers. That should scare the bejesus out of him. And even if he’s too arrogant to admit it (them being women and all) – the Democrats he leads should know enough to get out of the way of what’s coming at them.

These woman are smart, wickedly articulate, and they are already making the Senate President a national laughing-stock. One of them (she works as a free-lance investigative reporter for the Washington Post) has already landed him in that newspaper-of-record’s pages. Get a load of these excerpts from the Washington Post, earlier this week…

In 2003, I walked away from my full-time, $80,000-a-year job as the executive editor of a national magazine. I had no other job lined up; I just had a hunch, having worked in the publishing business for about a decade, that I could have a better work-life balance and make a lot more money if I put out a shingle as a freelance writer and editor.

As it turns out, I was right. Today, I work fewer hours, I work only the hours I want, and I make six figures. I’m happier, I get to pick my projects, and I get to choose which editors I want in my life. I am 47 years old with a career that is successful in pretty much every way.

But that career will no longer exist if my home state of New Jersey and other states like it continue on their current path with independent contractor legislation, putting freelance journalists like me out of business…

The laws are being marketed as pro-worker, but the way they are being written is so strict that they are already starting to destroy the careers of people such as me who prefer to work for ourselves.

…The language in these independent contractor laws, though, makes no meaningful distinction between exploited contract workers and people like me. Instead, the language makes it impossible for people like me to work within the letter of the law.

New Jersey’s S4204, for instance, says I have to do all my work “outside all of the places of business of the employer.” That means I can’t spend even one or two days of an 18-month, front-page project outside my home office, having meetings with my editors in a place like The Washington Post’s newsroom. How is any freelancer, no matter whether she is a journalist or a graphic artist or a public-relations specialist, supposed to run her business if she never takes meetings on any client’s premises? The upshot of clauses like that one in S4204 could be crippling fines for employers. And because of that threat, according to testimony given during a standing-room-only hearing in New Jersey’s capitol last week, editors and publishers in New Jersey are already saying the same thing the ones in California are starting to say to freelancers there: Thanks, you’re great, but we’ll find our writers and proofreaders elsewhere.

These states, in writing such overly broad legislation, are hanging a giant, toxic, neon sign around the necks of the middle class…

…everyone from truck drivers to caterers to yoga instructors has their livelihood in the crosshairs. The people testifying in New Jersey that their careers would be hit have ranged from lawyers to wedding photographers to bakers. Newspaper representatives tried to explain that people who deliver those papers are independent contractors, and if this legislation becomes law, citizens will no longer get their local news delivered to their homes. The lawmakers seemed genuinely stunned about how many jobs operate under the independent contractor model in modern-day America. They really seemed to have no clue.

… The lawmakers writing this legislation have no idea who the millions of us choosing to be independent contractors are, or how our industries operate, or why we want to remain our own bosses. Here in New Jersey, the power behind this legislation is state Senate President Steve Sweeney, a 60-year-old high school graduate with no higher education on his résumé, and whose day job is serving as vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. His worldview matches that of the senators we came up against in the hearing room; they seem to truly believe we’re all just confused about our ability to protect our own best interests.

A bunch of clueless, stupid good-old-boy politicians vs. a lot of very smart women. You knuckleheads sure picked yourselves a good fight. Good luck with that boys.

Imagine what would happen to Sweeney’s caucus if these women split into groups and decided to assign three or four or more to each incumbent Sweeneyite. Imagine boys… each of you with your own investigative reporter – or maybe two or three of them – ripping through your stuff and writing about it… endlessly. Heck, maybe the GOP might even take the notion to help them disseminate it… or maybe Sue Altman and Jay Lassiter will.

Politically, most of these women are what you would call attitudinal liberals. Few are Trump supporters. But they could become Jersey Republicans for the simple reason that Jersey Democrats – led by Senate President Sweeney – have pronounced a death sentence on their livelihoods and are preparing to pull the trigger. Nothing so concentrates the mind as having your life destroyed. It becomes crystal clear who your enemies are… and your friends become whoever hates your enemies.

Looks like Sweeney came to a spelling bee armed with a truncheon. No, threats and intimidation aren’t going to work this time. You can’t do a “Sue Altman” on these gals and expect to win.

A two-minute video that accurately depicts what happened in Trenton yesterday (and you got the bill)

Senate President Steve Sweeney is a rather immoral guy. On a whole lot of levels. In a whole lot of ways.

He waits until after the November election to unfold a legislative agenda that was fashioned by a hellish cabal of special interests. Sweeney, as we know, is running for the Democrat nomination for Governor in 2021, so the campaign has already started, at least as far as lining up the money is concerned.

Sweeney wouldn’t dare do it before the election, when the voters would have had the opportunity to hold Sweeney’s fellow Democrats to account. He’s like the tradesman who gives his victim a pleasant estimate at the beginning… and then presents her with a grossly inflated bill after the job is done. It’s immoral.

Sweeney’s victims are working mothers and others who depend on the flexible arrangements that working as an independent contractor provides them. The Democrat wants to make such arrangements illegal in New Jersey. And true to form, many other Democrats are going to back his profoundly anti-worker legislation.

It’s called Senate Bill S-4204. The bill has one sponsor – Senate President Steve Sweeney. Yesterday, despite acknowledging that S-4204 was “flawed” and “confusing” and “disappointing”, the anti-worker Democrats on the Senate Labor Committee dutifully passed legislation – that they agree is a mess – out of committee and to the full Senate for a vote.

If these people were moral, if they possessed any integrity at all, they would not use the so-called “lame duck” session after an election to rush through all the controversial legislation they sat on all year long. It spits on notions of transparency, democracy, and honest government. But we all know what they are up to… these are just the games played by brutes in power…

We understand and respect the AFL-CIO’s impulses in supporting S-4204, but we believe they are wrong to conflate those who are forced to work as “independent contractors” with those who do so because they want to – because it is their choice to work that way. Sweeney’s legislation goes way beyond correcting the legitimate concerns raised by our brothers and sisters at the AFL-CIO. The Democrat’s legislation is a thuggish, barbaric attempt to force workers – mainly women – against their will into a working arrangement that is not in their interest. This is akin to slavery.

And it is a slavery that does great harm to the beautiful idea of the right of working men and women to freely organize and collectively negotiate to achieve better pay and conditions in the workplace. When you allow a politician like Senate President Sweeney to replace the word “free” with the term “compel” you brutalize the entire labor movement. An environment is created that brutalizes every worker.

The Cause of Labor is the Hope of the World. We believe that. But that cause can only be achieved when it is a compact between free men and women, freely joining together as a union – the benefits of which should be so transparent that workers should wish to join freely, of their own accord. Proselytize, convince, but do not compel.

Let’s have labor unions made up of free men and women. Not enslaved workers.

Dem activist to working moms: “We need to start our own world with out the white folks.”

“We need to start our own world with out (sic) the white folks.”

With one slight alteration, how would this read in its original German?
 
This individual is a Democrat activist from St. Louis, Missouri, commenting on a New Jersey blog as part of an effort to attack a group of working people from New Jersey – mainly women – whose perspective on the threat to their livelihoods was shared on that blog.  This is who the Trenton Democrats have got to shill for them.
 
What do Senators Fred Madden… Linda Greenstein… Joe Lagana have to say about supporters like the one above?  Are they down with this?
 
Working mothers and others depend on the flexible arrangements that working as an independent contractor provides them.  But such arrangements could soon be illegal in New Jersey, if Senate Democrats have their way.     
 
After Senate Bill S-4204 was passed out of the Senate Labor Committee on a 3 to 1 vote (Three Democrat YES votes – Fred Madden, Joseph Lagana, and Jim Beach – to one Republican NO, Tony Bucco.  The bill has one sponsor – Senate President Steve Sweeney.), a group of working professionals decided to do something to protect their livelihoods. 
 
The group is www.fightforfreelancers.com .  In under two weeks, they have attracted nearly 1,000 activists and its Facebook and web pages feature dozens of stories about the hardships S-4204 will bring. 
 
Other groups have formed as well – all to fight the ruinous provisions of Senate Bill S-4204.  In response, far-Left activists from around the country – from California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, and so on – have been called in by desperate Democrats in Trenton to attack the New Jersey women who are fighting for their livelihoods.  It is a very questionable reaction by the leadership of the Democrats who control the New Jersey Legislature.  They are attacking the New Jersey women on Facebook and on websites that carry their stories. 
 
You can do something to save the professions chosen by working moms and others.  The Senate Labor Committee is meeting again TODAY in Trenton – at 10am.  You can call or email the Senators responsible for voting for this atrocity and give them a piece of your mind…
 
Senate President Steve Sweeney (D)
856-251-9801
856-339-0808
sensweeney@njleg.org
 
Senator Fred Madden (D)
856-232-6700
856-401-3073
senmadden@njleg.org
 
Senator Linda Greenstein (D)
609-395-9911
sengreenstein@njleg.org
 
Senator Joe Lagana (D)
201-576-9199
senlagana@njleg.org
 
We have been happy to stand with the working moms and others who want to keep the option of working as sub-contractors.  Let it remain their choice. 

Working people in New Jersey are under enough pressure as it is.  Democrats like Governor Phil Murphy and Senate President Sweeney seem bent on turning New Jersey into an outpost of France – with the French-style labor laws that have given that nation high-unemployment and under-employment for generations.  Perhaps we should nickname them Pierre and Jacques and pop little berets on their heads in future?
 
In contrast to the plans Democrats like Murphy and Sweeney have for them:  Working class people prefer to work.  They don’t want to need the government, thank you.
 
This website has always been pro-working class.  That is simply another way of being on the side of the average American.  The working class is historically under-represented in the chambers of our so-called representative democracy. 
 
We recognize the inherent conservative nature of the working class.  People less well-off have always had to depend on each other.  They cleave to family and form extended communities for that purpose.  Only the rich can afford to kick out the pillars of society (safe in the knowledge that there will always be a way to buy oneself out of the consequences).  The working class is a movement that marches in the streets, but kneels in church.  

This is the reason the working class has been left behind by the Democrat Party. It is the reason that the vast majority of voters today have become orphans in our political process.

Writers like Ross Douthat (of the New York Times) and Reihan Salam (formerly of National Review, Slate, and The Atlantic) have suggested that the future of the working class is within the Republican Party. Time will tell. We are not sure about the residual presence of the Christie Whitman class and if it will be sufficient to bar the working class. Time will tell.

The American working class are the “forgotten people” of the global economy. Indeed, this can be said of working classes in post-industrial economies around the world. And we recall how one Democrat legislator, just a couple years ago, pointedly stated that “the New Jersey Legislature does not serve the ‘forgotten people'" in a direct reference to the working class.

We suspect that without knowing it, this Democrat legislator was acknowledging one of the great under-reported facts of American political life. In White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University Professor Nick Carnes cites studies showing that while a majority of Americans work in blue-collar employment (and over two-thirds can be described as “working class”), only 2 percent of Congress were blue-collar workers before being elected and only 3 percent of State Legislators are employed as blue-collar workers. Carnes and others hold that this disparity reflects the economic decisions and priorities of legislative bodies in America.

This lack of blue-collar perspective shouldn't surprise anyone looking at the Legislature's agenda. And even when a blue-collar guy does get elected, he or she is one of so few that they are quickly pulled into the maelstrom of identity politics that so dominates and pollutes.

This is why Democrat political leaders in Trenton don't appear to care about New Jersey having the highest property taxes in America, or its highest in America foreclosure rate, or its worst business climate in America (as in… the worst place for job creation). Look at the legislative agenda and you will see what they’re about. It’s all ass, ass, ass… as a distraction to the real business of crony capitalism and wiring the system so that this interest or that can make a buck (and then kick back in the form of campaign contributions and such).

All this provides background to a growing body of academic research that shows, again and again, that we no longer live in a representative democracy, but rather an oligarchy. As a recent Princeton University study reported, "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

See you at the Committee hearing…

Meet some of the people whose lives are being destroyed by Trenton Democrats

Working mothers and others depend on the flexible arrangements that working as an independent contractor provides them. It’s a global feature of what’s become known as the new “gig economy”. But such arrangements could soon be illegal in New Jersey, if Senate Democrats have their way.

Senate Bill S-4204 was recently passed out of the Senate Labor Committee on a 3 to 1 vote. That’s three Democrat YES votes – Fred Madden, Joseph Lagana, and Jim Beach – to one Republican NO (Tony Bucco). The bill has one sponsor – Senate President Steve Sweeney.

The Assembly Democrats also passed their own version of the bill out of committee on a 6 (Democrats) to 3 (Republicans) vote. The Democrats waited until after Election Day to introduce their bills in both chambers of the Legislature. Now it’s getting fast-tracked. How dishonest is that? Waiting until after the voters could do something about it.

As proposed by Sweeney, S-4204 “provides that, for the purposes of all State employment laws, individuals who perform services for remuneration are employees, not independent contractors, and are subject to the provisions of those laws… unless and until it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioner that:

a. The individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of the service, both under the individual’s contract of service and in fact; and

b. The individual’s service is either outside the usual course of the business for which that service is performed; and

c. The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.”

This is an incredibly stupid move for Senate President Sweeney, a potential candidate for Governor in 2021. But it gets worse because the guy Sweeney would be running against – incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy – supports Senate Bill S-4204 too.

Who is affected by S-4204? Several Facebook groups have formed in response to the actions by Trenton Democrats. Some feature the stories of those whose livelihoods will be destroyed by the Democrats’ actions.

One such group is www.fightforfreelancers.com . In under two weeks, this group has attracted nearly 1,000 activists and its Facebook page features dozens of stories about the hardships S-4204 will bring.

Alida Kass of the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute is leading the fight against S-4204 and its companion legislation. NJ101.5’s Bill Spadea recently interviewed her…

You can do something to save the professions chosen by working moms and others. The Senate Labor Committee is meeting again on Thursday in Trenton. You can call or email the Senators responsible for voting for this atrocity and give them a piece of your mind…

Senate President Steve Sweeney (D)
856-251-9801
856-339-0808
sensweeney@njleg.org

Senator Fred Madden (D)
856-232-6700
856-401-3073
senmadden@njleg.org

Senator Linda Greenstein (D)
609-395-9911
sengreenstein@njleg.org

Senator Joe Lagana (D)
201-576-9199
senlagana@njleg.org

GSI Poll: 44% of New Jersey residents planning to leave. Is NJ the new East Germany?

Yesterday was a voting session in the New Jersey Legislature. Regina Egea of the Garden State Initiative (GSI), a think tank that closely monitors the various home-grown diseases that beset the state’s economy, sent around fresh data from a poll conducted for GSI by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s School of Public & Global Affairs. Ms. Egea had this to report:

According to the survey, 44% of New Jersey residents are planning to leave the state in the not so distant future with more than 1 in 4 (28%) planning to depart the Garden State within 5 years. Unsurprisingly, Property Taxes and the overall Cost of Living were cited as the main drivers. The results also debunk two issues frequently cited in anecdotal accounts of outmigration, weather and public transportation, as they ranked 8th and 10th respectively, out of 11 factors offered.

These results should alarm every elected official and policymaker in New Jersey. We have a crisis of confidence in the ability of our leaders to address property taxes and the cost of living whether at the start of their career, in prime earning years, or repositioning for retirement, New Jersey residents see greener pastures in other states. This crisis presents a profound challenge to our state as we are faced with a generation of young residents looking elsewhere to build their careers, establish families and make investments like homeownership.

This out-migration of people should come as no surprise to anyone who has kept track of how and where former New Jersey elected officials spend their retirement. After lifetimes spent raising people’s property taxes, voting for all manner of other taxes and spending – while building up pensions and other benefits for themselves – they move to states less liberal with money, with markedly lower taxes. They escape the taxes they are responsible for, the failing economy they are responsible for. There are actual colonies of former New Jersey elected and appointed officials popping up in states like Florida and North Carolina – all being mailed pension checks from New Jersey!

So how did the New Jersey Legislature spend the voting session on the day the poll was released that showed nearly half the inmates of the garden spot they’re running were planning their escape? In the words of Republican Assemblyman Hal Wirths, the Democrats who control the Legislature decided to make it “criminal appreciation day”.

Yep, the Democrats gave the vote to convicted criminals and also provided them with education funding – just months after they gave millions in education funding to illegal immigrants – while slashing education funding to the children of property tax payers across the state. Of course they did, that’s how they roll.

The Democrats in New Jersey have gone crazy. Everybody can see how this story is going to end. The only thing that can change that ending are Republicans. Elect a Republican as Governor, change the make-up of the Legislature by adding more and more Republicans – and you will give anxious movers-to-be the breathing space to reconsider and give the state a second (or third or fourth) chance.

Democrat Senate President Steve Sweeney has spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince New Jersey’s business community that he is for them. They even backed his guys in District 1 (and lost).

But Sweeney’s promises and plans are not really “bi-partisan” or “pro-business” or “pro-jobs” at all. He showed this when he specifically targeted Republican-voting school districts for his education funding cuts. And again, during the campaign, when he allowed top staffer Mark Magyar’s newspapers to trash even friendly Republicans. And after the campaign, with a $9 million pay-back to abortionist Planned Parenthood for supporting Democrat candidates. And again, when Sweeney proposed S-4204, which will crush working mothers and drive businesses out of the state.

Steve Sweeney always returns to what he is. He is reminiscent of those lines from one of Kipling’s poems:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

These Democrats – all of them, in one way or another – are a form of slow motion disaster. Post-election, they have merely increased the speed. All the evidence suggests that with these Democrats, in the end, the only good Republican is one who no longer holds office (just as the only good business or good worker is one who pledges fealty to the corrupt machine). Those 44 percent of New Jerseyans who are so desperate for leadership they are willing to move to seek it elsewhere, will not be assuaged by “bi-partisan” cohabitation. More dramatic measures are in order – clear, unambiguous Republican measures.

Democrat Malinowski likes to watch illegals “mow lawns”

The new “Left” is absurdly rich and doesn’t care about working people.  It doesn’t matter if they are American citizens, legal residents, or illegal immigrants.

Lisa Bhimani is running for the Legislature in Morris and Somerset Counties.  She claims to be a “fighter” for average folks but how?  She’s so average she not only owns a million dollar home in the district – she has a $1.6 million place in Manhattan.  Check the United States Census figures.  That’s not average, that’s being a at the top of the One Percent. 

What’s wrong with the Democrat Party in New Jersey?

The last two Democrat Governors have been Wall Street One Percenters.  Cory Booker is a Wall Streeter, as are many others… this is who dominates and runs the New Jersey Democrat Party.   Senate President Steve Sweeney, a blue-collar union guy, is the odd-man-out in a leadership that got rich playing with money, through crony capitalism, and government contracts. 

In his book, White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University's Nick Carnes points out that while upwards of 65 percent of citizens are "working class" and 54 percent are employed in a blue-collar occupation, just 2 percent of the members of Congress and 3 percent of state legislators held blue-collar jobs at the time of their election.  How is that for a party that preaches diversity?

For non-citizen legal residents, the percentage in the working class is even higher, and for illegal immigrants higher still.  Not being eligible to vote, they are not represented at all – although the Democrats do make use of their bodies by carving out more Democrat districts by inflating the numbers with non-citizens.   

Not to worry… the One Percenters claim to be representing them.  Actually though, people like Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger (formerly of UBS Investment Bank) and Tom Malinowski (scion of a wildly wealthy blue-blood family) support policies that pit the illegal gray economy against American workers.  What difference does raising the minimum wage make when a business is free to hire all the illegal labor it wants – courtesy of a Sanctuary State scheme?

Just a generation or so ago, wages were such that the American working class formed part of the vast “Middle Class” that was the cornerstone of America’s economic and political stability.  Read Elizabeth Warren’s The Two-Income Trap or       

The Fragile Middle Class (Americans in Debt) for more on what happened.  Now the working class are the punchline in a joke perpetrated by people like Tom Malinowski and Phil Murphy.

Our friends at Save Jersey posted the story and video below.  In it, Congressman Tom Malinowski identifies his audience as “elitists” who he publicly assumes would never get their hands dirty.  He goes on to explain that there are “a lot of jobs in our community… that Americans are not willing to take” and asks “who do you think is taking care of our seniors” and “who do you think is mowing our beautiful lawns in Somerset County.” 

https://savejersey.com/2019/08/tom-malinowski-congress-house-illegal-immigration-election-2020/

While the administration of President Trump has created unprecedented job growth, it will not last forever.  And while the unemployment rate is currently low, it does not reflect those who have stopped seeking employment.  There could be great opportunities for business ventures and employment in the fields Congressman Malinowski mentions – provided that profits and wages are not held artificially low through the use of near-slave labor.

That is what Tom Malinowski is celebrating… the use of near-slave labor for the benefit of wealthy elites.  They employ near-slave labor through the gray economy and then say that American workers don’t want the jobs.  Is it the jobs they don’t want – or the pay?   

And the idea that there is nobody in central New Jersey who would be willing to do those jobs – provided the pay was something you could live on – is nonsense.  The poverty rate in Trenton is 28 percent – and Trenton is a lot nearer to Somerset County than Guatemala.  But those trapped in poverty in Trenton will never get out of it if the only jobs available are those in the gray economy working for near-slave level wages. 

A legal economy would smash the modern wage slavers and allow wages to rise to livable standards in America.  Those employed could then organize and form unions to collectively protect their rights. 

Tom Malinowski supports the status quo.  He wants illegal immigrants to be paid near-slave wages to subsidize the rich lifestyles of people like him.  It is an old story and it got Julius Caesar in trouble, back in the day.

Near the end of the Roman Republic, the rich patrician class had made the working class poorer by bringing in vast quantities of slaves to take their jobs.  Caesar objected to this and pushed through a law that protected jobs for citizens.  The Roman Senate ended up murdering Caesar. 

Human beings go round and round, chasing their tails.  We learn, unlearn, and relearn… now as then.

Matt Rooney calls out the Democrats on their hypocrisy

This is a must read from Matt Rooney – one of New Jersey brightest Republican stars (and, hopefully, a future candidate for public office).  Rooney is a South Jersey attorney and editor of the Save Jersey news website.  He often teams up with NJ 101.5’s Bill Spadea both on radio and on Fox’s Chasing News program.

Rooney’s latest column is titled, As rich white guys battle for control, N.J. Democrats’ rhetoric doesn’t match their reality.  In it, Rooney makes these important points:  

For all the progressive/woke/social justice warrior BS we hear from New Jersey Democrats these days, their party’s power structure is remarkably simple and boils down to two mega rich white guys (Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Norcross, a labor leader turned insurance industry titan) battling over the Garden State’s Iron Throne.

Power, money, tax credits, crony capitalism, special legislation… even loyalty oaths.

…My issue here is one of intellectual integrity. The public sector unions are powerful, you bet, but the NJEA couldn’t touch Steve Sweeney (the Senate President and the Norcross-led machine’s top elected asset) in the 2017 election.

Diversity gets a lot of lip service from the Left in this state, but New Jersey’s most powerful Democrat decision-makers (Murphy, Sweeney, Norcross, Assembly Speaker Coughlin) are all older white dudes. We hear a lot about the “working class” from Trenton, but each and every policy and budget are designed to put the screws to taxpayers in favor of keeping these rich guys and their power structures chugging right along.

What I’m saying is that Democrats’ lofty rhetoric doesn’t match their reality. On either side of this fight. New Jersey’s true form of government is a blend of socialism and oligarchy (with a sprinkle of kleptocracy for good measure).

They may disagree with one another on tax credits and a small handful of other issues, but Leftist economic policies supported by both sides of the Murphy-Norcross divide haven’t helped the Middle Class in this state. New Jersey’s women, minority communities, and millennials are being left out of the economic BOOM sweeping the rest of the country as a direct result of the aforementioned bad decision and sometimes self-serving business decisions of the Democrat power elite which has dominated the legislature (and therefore Trenton) for almost two full decades.

Helping the Middle Class = lowering property taxes. None of these guys are talking about that. Ever wonder why?

Yes, why indeed?

You can read Matt Rooney’s entire column here…

https://savejersey.com/2019/05/as-rich-white-guys-battle-for-control-n-j-democrats-rhetoric-doesnt-match-their-reality/

Regina Egea: Connecticut’s housing crash a warning for NJ

The Garden State Initiative’s Regina Egea has once again brought home some hard truths that New Jersey’s political class had better embrace.  Egea is one of the smartest thinkers on public policy in New Jersey.  An M.B.A., former AT&T executive, state Treasury Department official, and Governor’s Chief of Staff – Egea also served in local government as a Deputy Mayor and School Board Member.  As President of the Garden State Initiative, she’s been collecting data, studying issues, and coming up with solutions to New Jersey’s most pressing fiscal concerns.

On May 9th you too can be part of the solution.  The Garden State Initiative will be holding its 2nd Annual Economic Policy Forum.  Join policy leaders like Senator Steve Oroho, Senator Declan O’Scanlon, and Senate President Steve Sweeney in a discussion about the future of New Jersey.  The details are below:

Garden State Initiative's 2nd Annual
Economic Policy Forum  
Thursday, May 9th, 4 to 6 pm
Hyatt Regency - New Brunswick

Egea recently wrote:  “The Garden State Initiative's first research report in 2017, “Connecticut’s Fiscal Crisis Is a Cautionary Tale for New Jersey”, detailed how our neighbor up I-95, with its struggling economy, saddled with massive public debt and high taxes, served as a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for New Jersey unless we take the necessary measures to get our own fiscal house in order.”

Below are excerpts from Regina Egea’s op-ed published today in the Bergen Record and NorthJersey.com:

A recent Wall Street Journal report, “Wealthy Greenwich Home Sellers Give in to Market Reality,” on Connecticut’s real estate market should concern all New Jersey residents.

The report documents a severe price decline among high-end real estate in the Nutmeg State’s most exclusive areas, notably Greenwich, long a symbol of modern American affluence. Despite America’s booming economy, the report cited numerous reports of owners selling homes for far below what they paid a decade or more ago. 

This was typically preceded by these homeowners' establishing residences in more fiscally attractive states like Florida. (Sound familiar, New Jersey?)

The evidence is staggering. The median home price in Greenwich dropped by 16.7% last year to $1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to a report by brokerage Douglas Elliman, with early reports showing a 25% decrease in early 2019. In a jarring anecdote, the Journal cited “a stately Colonial-style home on Greenwich, Conn.’s tony Round Hill Road is being sold in a way that was once unthinkable in one of the country’s most affluent communities: It is getting auctioned off. Once asking $3.795 million, the four-bedroom property will be sold … for a reserve price of just $1.8 million.”

…The storm that is currently hitting Connecticut’s real estate market has clouds gathering in New Jersey.

When the wealthy flee a state, sustaining massive losses on their homes in the process, it is unfortunate for the individual but likely devastating for those remaining, particularly if this occurs in New Jersey due to our extraordinary reliance on property tax revenues to sustain local governments and schools. 

The research firm Wealth X reported that New Jersey lost 5,700 people with liquid assets from $1 million to $30 million in 2018 — and that’s before the implications of the state and local tax (SALT) cap on federal taxes were truly felt. Recent reports indicate that New Jersey’s income tax receipts are falling well below projections.

Discussions around yet another tax increase on the wealthy, to fund the nearly $40 billion state budget, will only exacerbate the exodus of wealth. As reference, Connecticut has a top marginal tax rate of 6.99%; last year’s budget agreement increased New Jersey’s to 10.75%. The top 2% of all New Jersey income tax filers (those making $500,000 per year) account for over 40% of all income tax revenue to the state. Since close to 40% of state revenues are from personal income taxes, increasing dependence on this group exacerbates our vulnerability at both the state and local levels. An individual loss in this income category reverberates throughout the state.

The risk now is not just those wealthy fleeing our state. As high-end real estate values deflate, as in Greenwich, the taxes to support our local governments and schools will be redistributed to moderate- and lower-value property owners.

A recent Monmouth University poll illustrates that New Jersey residents’ views of the quality of life in our state are tumbling to an all-time low. The latest poll shows that only 50% of residents are positive, down from the prior result of 54%, and in no surprise, 45% of residents named property taxes as the state’s most pressing issue.

To read the entire article, visit NorthJersey.com…

https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2019/04/29/connecticut-housing-crash-predictive-nj/ 

For more information on The Garden State Initiative, visit…

https://www.gardenstateinitiative.org

Is gun control just political theatre for Trenton Dems?

Trenton Democrats have an opportunity to show they are more than just b.s. artists when it comes to gun control.  They can follow the lead of many of New Jersey’s new Democrats in Congress and pass a resolution to condemn Washington’s radicalism that wants to make it easier to put guns into the hands of illegals in America.

Led by Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-05), most of New Jersey’s freshman Democrats in Congress opposed the Democrat majority in Congress – run by Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who opposed common sense gun safety legislation that required ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – to be notified when an illegal immigrant is trying to purchase a firearm.  Congressman Gottheimer and a number of other Democrats joined with Republicans to support this legislation, which is designed to prevent illegals with violent criminal records in their home countries – and recruits to violent gangs like MS-13 – from obtaining a handgun or semi-automatic rifle.  

Democrats like Tom Malinowski (D-07) stood with Speaker Pelosi in opposing this common sense gun safety legislation.   Malinowski and Pelosi say that Americans should undergo background checks when they seek to purchase a gun to protect their home homes and families, but not illegals.  Malinowski and Pelosi support giving new recruits to groups like MS-13 the means to make their mark on American society.

As the former campaign manager for Malinowski’s campaign in Morris County, Democrat Assembly candidate Darcy Draeger should be asked what she thinks about her Congressman’s bad vote on this common sense gun safety legislation. Draeger should be asked to step up and do something about it – at the very least to issue a statement from the (Lisa) Bhimani – (Darcy) Draeger for Assembly campaign that opposes Malinowski’s position in opposition to this common sense gun safety legislation.

In voting against this common sense gun safety legislation, Malinowski joined with professional gun-criminal coddler Congresswoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman (D-12) whose own sons were convicted of gun-crime – the armed hold-up of a toy store in central New Jersey.  It is disgraceful for Malinowski to endanger the lives of his constituents and their families in this way. 

As State GOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt of Warren County said:  “Tom Malinowski is way out of step with the people of North Jersey” and is “perpetuating a prioritization of coddling illegal immigrants rather than supporting taxpayers and keeping our communities safe.” 

Steinhardt added: “This was obvious and important enough to earn the support of New Jersey Congressional Democrats Van Drew (D-02), Kim (D-03), Gottheimer (D-05), and Sherrill (D-11), and, of course, Republican Chris Smith (R-04).”  Now the question is for Trenton Democrats like Senate President Steve Sweeney and Speaker Craig Coughlin to step up and show that all their “gun control” talk isn’t just political theatre and that they mean it, by adding their voices in support of this common sense gun safety legislation.

Pass a resolution to condemn Tom Malinowski and the other members of Congress who opposed this common sense gun safety measure, thereby putting all New Jerseyeans and their families at risk.

If the NJGOP is to survive then the “spinning” must stop

Putting the best face on a defeat is the oldest spin in politics.  The practice is ancient…

Rather than spend time trying to convince people that defeat is really victory, learn from history and discard what failed and embrace a new message.  After Watergate, Republicans embraced the message of Reagan conservatism and came roaring back at the 1980 elections – taking both the White House and the Senate.  After Democrat Bill Clinton defeated the “kinder-gentler” GOP brand of George H.W. Bush, Republicans adopted the conservative Contract with America – ending 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House of Representatives and capturing the Senate.  The populist “Tea Party” message of 2010 saw Republicans gain 63 seats to take back control of the House.  In 2014, that message completed the takeover of Congress, gaining 9 Senate seats and another 13 House seats.  And in 2016, a populist Republican took the White House in an upset that caught the professional political class of both parties by surprise. 

Nationally, and at the state and local levels, Republicans need to embrace the setbacks of 2018 and learn from them.  These lessons are clear: 

(1) Money doesn’t replace message. 

(2) Technology is a means to convey a message, not a replacement for having a message. 

(3) In the era of Trump, trying to out-liberal the Democrats is a fool’s errand. 

(4) Turnout is key and that means registering every person who would likely vote Republican and then motivating them to vote.

(5) Your message should maximize your vote without turning off your base.  Better still, find a message that excites your base while adding to it.

At present, the man with the ideas – the man leading the charge to put New Jersey back on the right economic footing – the man standing in the way of the more crazier notions of Governor Murphy’s Democratic Socialism, is in fact not a Republican at all, but a Democrat.  Senate President Steve Sweeney is calling out the Governor, challenging him to debate their contrasting ideas. 

Republicans should be challenging Governor Murphy to debates, leading with ideas and a clear message that contrasts with Murphy’s Wall Street-style social activism.  And if they can’t manage to come up with ideas of their own, then they should at least be prepared to add their united voice in support of the man who has taken on the task of challenging Murphy’s crazier instincts.

Politically, New Jersey Republicans need a message, with fully fleshed out ideas and solutions.  There are people already at work on this.  The Garden State Initiative – run by state government veteran Regina Egea – is producing a solid product of facts and stats that could back up a message… if the political will is there.  It’s up to the folks who run campaigns and the party’s leadership to take the next step.

ICYMI: Mulshine explains the gas tax

Paul Mulshine is New Jersey's top conservative columnist.  He writes for the state's largest circulation newspaper.   

The 23-cent gas-tax hike: Pigs will fly before the opponents find an alternative.

By  Paul Mulshine | The Star Ledger

October 06, 2016

The weather was sunny with a light breeze outside the Statehouse Wednesday after the state Senate took a key vote on a package that would raise the gas tax by 23 cents a gallon.

It was perfect flying weather for pigs.

My reference is of course to that fabled Statehouse rally in 2008 at which a talk-show host from NJ 101.5-FM presided over the release of hundreds of flying-pig balloons to protest a prior attempt to bail out the Transportation Trust Fund.

That was then-Gov. Jon Corzine's  plan to generate billions by having the toll roads run by a state-owned hedge fund that would bond against future toll hikes.

"Pigs will fly over the Statehouse before there's a realistic level of new taxes or spending cuts that can fix this mess," Corzine told the legislators as he introduced his scheme.

But the plan came crashing down to Earth when drivers learned that it called for tolls to eventually rise by800 percent. 

When those balloons rose over the Statehouse, the plan was dead – laughed to death by the voters. So score one for the guys at 101.5-FM.

But if we weren't going to fill the hole in the TTF with toll money, just what source of revenue could we use?

On that score, the talk-radio guys are all talk. The guys at NJ 101.5 have become the loudest opponents of the gas-tax hike.  But a lot of porkers will have to turn into pilots before the critics can come up with a good alternative for funding the TTF.

The three main objections to this plan simply don't make sense.

The first, which is repeated like a mantra among the radio talkers, is "It's too much money" or some variant thereof.

No, it's not. If they had implemented this tax hike when it was first proposed earlier in the year, drivers would have forgotten it by now. There would still be stations charging a bit over $2 a gallon. A few years ago we were paying almost $4 a gallon.

We survived.

Another objection is that the total package is slanted in favor of that group that liberals love to demonize: "the wealthy." The Sierra Club is one of many liberal pressure groups making that point.

"We believe in a plan to fix the TTF with a gas tax, but this would be on the backs of the middle class by tying it to two other tax cuts that benefit the wealthy," Sierra's Jeff Tittel said in a release. "This plan is a complete sellout to working families and will give a huge tax break to the wealthy."

One part  of the plan is the elimination of the estate tax, which now kicks in at the $650,000 level. The plan would eliminate taxation on pension income up to $100,000 a year for a couple.

Given the cost of living here in Jersey, that would include a lot of the middle classas well as thewealthy.

But the more the merrier, I say. So does state Senate President Steve Sweeney. The South Jersey Democrat teamed up with Republican Gov. Chris Christie to push the bill, which passed the Senate yesterday on a procedural vote and is expected to win final passage in both houses Friday.

Sweeney said those cuts will help keep people home after retirement.

"Those are the people who get up and move to other states," he said. "We recently had one person, David Tepper, leave and it cost us $100 million."

Tepper is the billionaire hedge-fund manager who moved himself and his business to Florida. He didn't cites taxes as the reason, but plenty of other retirees become legal residents of Florida to escape our taxes.

Oroho said his fellow financial planners have no choice but to inform retirees Florida's the best option.

"We're losing income. We're losing wealth. We gotta be competitive," he said.

Then there's the third objection. Some critics of the package argue against it on the grounds that the TTF will still have to keep borrowing even after the gas-tax hike.

That's regrettable, said Oroho. In a perfect world, we would be able to put the TTF back on the pay-as-you-go basis that existed after Gov. Tom Kean last hiked the tax in 1988.

But ensuing governors just kept borrowing money rather than raise the tax a few pennies. Now we're so far behind that returning to pay-as-you got would mean some real pain at the pump.

"If you wanted to pay off the current debt plus have no future debt,  then you'd have to raise the tax by almost a dollar a gallon," Oroho said.

Or in other words, if we want to fix this mess we don't need a flying pig.

We need a time machine.

Unless the critics have one stashed somewhere, they need to accept the inevitable.

ADD - THE REAL MISTAKE: The real mistake the Trenton crowd made was to fail to index the gas tax for inflation back in 1988. Pegging it to the price of a gallon of gas did not account for the time value of money. If it had been pegged to inflation, the tax would have slowly rose from 14.5 cents a gallon to 30.5 cents a gallon.

No one would have even noticed such a small hike and the trust fund could have remained solvent. 

Instead we had the usual gutless politicians of both parties who were glad to borrow the money while pretending to be responsible by not raising the tax.

That's what got us into this mess. Judging from the comments, you readers fell for it.

Is Bob Jordan a Journalist or a Marketing Rep?

Writing about Governor Chris Christie's recent veto of two bills -- S816 (mandating distributors to sell so-called smart guns), and A3689 (codifying regulations on the justifiable need to carry) -- Asbury Park Press reporter Bob Jordan blamed the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Jordan wrote:

"The NRA pressured Christie to kill two bills including one that would have mandated distributors to sell so-called smart guns, which proponents say stem accidental shootings and 'child proof' weapons."

Sure, the NRA lobbied the Governor, but does mere lobbying make you responsible for the actions of an adult elected official?  When the LGBTQ movement lobbied President Obama and Hillary Clinton to change their position on same-sex marriage, were they "pressured" into adopting their new beliefs?

As Bob Jordan must know, "pressured" is a very charged word.  When Garden State Equality's Steve Goldstein issued a press release threatening to withhold "gay" money from the New Jersey Democratic State Committee unless Senate President Steve Sweeney and other Democratic Party leaders changed their position on same-sex marriage, were they being "pressured" into executing their eventual flip-flop?

"Pressured" conjures images of extortion and the NRA hasn't been particularly good at "pressuring" Governor Christie, who managed just a "C" rating with the NRA as Governor.  If a journalist is going to use words like "pressured," he or she should cite more than lobbying as evidence of that "pressure."

Reporter Jordan lamely tries with a quote from Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, a Democrat from Bergen County.  Assemblyman Johnson blames Christie's veto on, wait for it... the Governor's  "bid for the Republican presidential nomination and now his support of Donald Trump."  Wow, what a dickhead!  Maybe he hasn't heard that Christie's presidential campaign crashed and burned months ago.  As for Donald Trump, when did his campaign put out a position paper on S816 and A3689?

The Assemblyman goes on:  "The governor’s veto statement is alarmingly replete with right-wing political talking points and grandstanding."  Yes, and the Assemblyman's statement may be said to be "alarmingly replete with left-wing political talking points and grandstanding."  So what?  What do these cookie-cutter insults even mean that you and your brethren in the other party endlessly use? 

Assemblyman Johnson went on to say (and how he kept a straight face, we can't tell you):  “This bill was a start toward making our streets safer, particularly in our urban areas, but sadly, Gov. Christie has once again put his political ambitions above the public safety of New Jersey residents.  That’s shameful.” 

Listen, Assemblyman Dickful, why don't you try to enforce the laws against everything that is currently unlawful -- make those streets "safer" -- "particularly in our urban areas" by making illegal drugs unavailable, for a start.  Do that one thing, accomplish that, before making new laws to create new crimes that will be obeyed only by those who care to obey them, new laws that will force the police (government's men-with-guns) into greater confrontation with individuals in the community.

Assemblyman, unless you are prepared to post a police officer on every street in New Jersey, our citizens (urban, suburban, and rural) are pretty much their own first line of protection.  Leave them alone.  If you want to do something to make them safer, get the heroin that floods every community in this state off the streets.  There have been laws against that for nearly a century and you haven't got it done yet, have you?

As for Bob Jordan, decide whether you are reporting or selling. 

Sen. Weinberg: Tell Obama "Cops Lives Matter" too

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That picture on her Facebook page is curious.  Is that Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Corzine) tickling the former confidant of the "Love Gov"?  It certainly looks like she is doing something to make Steve Goldstein smile. 

The "Lov Gov" is, of course, Eliot Spitzer of New York.  Goldstein was Spitzer's campaign mouthpiece when they were blazing their own version of the sexual revolution.  "Whatever floats your boat" is the mantra of the Kinsey-besotted "Swingers' Lobby."  Spitzer, whom Goldstein insisted was "an incredibly nice man in real life" -- even after the Lov Gov was caught hiring young women for sex, was recently in the news again.  This time he was accused in the New York media of losing it and then trying to strangle a young woman.  He was accused of this kind of "role playing" before, in a book authored by one of his young victims. Now the latest subject of his attentions has fled the country. 

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The lifestyles of rich insiders never ceases to amaze:  Sex, power, money, and let's change the world to do whatever we want.  Average people and their talk of "democracy" doesn't matter.  "Only the rich, the powerful, the well-connected, count and we decide who and what matters.  We set the fashion."

Which brings us to the misdirected "Black Lives Matter" movement that works to pit some Americans, based on their skin color or ethnic origin, against other Americans, based on their employment as law enforcement officers.  Never mind that black police officers are as ubiquitous as Irish cops once were -- especially in the higher ranks.  Black employment in policing of all types is a growth industry.

While United States Justice Department figures indicate that the number of Hispanic and Asian police officers lag behind their proportional representation of America's population as a whole, that is not the case with black police officers, who more than match it.  In some urban police departments, black officers make up more than half the department.  63 percent of Detroit's police officers are "African-American." 

In spewing hatred towards working class police officers, many of whom are black, the "Black Lives Matter" movement is allowing itself to be used by the political establishment, which is now thoroughly anti-police.  Some dislike the police because it is fashionable to do so, just as it was fashionable to hug a first responder in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.  Fashion changes.  Blue is out this year.  Others want the best police protection, but they don't want to pay for it.  For them, undermining the police weakens their position at the bargaining table.  If they can get a police officer to risk his or her life at a cut rate, that leaves more money for the vendors who fund their campaigns or for their criminal friends on Wall Street.

The real target of the "Black Lives Matter" movement should be the very politicians who have duped them into attacking the police.  In a 2014 column titled, "Eric Garner:  Criminalized to death," conservative columnist George Will wrote:

Overcriminalization has become a national plague. And when more and more behaviors are criminalized, there are more and more occasions for police, who embody the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence, and who fully participate in humanity’s flaws, to make mistakes.

Harvey Silverglate, a civil liberties attorney, titled his 2009 book “Three Felonies a Day” to indicate how easily we can fall afoul of the United States’ metastasizing body of criminal laws. Professor Douglas Husak of Rutgers University says that approximately 70 percent of American adults have, usually unwittingly, committed a crime for which they could be imprisoned. In his 2008 book, “Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law,” Husak says that more than half of the 3,000 federal crimes — itself a dismaying number — are found not in the Federal Criminal Code but in numerous other statutes. And, by one estimate, at least 300,000 federal regulations can be enforced by agencies wielding criminal punishments. Citing Husak, professor Stephen L. Carter of the Yale Law School, like a hammer driving a nail head flush to a board, forcefully underscores the moral of this story:

Society needs laws; therefore it needs law enforcement. But “overcriminalization matters” because “making an offense criminal also means that the police will go armed to enforce it.” The job of the police “is to carry out the legislative will.” But today’s political system takes “bizarre delight in creating new crimes” for enforcement. And “every act of enforcement includes the possibility of violence.”

Carter continues: “It’s unlikely that the New York Legislature, in creating the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes, imagined that anyone would die for violating it. But a wise legislator would give the matter some thought before creating a crime. Officials who fail to take into account the obvious fact that the laws they’re so eager to pass will be enforced at the point of a gun cannot fairly be described as public servants.”

Last year the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice issued its report on the Ferguson Police Department.  The report was the result of a lengthy investigation, commissioned as a response to the shooting death of a young black man by police.  The report's most notable finding -- placed front and center, although ignored by many in the mainstream media -- was that "(Ferguson's law enforcement) practices are shaped by revenue rather than by public safety needs."

That's right, the Legislature criminalizes behavior as a means of obtaining revenue for state and local governments.  The Legislature turns the police into privateers, pushing them to "earn" more for government.  Then, when something goes wrong, the very same politicians who pressured police into becoming revenue agents turn on them, setting their "movement" political allies on them to devalue police lives in order to make it easier to reduce their salaries, cut benefits, and hollow out pensions.

All you have to do is look at the way President Barack Obama has criminalized investigative journalism and whistleblowers to get a taste of how many new "offenses" have been added to the statute books.  New Jersey leads others states in adding regulations that will ultimately be enforced by men with guns.  If Weinberg and Goldstein have their way, the police will soon be used to issue citations and collect fines from people whose speech critters like the Love Gov (he of the Swingers' Lobby) finds insulting or bullying or "hateful." 

And as they add more and more for the police to enforce, they seek to make fashion statements and dupe black voters by engaging in irresponsible attacks on working class police officers.  Well, the seeds of their rhetoric has borne fruit and we are beginning to see the harvest their words have conjured.

Last week, the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a police officer's union, reported that violence against police had escalated to the point where seven police officers had been killed in just six days.  This is the kind of headline we more often saw coming from a warzone like Iraq or Afghanistan -- not from within the borders of the United States.

National FOP @GLFOP

7 officers have been killed serving their communities in the last six days. Please pray for their families

11:11 AM - 11 Feb 2016

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President Obama has been mute about the violence this rhetoric has unleashed against working police officers and their families. 

Big government legislators, like Senator Weinberg, and their lobbyist allies, like Steve Goldstein, have been mute as well.  Now is the time for them to step up and start to undo what they have done. 

First, take responsibility.  We challenge Senator Weinberg to propose a resolution that reminds legislators, Congress, and the President that police officers only enforce the laws that the political establishment makes them enforce; that there is an inherent danger in this transaction; and that police officers are often injured, wounded, or lose their lives in carrying out the directives of the political class. 

Second, tell the President to speak up.  We challenge Senator Weinberg to sign a letter to President Obama that urges him to acknowledge the costs involved in police work.  This cost is measured in lost or damaged lives and in the stress and trauma dealt with by families and loved ones.  Making the police into villains for enforcing the laws written and decided upon by the political class is outrageous hypocrisy.

Third, make the police "peace officers" not "privateers."  Make policing about public safety and not a source of revenue.  Create a Sunset Committee to review the thousands of laws and regulations that impact police conduct and place police officers on a collision course with the growing number of out-of-work or under-employed citizens who are having difficulty paying the economic sanctions imposed on them by legislative bodies at all levels of government.  Recognize that every time you send a man with a gun to collect money for government, you run the risk that someone will die. 

Because of the vote Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Norcross) made to end capital punishment, the lives of serial killers, those who rape and murder small children, those who torture to death young women, mass terrorists, and cop killers are all spared the death penalty in New Jersey.  Let's stop legislative action from inadvertently imposing the death penalty on people who can't pay a few traffic tickets or who are selling a couple cigarettes to someone who can't afford a full pack. 

It is insane for a legislative body to spare the life of a Jesse Timmendequas while causing the death of an Eric Garner.  It is monstrous for the political class to blame the police for following its orders.

81% believe government is corrupt

Fresh polling today adds to the mounting data that voters are turned-off on government, politicians, and our post-democratic process in general.  Rasmussen reported today that a new survey shows that 81 percent of likely voters in the United States describe the federal government as "corrupt," with 33 percent describing it as "very corrupt."  Just 16 percent disagree, including the 2 percent (yes, only 2 percent) who describe government as "not at all corrupt."  Here is the survey question:

National Survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters

Conducted January 28 and 31, 2016
By Rasmussen Reports

Would you describe the federal government today as very corrupt, somewhat corrupt, not very corrupt or not at all corrupt?

33% Very corrupt
48% Somewhat corrupt
14% Not very corrupt
  2% Not at all corrupt
  3% Not sure

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

Now pay attention to these numbers:  Women view government as "corrupt" more than men (84 percent to 79 percent), as do young voters more than seniors (81 percent to 75 percent).

89 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of Independents, and 70 percent of Democrats view government as "corrupt."  75 percent of black voters view government as "corrupt."

69 percent of voters believe "most government contracts are awarded to the company with the most political connections" rather than one that can "provide the best service for the best price." 

Do most government contracts get awarded to the company that can provide the best service for the best price or to the company with the most political connections?

21% Awarded to the company that can provide the best service for the best price
69% Awarded to the company with the most political connections
11% Not sure

To understand why voters feel the way they do, you need only look at what is going to take place tomorrow in the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. 

While Democrats like Assembly Speaker Vinnie Prieto (D-Sacco) are promising to make New Jersey's historically high child poverty the Legislature's top concern, critters like Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Norcross) have pushed poor children aside in favor of the top issue of the swingers' lobby -- women with penises.  You know how it is, poor children can't afford a lobbyist.  Rich and influential sexual swingers can buy whatever strikes their fancy.

The swingers want to see legislation (S-283) passed so that a man, with a penis, can become a legal "woman", simply by saying that he is seeing a therapist and then re-submitting his birth certificate to reflect his "new sex".  No surgery required. 

And it won't be recorded as an "amended" birth certificate.  It will be filed as the original.  The government will pretend that it can go back in time to correct the "perception" of the doctors and nurses who saw a child with a penis and checked "male".  The government will, in fact, lie and pretend that the attending physician checked "female" when, of course, he did not.    

On Thursday, February 4, 2016, the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee will be holding a hearing on S-283.   The public hearing will be held at 11AM in Committee Room 4, on the First Floor of the State House Annex in Trenton, New Jersey.

Senator Joseph Vitale (D-McGreevey), a man with no medical or psychological training and therefore totally unqualified to preside over this subject matter, is chairman of the committee.  Both he and Senator Sweeney, another of our elected "leaders" who managed to make it through the twelfth grade, will no doubt give excuses for why they support S-283.  But as they do, think of how much money the swingers' lobby has stuffed down their trousers.

No North Jersey Casinos if Redistrict Amend passed

We are witnessing an historic development in American politics, the demonstration project of which is happening right here in New Jersey.  A syndicate of urban political bosses from one party are trying to change a state constitution to rig the redistricting process so that the party of those bosses and their political machines control New Jersey politics in perpetuity.   

Yes, employing front men like Senate President Steve Sweeney, Assembly Speaker Vinnie Prieto, and idiot Assemblyman John McKeon, the bosses are attempting to establish a "thousand-year map" that will ensure their hegemony over a captive population who will pay ever higher taxes and face ever stricter regulation -- from the amount of water used to flush in the morning to the words exchanged with their spouses before they go to bed at night.    

And to do this they have set out -- with malice and evil intention -- to confuse voters in an election year when they know the least experienced and most easily manipulated voters will be turning out.  These are the same critters who argued that same-sex marriage was too complicated to allow the people a vote on it, and now they send a bizarre process like redistricting to the people?  Just read how the question is written and then ask yourself if it provides the necessary information to make an informed vote?

Do you approve requiring the commission to establish districts that are competitive and fairly represent voter preferences? This amendment would also require preserving communities of interest within the same district.

How?  What does that mean?  The above is an intention, not a law.  And the so-called "interpretive statement" isn't much help either:

This amendment would prohibit creating a plan in which more than half of the districts favor either major political party compared to the average district. It also would require at least 25 percent of the districts to be competitive. The amendment would also require communities of interest within districts to be preserved. 

This amendment would require districts to comply with federal law and be comprised of contiguous territory. This amendment requires the districts to follow the limit on dividing municipalities already set forth in the Constitution.

Again, how? What is the "average district" they are being compared to? What does "competitive" mean?  Define "communities of interest"?

These people actually use language that is LESS honest than what the Nazis used.  Compared to the convoluted bullshit above, this April 10, 1938 referendum offered voters by Adolf and company was a masterpiece of civic clarity:

"Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler?"

That's pretty darn straightforward when compared with the swill Sweeney, Prieto, and McKeon are serving.  I guess that makes them LESS honest than Nazis. Ouch.

The good news is... Republicans can stop this!

Here is how.  Senate Democrats need all their votes to pass an expansion of casino gambling to North Jersey.  South Jersey Democrats cannot vote for it and survive.  Sweeney will need Republican votes.

No Republican should agree to vote to expand casino gambling to North Jersey if SCR-188 or ACR-4 is posted for a vote.  Sweeney cannot be trusted to keep his word (he's flipped on same-sex marriage, on guns, on unions, he'll lie to anyone) so Republicans will have to withhold their votes on the expansion of casino gambling until after August.  Then they can offer them.

The alternative will be to make Sweeney use the votes of Senators Whelan and VanDrew to pass the expansion of casino gambling and thereby turn them into meat.  That's cool too...  It's time to play hard, Republican legislators.  Because the Democrats want to make you an endangered species.