Fantasia, consultant, fell out over COVID pay for county workers.

By Sussex County Watchdog

Sussex County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia called a meeting of GOP county leaders last year. The meeting was held on March 18, 2022, at a private club in the county. A quorum of the Board of Commissioners was present, and the agenda revolved around one item: The Sussex County Watchdog blog and its editorializing in support of county workers. 

The Watchdog blog had long been critical of the Board and how it was managing county government. One point of contention was the Board’s poor treatment of frontline county workers – like road maintenance crews – and its lavish spending on, and expansion of, administrative staff. Fewer and fewer workers seemed to require more and more administration. And while these “insider-connected” administrators got raises and benefits – county workers qualified for food stamps, the food pantry, subsidized heating fuel, and other anti-poverty programs because they were paid so poorly for a fulltime work week. 

The Watchdog blog website and Facebook page are filled with these stories. You can read them for yourself. 

A particular point of contention was bonus pay for frontline county workers who continued to do their jobs while exposed to COVID hazards during the pandemic. These bonuses were covered under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and federal money would be used to pay them out. The county administration at the time opposed worker bonuses – and in a letter from the then county labor counsel, was quite frank about it. 

Commissioner Fantasia called the March 18th meeting to confront the Sussex County GOP’s consultant, Bill Winkler, because it was known that he wrote some of the critical stories about the Board. Fantasia and others – notably Jill and Parker Space – wanted the blog shut down or Winkler fired. 

Winkler explained that he did not own the blog – which is a fact beyond dispute – but was the author of some of the critical stories. He pointed out that he had voluntarily lobbied on behalf of better pay and ARPA bonuses for county workers, so his position was well-known. 

Given the number of County Commissioners at this meeting, a record should have been kept, but the meeting was called by Commissioner Fantasia and, if there is a transcript, she would have it. Other county officials were present, including the County Surrogate. 

At the March 18th meeting, Assemblyman Parker Space was asked about his road trip with actress Janeane Garofalo’s brother, in the aftermath of the terrorist mass murder of nine people (including Pastor and State Senator Clementa C. Pinckney). Space acknowledged that the purpose of the trip was a Confederate flag tattoo but refused to address it further. This incident factored into the deal made between him and Senator Steve Oroho, in which Space would announce that he wasn’t running for re-election in return for Oroho’s support for Jill Space for County Commissioner. Of course, much has changed since. 

There is a dearth of media platforms that stand in opposition to the establishment narrative or that present an alternative perspective. The situation is bad nationally – but even worse locally, where some counties and local governments have become transparency free zones with no external oversight. Local media simply doesn’t exist, and the situation is a great incubator of corruption. 

Think of the work done by New Jersey Herald reporters to uncover the Sussex Solar scandal that cost taxpayers $40 million. A similar scandal now would go unnoticed – except for blogs like Sussex County Watchdog and news websites, like Jennifer Dericks’ TAPinto. For better, or worse, this is all voters and taxpayers have left. There is nobody else to blow the whistle. 

Dawn Fantasia is an example of how politicians become when there is no local media to scrutinize them. They believe the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to politicians like them. They believe that they can suppress what remains of local media. 

Tucker Carlson reminds us, “Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others.” 

Micah Rasmussen, Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, reminds us of what happens when there’s nobody watching the politicians: “Voters can't make informed decisions unless they're informed. If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they'd tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.” 

Who is right on critical speech: Tucker Carlson or Dawn Fantasia?

By Rubashov 

In common with so many establishment politicians, County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia seems to believe that large parts of her public life – the life she made public – are off limits to discussion. We got a taste of this earlier today, when her campaign sent around an email that entirely evaded what the voters have a right to know. 

Commissioner Fantasia made a statement that suggests she might be open to policies that allow registered sex offenders, convicted of sex crimes against children, to be granted custody of minor children. That is why we asked her for a clarification of her statement. We even invited her to publish her clarification, unedited, on our website. 

Fantasia’s statement was made on the front page of the November 10, 2014, edition of the Star-Ledger, the largest circulation newspaper in New Jersey. In a story concerning her former husband, a schoolteacher who was convicted of a sex crime against one of his students (and “required to register as a sex offender under Megan's Law and… undergo parole supervision for life”, ibid April 18, 2008), the Star-Ledger reported: 

“Like Jim Cunneely, Dawn Cunneely [Fantasia] believes he will never commit a similar crime. She calls him a good father, and she has granted him joint custody of the children.” 

Nobody made this up. It is on the front page of the state’s largest newspaper. And we’re not discussing events that happened at the time of her husband’s arrest and trial – but rather, statements made years after, when Dawn Fantasia was pursuing political office. Further, it appears the 2014 front page story was in aid of marketing a book, written by Fantasia’s former husband. Published in 2013, it is called “Folie A Deux” and is 374 pages of public disclosure. Anyone can buy it on Amazon for $19.95. 

So far, Fantasia has refused to issue a clarification, even though, as a member of the New Jersey Legislature, she will be voting on bills that affect Megan’s Law and mandatory sentencing, and sex crimes, and child custody. And in her 780-word email earlier today, Fantasia again failed to clarify for voters her position on this matter. 

Do voters have a right to know Dawn Fantasia’s position? 

Micah Rasmussen, Director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, provides this answer: “Voters can't make informed decisions unless they're informed. If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they'd tell you they wish they knew then what they know now.” 

But Commissioner Fantasia’s email today takes a different path. It lays out the argument that a politician who currently holds elected public office and who is pursuing higher elected public office should not have to answer to the public.  

And why? Fantasia claims a feminist exemption. Her campaign’s 780-word email is full of emotional rhetoric and offense-taking, but short on clarity. Please Dawn, just tell us how you would vote if you were a member of the Assembly. That’s all we asked.  

The Fantasia campaign’s email is similar to political mailings sent out earlier this year, that urged voters not to read non-establishment media. This is something out of the old Soviet Union – or one of Joseph Goebbels screeds, decrying “Jewish atrocity propaganda”. Disgusting really, and an example of how over-powerful politicians think they have become. 

Dawn Fantasia is a politician. She is paid by an organization that receives millions in taxpayer funding. She is an elected official who gets paid by the taxpayer. She is seeking higher public office – and a substantial pay raise. Dawn Fantasia does not get to decide what is or isn’t journalism.  

She might think she’s a big deal, but the United States Supreme Court has over-ruled her. They have determined that blogs are indeed journalism and that bloggers are indeed journalists. The Society of Professional Journalists agrees as well. 

Last week, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced that he was bringing his perspective to Twitter. His short statement contained a great deal of insights, such as this one, regarding statements that run counter to those of the “official” or establishment narrative: 

“The rule of what you can’t say, defines everything. It’s filthy, really, And it’s utterly corrupting. You can’t have a free society if people aren’t allowed to say what they think is true. Speech is the fundamental prerequisite for democracy. That’s why it is enshrined in the first of our constitutional amendments.” 

Carlson then goes on to point out the dearth of media platforms that stand in opposition to the establishment narrative or that present an alternative perspective. The situation is bad nationally – but even worse locally, where some counties and local governments have become transparency free zones with no external oversight. Local media simply doesn’t exist, and the situation is a great incubator of corruption.  

Dawn Fantasia is an example of how politicians become when there is no local media to scrutinize them. They become apoplectic when asked questions about statements they made to the largest newspaper in the state. 

Tucker Carlson reminds us, “Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others.” 

As an Assemblywoman – a member of the New Jersey Legislature – Dawn Fantasia will be voting on bills that affect Megan’s Law and mandatory sentencing, and sex crimes, and child custody. Fantasia’s statement certainly suggests that she might be open to policies that allow registered sex offenders, convicted of sex crimes against children, to be granted custody of minor children. That is why we asked her for a clarification of her statement from 2014. So far, she has refused. 

Earlier today, she refused again. 

Does the NJ Herald want you to believe Sussex County is bad?

By Rubashov

Here’s a friendly tip for Democrat politicians like Kristy Lavin, Zoe Heath, and Katie Rotondi. If you are looking to condemn “hate”. Look in the mirror… and then simply condemn it.

What started out as an attempt by a failed candidate to legislate from the bleachers, has turned into an all-out jihad against Sussex County and what its detractors believe it stands for. Along the way, the people behind this jihad have used it as an attempt to distract media attention away from such community issues as…

(1) The economic insecurity that is the result of government reaction to the pandemic – including unemployment and underemployment, foreclosure and homelessness, and food insecurity.

(2) The increased property taxes that will result from Governor Murphy’s cuts to education funding for Sussex County’s children.

(3) The more than 8,000 people who died because of the Murphy administration’s decision to send COVID infected patients into the state’s nursing and veterans’ homes. Sussex County was one of the hardest hit communities.

The January 6th Capitol Riot is still under investigation. Nobody has been brought to trial yet. And media coverage – no matter how extensive – is not a judicial proceeding. You can have lynching by media – or you can have justice. You cannot have both.

So far, prosecutors have charged over 300 people with various federal crimes. The operative word here is “charged”. Statistically, about 10% of those charged will have the cases against them dismissed. Over 80% will have their charges reduced. Of those who opt for a bench trial – statistically, the best option – nearly 40% will be acquitted.

In America – for the moment, anyway – we still believe in the truth that anyone accused of a crime is INNOCENT until proven guilty in a COURT OF LAW. We not only believe this in America, this truth is one of the basics of INTERNATIONAL LAW.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.”

It is important to note that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and that it enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. It was signed in 1948 by those who had been in a life and death struggle against REAL, actual Nazis. It wasn’t a word they threw around in the casual way that it is today. They knew the enemy and he wasn’t Dr. Seuss.

Kristy Lavin, a Democrat candidate for Sussex County Freeholder in 2019, has been firmly rejected by the voters. She received less than 6 percent of the General Election vote.

From all appearances, Lavin is using the Capitol Riot in an attempt to “undo” the democratic election she lost. In the aftermath of the riot, Lavin proposed an “anti-Hate” resolution in which she linked “white supremacists”, “white nationalists”, and “neo-Nazis” to the Capitol Riot. But Lavin and her supporters didn’t stop there. They made the claim that their neighbors in Sussex County – large numbers of them – were conspiratorially involved in the riot.

Lavin did so despite statements by federal prosecutors that “the number of people arrested is large enough to defy generalization”. And while there have been arrests in 42 states and allegations by prosecutors and speculation in the media, none of this has been tested in a COURT of LAW. Ann Pompelio is a divorce lawyer and member of the New Jersey Bar. She understands that an attorney should not make public speculations on the guilt of someone in advance of trial. It is unethical.

Kristy Lavin has used the bi-monthly public meetings of the Sussex County Commissioners to expand her “anti-Hate” resolution into a broader condemnation of America, of Sussex County as a typically “American” place, of the people who live in Sussex County as typical “Americans”, and of their typical “American” children. And by “Americans” she means racists, white supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis.

Katie Rotondi is the one-time Chairwoman of the Sussex County Democrat Committee. Rotondi is notorious for making wild accusations against others, including sexual misconduct allegations against other Democrats. The objects of her accusations have not been charged with a crime, so we will not mention names here. Rotondi runs a political group with fellow Democrat activist Zoe Heath. Lavin, Rotondi, and Heath have used the Commissioners’ meetings to pursue highly vitriolic, personal agendas against county residents and people they dislike.

Their campaign is a highly organized attempt to hijack the people’s business and turn it into a forum to slander Sussex County, its people, and their children. There are now hours of taped public comments by the Democrats’ posse and the picture they try to paint of Sussex County and its residents is chilling. Their comments on children are particularly disturbing.

The New Jersey Herald has strongly favored the Democrats with their coverage, while studiously ignoring such local issues as:

• Fire code violations at the County building that endanger the lives of 500 CWA union workers;

• the PBA’s negotiations for a fair deal with the County;

• COVID safety violations that endanger CWA workers.

 
Why?  Is this a reaction to recent efforts by employees of The (Bergen) Record, Daily Record and New Jersey Herald seeking recognition for their union after almost 90% of eligible employees (a total of 66) signed on with the NewsGuild union of New York?

The New Jersey Herald is owned by a Virginia-based corporation that itself has been accused in federal court of having racist hiring practices. Will the media corporation’s efforts to go along with the Democrats’ BLM-themed assault on Sussex County residents and their children be entered into evidence at some future legal proceeding as a counter to evidence presented against them?

Or is it something personal?

Bruce Scruton is a Pennsylvania-based reporter for the New Jersey Herald. He has a problem with reporting facts. Like quotes. He consistently gets quotes wrong. These are quotes that it should be easy to get right because they are recorded on paper, audio, and video. They are facts. But still Scruton gets them wrong. We could do a whole column just on this.

Scruton also appears to have a problem with women. We sense a certain hostility towards women who possess a certain authority. We don’t know about his personal relationships with women, but from his writing, he appears to us trapped in those 1960s-era certainties of his youth. We will say no more about it and invite Bruce to use our pages here to dispute this or to simply tell us that we are full of crap.

In any case, the New Jersey Herald has devolved into the mouthpiece of a group of people who would like us to believe that America is racist. And that Sussex County is an especially racist place – even violently so. They want to do so despite the facts as compiled by successive administrations of both Democrats (Clinton, Obama, Biden) and Republicans (Bush, Bush, Trump) clearly showing that Sussex County is one of the safest, least violent communities in America – with a low rate of bias crimes of any kind. Those are the facts.

The Sussex County Board of Commissioners has attempted to address the concerns raised by this crowd and, just as they were attacked by the Democrats when the Board passed LGBTQ Pride and Black History Month proclamations, the Democrats are not going to be satisfied. What, you say? Yes, after passing the first LGBTQ Pride proclamation last June, the Board was attacked by the Democrats for not mandating the flying of rainbow flags over every county building. Along the same lines, the Board was attacked last month after passing the first Black History Month proclamation for not involving enough “Black” people in writing it. Hey, if it is always going to be something, why bother?

After taking testimony from residents (and readers of the New Jersey Herald) who suggested a more “positive” approach than that contained in Kristy Lavin’s ever-broadening “anti-Hate” resolution, the Commissioners have come up with a love-thy-neighbor, “Pro-Respect” resolution. Predictably, the “Hate” lobby has gone nuts and lost it, especially Zoe Heath…

Will historians one day look back at the January 6th Capitol Riot as America’s Reichstag Fire? Will American Democrats ban political opinions and then organizations, the way the REAL Nazis did? Will American Democrats formally condemn the children of “white” people as being tainted by an original sin, in the same way as was done to Jewish “white” people?

What will the Democrats call their Law for the Protection of People and State? An expanded PATRIOT Act? Pay close attention to what the REAL Nazis alleged in the aftermath of their Capitol Riot:

“The burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war. Large-scale pillaging in Berlin was planned for as early as four o'clock in the morning on Tuesday. It has been determined that starting today throughout Germany acts of terrorism were to begin against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population, and general civil war was to be unleashed…”

And remember how they put it to use:

“Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of (opinion) expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Warrants for House searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

"Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense."

Article 11
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

N.B. We welcome a conversation on this and all topics raised on this website.  Jersey Conservative is entirely open to your ideas and opinions.  To submit a column for publication, please contact Marianna at Marianna@JerseyConservative.org.

Primary Awareness

By David Goloff

After Labor Day,  “Vote, Vote, Vote !!!” is loudly proclaimed from the rooftops. But where is all this excitement  about voting in the Primary elections? Real democracy happens in Primary Season – starting in January and ending not long after Memorial Day.

Talk to your friends, family, and social clubs starting in January. Don’t accept the idea that anyone is a “shoe in” or “can’t win”. Find out which candidates line up best with your concerns. That’s the time to ask the tough questions. The primary is the people’s opportunity to reject the establishment’s choice in favor of another candidate.

Make sure you vote in the primary! Your vote counts for more than it does in the November election because fewer people vote in the primary. “Primary Awareness” is the realization that the primary elections are where we the people have real choices and a greater voice.

Sussex County Awarded Federal Grant of $500K to Replace Skylands Ride Minibuses, Other Projects Underway

Jennifer Jean Miller
862-273-5379
jenniferjeanmiller@gmail.com

(Newton, NJ) The County of Sussex recently received federal grant monies to upgrade its commuter minibuses, with other projects coming to life thanks to federal funding, including revival of the Lackawanna Cut-Off Passenger Rail Project, as well as county road improvements, through the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority.

Tom Drabic, the principal transportation planner through the Sussex County Department of Engineering and Planning, credited Sussex County Freeholder Joshua Hertzberg, for his involvement and assistance in seeing these projects come to fruition. “He’s been very involved in the NJTPA,” Drabic said. He also mentioned the advocacy of State Sen. Steve Oroho, R-24th Dist. for his support of large-scale projects, with tax dollars from the State Transportation Trust Fund aiding in financing projects. “I just hope everyone understands the amount of advocating it takes to get this much work done for Sussex County,” said Hertzberg.

“I have been lucky enough to work with and learn from Tom Drabic at the county. He has been an amazing advocate of our county and continues to do a great job on all of our behalf. I’m very proud of the work we have done together, and am thankful that our District 24 Legislators, Steve Oroho, Hal Wirths and Parker Space, make sure that Sussex County isn’t left out in Trenton.”

Drabic said Sussex County’s minibus project, which was proposed and applied for by the Sussex County Department of Health and Human Services/Skylands Ride, was one of three chosen by the NJTPA for $500,000 grant funding, as part of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program for Local Mobility Initiatives.

Through that program, four of the Skylands Ride minibuses used for the Skylands Connect Route, which operates Monday through Friday to Newton, Sparta, Ogdensburg, Franklin, Hamburg and Sussex Borough, will likely be replaced, Drabic said. “This Route serves a number of employment locations within the county and is used by many people going to work,” Drabic said. The federal grant, Drabic said, should cover nearly the entire project, with little to no county funds required. The new minibuses, he said, will be handicap accessible with wheelchair lifts. They will also feature upgraded COVID protections, including plexiglass enclosures for bus drivers.

One of the other longtime projects that had been previously shelved, the Roseville Tunnel design and build project on the Lackawanna Cut-off, should be reality in the next few years, Drabic said. NJ Transit advertised for Request for Qualifications of firms capable of executing the design and construction phases of this complex project.

The historic and rocky Roseville Tunnel that served the Lackawanna Cut-Off from 1911 through 1979, will require excavation, waterproof lining, a pedestrian path within the tunnel, radio systems, cameras and other upgrades, to return it to current standards for passenger rail service, Drabic said. Firms that submit a RFQ will be short-listed, Drabic added, with those groups invited to submit a full proposal, chosen at NJ Transit’s board meeting in June.

In September, Drabic said the selected firm will be given the green light to move ahead with the project. Similar processes and schedules will follow for the Hudson Farm Culvert Replacement. Highway and bridge projects are additionally slated for Sussex County, Drabic said. One is the $12.8 million, federally funded Hardyston Route 23 Safety Improvement Project, with safety, drainage and operational improvements at the northern Laceytown Road, East Shore Road and Holland Mountain Road sections. Route 15 will also be upgraded, Drabic said, with replacement of the bridge in Lafayette over the Paulins Kill River, constructed in 1915.

This project, planned for completion by 2022 with $8.2 million in federal funds, will encompass sidewalk upgrades for pedestrian safety. A resurfacing project will be underway on Route 15 in Lafayette and Frankford, from Route 94 to Ross’ Corner by Route 206 and County Route 565, as part of the NJTPA Transportation Improvement Program for 2021. This project, expected to extend the life of the highway, will also be sourced from $7.3 million in federal funds. Drabic said Sussex County residents are welcome to offer their input for the NJTPA long range transportation plan, outlining goals through Plan 2050, by completing the survey at www.NJTPA.org.

The buttheads on the Star-Ledger editorial board owe Sussex County an apology

By Rubashov

People in Sussex County have just spent most of the week without electricity, heat for warmth or washing, and hot food. They’re used to waiting for the government and government-sanctioned utilities to get around to them last. Sure they provide the drinking water to New Jersey’s cities – but that hasn’t stopped Governor Phil Murphy from wanting to turn the county into a dumping ground and cutting education funding to the county’s children.

Now the editorial board of the Newark Star-Ledger have directed their collective bungholes in the direction of Sussex County – to engage in a bit of unreserved dumping themselves. Over the weekend, the Star-Ledger let go a massive dump on folks still in the process of dealing with the damage done by that early December snowstorm.

According to the Star-Ledger, the arrest of two social outcasts – members of a biker gang – is a sign of a vast underlying social and political movement in Sussex County. The editorial board claims that in “sleepy Sussex County” there has been “a troubling uptick in hate crimes lately.”

Of course, this isn’t true. According to the official Bias Incident Report put out by the Murphy administration earlier this year – signed by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan, and Civil Rights Director Rachel Apter – Sussex County experienced no increase in bias crime between 2017 and 2018 (the latest available figures). No increase… as in zero.

The same cannot be said for counties like Passaic, which experienced a 286% increase; or Union County, with a 200% increase; or Camden, with a 55% increase in bias crime; or Hudson County with its 43% increase. Of course, these are all Democrat-controlled counties, so the Star-Ledger would be hesitant to tie these genuine “up-ticks” to something like “White Extremism”. Far-better to just fashion a narrative around the arrest of a couple biker gang members in a relatively peaceful county – and then use them to characterize and smear the entire population.

The official figures – the data – reveal something else as well. Statewide, “bias crime” or “hate crime” has fallen. Since figures began in 2006, reported incidents have fallen from 825 that year to 569 incidents in 2018. Such crimes are actually quite rare – from 151 arrests in 2006, “bias crime” has fallen to just 59 arrests in 2018. Those are the official figures, direct from the Murphy administration.

In fact, the only “bias crime” evidenced by the Star-Ledger’s editorial board is the crime of bias committed by said board against the people of Sussex County.

In August of this year, NJ 101.5 went through the Murphy administration’s Bias Incident Report and listed the 49 municipalities with the worse incidence of “bias” or “hate crime”. Guess what? None of those municipalities were in Sussex County. None.

Now guess which towns were listed? Number one for “hate crime” was East Brunswick, in Middlesex County. Number two was Evesham Township, Burlington County. Woodbury (Gloucester), Hoboken (Hudson), South Brunswick (Middlesex), Cherry Hill (Camden), Fort Lee (Bergen), Princeton (Mercer), Hackensack (Bergen), Livingston (Essex), Montclair (Essex), West Orange (Essex), Jersey City (Hudson), Edison (Middlesex), and New Brunswick (Middlesex) all appear to be hotbeds of “White Extremism” if the Star-Ledger is to be believed.

Funny thing… some of these towns are the places of residence of those very same members of the Star-Ledger’s editorial board. Which means, next time they want to take a dump on somewhere, they should just step outside, pull down their drawers, and do it on their own front steps – because apparently, that’s where all the action is.

So why would the Star-Ledger just make this crap up and defame a whole county and its people? Well, we’ve been here before…

All this puts us in mind of the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. The media went crazy reporting on every salacious detail, hundreds of suspected “witches” and “cultists” were investigated while politicians and prosecutors pontificated and made their careers, dozens were arrested, many of whom were convicted and spent years in jail – before the truth pushed through to reveal that it was all just media hype. A public circus of show trials and fake stoked fear.

The New York Times covered this in one of their Retro-Report series…

Those convicted were eventually released. Instead of the media, the politicians, and prosecutors who convicted them being made to pay – the taxpayers paid out millions as some measure of restitution to the people whose lives were destroyed (for a story, a headline, a conviction). Writer Aja Romano wrote an interesting piece on the Satanic Panic a few years ago…

In 1980, a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse. Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. Pazder purportedly helped Smith uncover memories of past abuse at the hands of members of the Church of Satan, which Pazder insisted was older than LaVey’s group by several centuries.

Almost from the moment of Michelle Remembers’ publication, its claims and allegations were repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media praise, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse.

Despite the wild implausibility and unverifiable foundation of its stories of grisly abuse and sex orgies, Michelle Remembers was presented during the ’80s and early ’90s as a textbook for legal professionals and other authorities. It also spawned numerous copy-cat memoirs like 1988’s Satan’s Underground, all equally false, which embellished and mainstreamed the idea of a massive, intergenerational, clandestine satanic ritual sex abuse cult — one that could be occurring in your very own neighborhood.

“The devil worshippers could be anywhere,” writer Peter Berbergal said in summing up the zeitgeist. “They could be your next-door neighbor. They could be your child's caregiver."

The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the 1980s…

This fear would ravage communities and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history.

…In 1980 in Bakersfield, California, social workers had been reading the just-published Michelle Remembers as part of their training when a number of children came forward to declare that they had been molested as part of a clandestine local occult sex ring. Two of the girls had been coached by a grandparent who was believed to have a history of mental illness. Over the coming months, their story of strange occult sex acts would grow more and more bizarre, as they claimed to have been hung from hooks in their family’s living room, forced to drink blood and watch ritual baby sacrifices, and much more.

Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims of satanic ritual abuse would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.

Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of a local carpenter named John Stoll, who spent 20 years of his 40-year sentence in jail. Parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen were each sentenced to 240 years in jail after their own sons were coached, through coercive investigative techniques and overeager therapists, to accuse them of child molestation. Both children later recanted and the Kniffens were released after serving 12 years in prison. As adults, several of the children involved in the trials professed to have been traumatized by their own earlier false testimony and the subsequent damage it caused.

But these children weren’t alone; the Kern County abuse case was the first, but would not be the last, to spiral hopelessly out of control.

…Among the many failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in daycares was the McMartin trial, which became the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. This massive investigation began in 1983, when one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the police investigation into the abuse claims, a child-service nonprofit group known as the Children’s Institute conducted examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare. The examinations were run by a woman named Kee MacFarlane, who was an unlicensed psychotherapist.

MacFarlane had no psychological or medical training, and boasted a welding certificate as her highest academic credential; still, she and two other unqualified assistants were allowed to conduct the investigations, famously using “anatomically correct” dolls and other questionable methods of interrogation. These extremely coercive interview processes led to false memories among children, which then led to highly fantastic claims of abuse directed at even more staff members. Out of 400 children, the interviewers determined that 359 of them had been abused.

The accusations collected by the Children’s Institute resulted in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse being leveled at seven daycare staff members by 41 children. (Pazder, now considered an “expert” in satanic ritual abuse, was among the consultants in the case.) Among the litany of outlandish claims children made in the case were that daycare owners would flush them down toilets, that they had built secret underground tunnels to transport them to ritual ceremonies, that they had ritually sacrificed a baby, and that they could turn into witches and fly.

After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to an utter lack of evidence. The original accusing parent in the case was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative techniques used by the Children’s Institute were thoroughly discredited by the psychological community, and one by one, all charges against the daycare staffers were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Due to the over-the-top nature of the allegations in the McMartin case, the public gradually became skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse. “After scouring the country, we found no evidence for large-scale cults that sexually abuse children,” Dr. Gail Goodman, a psychologist who conducted a wide-scale survey of US case workers about the hysteria, told The New York Times in 1994. What criminal allegations were made had generally come about due to a mix of mental illness, false memories implanted during therapy and witness investigations, and, most frequently, reports from people who were being influenced by histrionic media reports of satanic ritual abuse — a pattern very similar to the current outbreak of clown scares.

The writer goes on to outline a dozen or so similar prosecutions. All built on literally insane allegations. All debunked in time – but not after causing a remarkable degree of harm on those who were falsely accused.

Where were the members of the Star-Ledger editorial board in the 1980s and 90s? Maybe they were covering the Satanic Panic? Maybe they were fanning the flames of illogic and fear? Maybe they believe enough time has passed, that people have forgotten, and that maybe they’ll do it again? Let’s hope not. But then again, it’s not the 1980s… and who reads newspapers nowadays (besides the advertisers, many of whom rely on customers from… Sussex County)?

Vernon: Burrell won’t say where he stands on Murphy’s illegal Sanctuary State scam

The New Jersey Herald is reporting that Vernon Mayoralty candidate Howard Burrell has refused to take a position on Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State directive that protects criminal illegal immigrants from being detained for federal authorities.  According to the Herald: 

“During the forum, the mayoral candidates were asked to weigh in on two hot-button issues - same-sex marriage and immigration.

Both said they would have no objection to performing same-sex marriage ceremonies but differed when asked about New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s directive limiting the degree to which local and county authorities may cooperate in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. A ballot initiative supporting the position taken by Sheriff Michael Strada will ask county voters in the upcoming election whether county resources should be made available to ICE for this and other purposes.” 

Burrell said he would support the Governor’s directive or, as he put it, “support the rules whatever they are.”  His opponent, Dan Storey, said:  “I support the sheriff wholeheartedly, 100%.”

The Murphy administration claims its directive is designed to build “trust” with illegal immigrant communities.  In fact, by limiting the cooperation between local and federal law enforcement, the Murphy directive creates a “sanctuary” for all sorts of criminal behavior – including human trafficking, the sexual exploitation of women and children, the illegal importation of narcotics and opioids, and the illegal importation of firearms. 

Howard Burrell is already in some controversy over a potential campaign finance reporting violation.  It is common knowledge that a late summer poll was conducted on behalf of Burrell, an announced candidate for the non-partisan office of Vernon mayor.  It is understood that the poll was conducted for Burrell’s campaign and paid for by a major developer in Sussex County.

It was a “live caller” poll – not a push-button one – and so the cost must have been upwards of $10,000.  Certainly something of value.   

The current mayor’s son received the polling call – as did dozens of others.  It was conducted over several evenings and was rather lengthy, testing the name identification of each of the three candidates for mayor.  So why is there no mention of it on Howard Burrell’s mandatory campaign finance and expense report filed on October 5, 2019, and available today for inspection?

Howard Burrell was a Democrat Freeholder until he was defeated for re-election in 2002 by 4,000 votes.  He managed Democrat Dan Perez’ 2017 Freeholder race against Republican Freeholder Director Herb Yardley.  Perez lost by 7,000 votes.  

We note these things because Howard Burrell should, by now, understand New Jersey election law.  The rules are clear about reporting both monetary contributions and “things of value” – like a poll. 

It is important for candidate Howard Burrell to explain why the expenditure for polling was not listed on his mandatory campaign and expense report.  Was it an oversight?  We will await his explanation.

Sussex County’s Charlie Hebdo moment

By Rubashov

Charlie Hebdo (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁli ɛbdo]; French for Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical weekly magazine,[3] featuring cartoons,[4] reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular, skeptic,[5] and atheist,[6] far-left-wing,[7][8] and anti-racist[9] publishing articles about the extreme right (especially the French nationalist National Front party),[10] religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics and culture.

The magazine has been the target of two terrorist attacks, in 2011 and 2015. Both were presumed to be in response to a number of controversial Muhammad cartoons it published. In the second of these attacks, 12 people were killed, including publishing director Charb and several other prominent cartoonists. (Wikipedia)

Well apparently they don’t get satire in Phil Murphy’s New Jersey either…

As in the case of Charlie Hebdo, a group of cultural terrorists have demanded that an image they deem “offensive” be removed and the “perpetrators” – in this case, it was merely “re-tweeted” – be punished.  On the one hand, we hope the so-called “perpetrators” will stand up for freedom of expression; while on the other, we hope that nobody gets murdered.  There are a lot of crazies out there, and these things do have a way of escalating.

You do remember satire, don’t you?  Yes, it has something to do with comedy…

Satire (noun) the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

On Tuesday night, the Board of Trustees meeting of the Sussex County Community College was invaded by a group of cultural terrorists.  We call them “terrorists” somewhat whimsically, in that (1) they use threats of various kinds to get their way, and (2) they have no sense of humor.  They are the stick-up-the-arse crowd.  And before you enquire why we use “arse” instead of the familiar English term, we feel arse is the more appropriate, owing to its rusticated and unwashed nature.

So the Board of Trustees meeting of the Sussex County Community College was invaded by a troop of unwashed arses – the stick-up… well, you get the picture. 

The sad thing is… a couple of the Trustees themselves elected to join the troop and agree to go unwashed as well.  What these people are doing as Trustees on a Board of higher learning is beyond us.  It is not the place of colleges to ban forms of expression – in this case, satire – but to study and understand.  What would these idiots make of Jonathan Swift?  Would they ban him too, as a cannibal out to eat up all the children of Ireland?

For some people, washed and unwashed, that stick is thrust so firmly up… that nothing can pry it out.  You simply have to start over.  So best be off with them.

Oh… and in an act directly paralleling the Charlie Hebdo case, newspapers were too afraid to print the “offensive” image for fear of an unwashed fatwa. 

Instead, they simply described the “offensive” image, in the prescribed manner, in the language issued to them, as “racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic…

… arachnophobic, ailurophobic, atelophobic, batrachophobic, chiroptophobic, coulrophobic, demonophobic, emetophobic,  globophobic, herpetophobic, ichthyophobic, necrophobic, ophidiophobic, panphobic, porphyrophobic, triskaidekaphobic, venustraphobic xanthophobic – and poo-poo-headed”

One rather bloated knucklehead, identified as an official with the Sussex County Democrat Party, actually said these words:  “Whether or not he posted it himself, he is the person whose name is at the top of that (private Twitter account) page – it is unconscionable that nothing happens going forward based on those (tweets), and I would hope you can see them as offensive as I see them.” 

Wow, Robespierre himself couldn’t have said that any better.  And the speaker of those words would indeed make a most perfect Robespierre… if, of course, Robespierre was shaped like a busted bale of hay.

One wonders where this Robespierre was – or, indeed, the entire Democrat Party was, when the institution of the Sussex County Community College was so corrupt that it was allowing Trustees to vote on vendors from which they derived income?  Not a word from the Sussex County Democrats… nobody ever bothered to show up to a meeting to fight corruption. 

It was a sad moment and a very tragic story for the Sussex County Community College.  We remember it… very, very well.  No Democrats were around when it counted… but they show up for this?

Now we don’t know if we are taking our lives in our hands, but we’ll show you the “offensive” image.  Are you ready?

Behold the “offensive” image that was re-tweeted.

Did the world just end?  Should we be worried about death threats for posting that image?

We think it funny for two reasons.  (1) It is a grotesque and therefore ridiculous.  It achieves as much as it defeats.  Like this famous New Yorker cover…

You remember the New Yorker?  Yes, that haunt of racists, misogynists, and whatever else the unwashed brigades like to call those they disagree with.

Seems like, just yesterday, we had a sense of humor.

Now apparently, satire – like everything else these days – is a form of “racism”.

And (2) because they are politicians.  This so-called “Jihad Squad” is composed of four powerful members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.  A couple of them have made some very obnoxious anti-Semitic statements and none of them much like the Jewish state.  One member of Congress – Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-Minnesota) – actually mocks Jewish people by calling them “Benjamins”.  Another, Rashida Harbi Tlaib (D-Michigan), holds rallies under the banners of the PLO – a terrorist group.  They have power over us and it is always good for a chuckle when the powerful are brought down to earth. 

Here in America, we never needed to be afraid of pissing on politicians.  Until now.  It is not a “change” for the better or one that we will thank anybody for come the future.   

And one final note.  If we are going to do this to one citizen member of a public board, let’s make sure we do it to every citizen member of every public board.  Where will it end?  Who hasn’t offended somebody?  Who hasn’t done a thing that someone will think bad?

Robespierre and company spend their days going through your private social media looking for things to offend themselves with.  It is like that great scene from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio when a puritan spies on a woman privately praying, naked, in her own bedroom.  The puritan doesn’t see his sin, but rather he sees the woman’s nakedness as the sin.  Just wait until these people start using drones…

And now… let’s end with more comedy.  And please don’t be offended… but if you are, too bad.

Children’s charity closes due to Murphy’s minimum wage increase

While we generally support the idea of a minimum wage, the blinkered ideological approach of “one size fits all” is having a bad effect on those who serve some of our most vulnerable residents.  The best way to ensure a rising minimum wage is through collective bargaining through the unionization of the work force.  Labor negotiating in the free marketplace with capital produces individual outcomes that are collectively much better than the imposition of mandates from above that Governor Phil Murphy and his gang favor.  

Lori Comstock of the New Jersey Herald did a great job covering one such tragedy today:

Kids Educational Enrichment Program, a childcare organization best known as K.E.E.P. that has served the Sussex County community for over 100 years, will be shutting its doors for good next week.

The announcement was sent to parents and guardians via a letter dated July 17. The letter, signed by K.E.E.P., Inc. Board of Directors President Barbara Vandenbergh, said the nonprofit will cease operations effective at close of business on Wednesday, July 31.

The letter states many reasons for the closure including a mix of "usual" business challenges coupled with "increasingly strict and ever-changing regulatory requirements imposed on the industry" by the state and the state's mandatory minimum wage increase schedule which has, combined, "rendered us unable to meet our financial obligations," Vandenbergh wrote. Earlier this year, Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation boosting the state's minimum wage and implemented a five-year phase starting with an increase from $8.85 to $10, which went into effect July 1, to $15, which will be reached by January 2024.

In the letter, Vandenbergh states that "after much investigation and future financial projections" the board came to the decision to close.

…K.E.E.P., formerly known as Sussex County YWCA, was incorporated in 1917. The program, which is dubbed the largest child care provider in the county, according to its Facebook page, offers flexible scheduling, low rates and financial assistance to qualified families. A registered 501(c)3 organization, K.E.E.P. employed 72 people in the year 2015, according to the latest 990 form available by the Internal Revenue Service.

Perhaps there should be a philanthropic wage for those who want to volunteer to do good works but need something to cover the basics?  This is what an individual union, covering these individual workers, could accomplish.  If the management of a charity couldn’t figure out a way to make it work, there would be a ready organization – the union – to step in and try.  What we have now are top-down mandates that don’t take the realities on the ground into account.  One-size fits all… except that it doesn’t.

Please read Ms. Comstock’s full article here…

https://www.njherald.com/20190723/keep-ceasing-operations-next-week

Democrat councilman slams Murphy Sanctuary scheme as illegal and un-American

Now here is an old-fashioned Democrat.  The kind of Democrat who doesn’t believe the American flag is racist and that law enforcement is the enemy. 

We hope that every elected Republican in Sussex County has the spine to emulate this elected Democrat from Middlesex County.  Given the party machine and party radicals he has to deal with, what he faces is vastly worse than anything a quibbling Republican must deal with.    

The movement to stand up to Murphy that began with individual towns, then with Sussex County, and now in Monmouth, Ocean, Cape May, Warren, Hunterdon, Salem, and Morris counties, will continue to grow.  Republicans and their Democrat allies will defeat a Governor who is more comfortable making excuses for criminals than he is protecting the families of taxpayers.

The Sussex County Freeholders and Sheriff Mike Strada are resolved to fight the administration of Governor Phil Murphy and its attempts to bully and impose its illegal Sanctuary scheme on the taxpayers of Sussex County.  They are resolved to give the voters a say in the matter.

This week they will be meeting with counsel to devise a way to defeat any legal objections the Murphy administration may throw up to deny the people their right to vote on a function of county government for which they pay entirely from their property taxes.  Godspeed to them.

Did Star-Ledger collude with Murphy A.G. to produce anti-ballot question headline?

Journalism isn’t what it once was.  Today, there is a revolving door between journalism, government, politics, and lobbying.  Today’s journalist is likely to be tomorrow’s political director.

Look at the case of Mark Magyar, one of Senate President Steve Sweeney's top aides.  In December of 2014, Magyar was hired as the Democrat's new Director of Policy and Communications.  Magyar had been a statehouse reporter for the Asbury Park Press and the Bergen Record, as well as the editor of the New Jersey Spotlight.

The corporate and political empire of Democrat Party boss George Norcross – the political machine of which the Senate President is a part – has a history of co-opting or attempting to co-opt local and regional newspapers in that part of New Jersey where his authoritarian rule is almost uncontested.  The machine is in the process of solidifying its rule in its southern New Jersey base, while expanding its power across the state – and beyond.

Mark Magyar is the spouse of Elizabeth K. Parker, Co-publisher and Executive Editor of the New Jersey Hills Media Group.  The group is controlled by the Recorder Publishing Company, a privately held entity in Bernardsville, that owns and publishes 17 local newspapers in Republican Morris County, Somerset County, and Hunterdon County -- and in Republican towns in Essex County.  Their readership comes from towns that usually get the short end of the sick from the Democrats in Trenton.  The company also sells other services, including website development, search engine optimization, "Reputation Management", and "Social Media Management".

Newspapers were never as pure and disinterested as their cheerleaders would have us believe, but at least – once upon a time/ just yesterday – they did constitute a locus of power independent of political machines.  Not necessarily of their corporate advertisers (per Herman and Chomsky), but certainly of base political machines.  Those days are drawing to a close.

We saw evidence of this on Saturday, when the office of Gurbir Grewal, the state Attorney General appointed by Governor Phil Murphy, conspired with Star-Ledger/ NJ.com reporter Rob Jennings to concoct a news headline the Murphy administration could use to undermine the people of Sussex County’s right to vote on Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme.  At issue was a public question on the November ballot, passed by the Freeholders in April, that asks the voters their opinion on whether Sussex County Sheriff Mike Strada should follow American law on illegal immigration – or the directives of the Murphy administration.

The Democrat Murphy administration is arguing that Sussex County taxpayers should not have the right to vote on issues that affect the performance of county functions that they pay for entirely out of their highest-in-the-nation property taxes.  Taxation without the right to vote sounds pretty un-American to us.

Concurrent with plans to allow illegal aliens to have drivers licenses and to give incarcerated violent criminals the right to vote and hire lobbyists, the Murphy administration is using Grewal in an attempt to bully and intimidate the elected Freeholders of Sussex County into ending plans to allow the people the right to vote on a public question on the November ballot.  Popular sentiment across the state has been running against Murphy, so Grewal’s office was charged with finding a reporter who would provide them with a headline they could use.

Jennings, a former intern with Democrat Governor Mario Cuomo, was used to provide it.  Grewal’s office leaked confidential correspondence to Jennings, who promptly wrote a story with the headline:  “Sussex County caves to Murphy AG, will not put immigration question on ballot.”  It was the journalistic equivalent of performing fellatio for Grewal’s office.

Of course, the headline was false.  Jennings lied.  The Star-Ledger printed fake news.  Only the County Clerk had “caved”.  In fact, the County Freeholder Board had hired a conservative attorney less than 48 hours before to fight the Murphy administration.  This special counsel was charged with creating an updated ballot question with language that defeats the legal objections raised by the Murphy administration, so that Murphy and his cronies cannot hold up its placement on the ballot through legal maneuverings.

Jennings refused to write about it.  Even after he was contacted by Freeholders and the Special Counsel, Jennings refused to correct or update his story.  The lie remained published.

Not only did Jennings break the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), but Grewal’s office may have broken its professional code as well.  Word is that both may face ethical enquiries.

Despite the false headline, the Sussex County Freeholders remain resolved to fight the Murphy administration, with or without the assistance of the County Clerk.  And the Freeholders could always bring a lawsuit to compel the Clerk to place the public question on the November ballot.

New Jersey is unique in its forms and ways of political corruption – especially of systemic corruption – in that it rides the wave just ahead of the rest of America.  Sadly, it appears that what we once called journalism is on a rapid descent into the realms of propaganda and in future will be little more than coarse party broadsheets -- advertisements using histrionics worthy of Pravda or the Völkischer Beobachter.

Boden attacks GOP Freeholders for opposing Murphy’s Sanctuary State scam

Candidate Andy Boden today went totally gonzo and attacked Sussex County Freeholders for opposing Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme.  Boden told the Newark Star-Ledger: “They (the Freeholders) know that if you say the right things, that’s going to resonate with certain people,” before going on to accuse them of “silly pandering.”

Boden made his comment to one of the very worst of the Trump haters – an embittered opinion piece writer who hitched her career to a dying newspaper a couple decades back and has been in a pissy mood ever since.  She starts out her column by accusing Sussex County of being too white.  This from a rich, white One-Percenter (inherited) whose only intercourse with “people of color” is when they mow her lawn or pick-up her garbage.  

Actually, Sussex County is an economically diverse community with people of all races, ethnicities, religions, and walks of life… they just aint all rich (like where Boden’s friend comes from).  And as for borders… well just try to get into her workplace without an invitation and you’ll get shot by an armed guard.  But hey, it’s all about people like her, isn’t it?

We can only guess at how Andy Boden came to collaborate on a column with such a far-left, anti-Trump, anti-American bigot like her.  She even defended Governor Murphy when a woman on his staff was raped by another staffer and Murphy backed the guy up.  Real hard-core leftist shit.

Candidate Boden isn’t helping his cause any by attacking the Freeholders on this issue. Hooking up with an unwashed bunghole like this Trump-hating bigot was a stupid, stupid move.

NBC “hit job” questions military-style training

Sarah Wallace attended college in the leftist hotbed of Berkeley, California, at a time of protest against the war in Vietnam.  She started her career in West Coast radio back during the era of “Governor Moonbeam” (AKA Jerry Brown).  She’s now out of New York City, where she pursues a relentlessly anti-law enforcement, anti-Republican, anti-Trump agenda. 

Berkeley hates the military and has consistently protested against military recruitment on campus – most recently in 2007.  So it comes as no surprise that Sarah Wallace looks down on traditional military training methods embodied in what is known as “boot camp”. 

Wallace has inserted herself into the race between Republican Sheriff Mike Strada and Jail Guard Andy Boden – acting as a kind of media consultant to the Boden campaign.  Wallace’s husband is, in fact, a Democrat and media consultant (more on this later). 

From her New York City offices at NBC, Wallace is attempting to choose the next Sheriff of Sussex County.  Her beef with Strada?  Sarah Wallace is pro-Sanctuary State, pro-abortion, and anti-Second Amendment.  Mike Strada opposes Governor Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme, is pro-life, and pro-Second Amendment. 

Sarah Wallace is a Bergen County Democrat.  She is what’s called a “hard” Democrat – totally loyal to her party, never missing an election, always supporting whatever Clinton or Murphy that appears on the ballot.  And she is proud of it.

Complicating matters is Sheriff Strada’s central role in opposing Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme.  In the past, Sarah Wallace has done interviews that were very favorable to illegals and against members of law enforcement.  In fact, Sarah Wallace is currently being sued by a police officer for her conduct and behavior.

Last November, a New York judge accused someone championed by Sarah Wallace – named Manny Gomez – of “coercing a witness to a gang slaying not to testify.”  According to the New York Daily News (November 3, 2018), police have suggested that Sarah Wallace and Manny Gomez have “an apparent relationship” and that Wallace does stories that favor Gomez. 

Given Wallace’s political and ideological biases, we were surprised when we learned that NBC chose her to do a segment on the primary campaign between Sheriff Mike Strada and opponent Andy Boden.  NBC and Sarah Wallace appear to have coordinated the attack on Sheriff Strada with Andy Boden and his campaign.  

A week before the Wallace attack aired on NBC, Boden himself bragged to local Sussex County media that the interview was going to be a “hit job” on Sheriff Strada.  And Wallace herself appears to have promoted her “hit job” to leftist blogs who oppose Republican Sheriff Strada over the Sanctuary State issue.

The coordination was so severe, that members of Boden’s campaign were promoting Wallace’s follow-up “hit job” in advance of it even being hinted at by NBC.  Some observers have suggested that this constitutes an illegal corporate campaign contribution by NBC on behalf of Andy Boden.

Wallace’s political and ideological agenda aside, and her manipulation of people on both sides of this race, this might come down to a simple case of a military culture vs. a union culture.  As anyone who has been through basic training knows, military culture is harsh and purposely demeaning – seeking to tear down a recruit in order to build him or her back up.

The culture in a labor union is more protective and coddling.  There is nothing especially wrong in this, but it does present a different perspective.  A real journalist, someone tuned in to more than fashion statements, might have written about this difference in perspective.  But that would be way beyond the blow-dried world that Sarah Wallace inhabits.

Police departments and Sheriff’s offices are para-military organizations, with the military and union cultures existing uneasily, side by side.  First rate military powers – like America, Russia, and China – do not have unionized armed forces.  Unions are only found in the armed forces of places like the Netherlands – whose plan of defense is essentially a telephone call to whomever is invading and the words “We Surrender” in the appropriate language.  That or getting America to defend them and American taxpayers to pay for it. 

Yes, in the American military there is no equivalent to the Dutch AFMP – the General Federation of Military Personnel.  Of course, the para-military police and sheriffs are unionized, which often makes for a clash of cultures.  Some leaders in law enforcement seek to impose military-style training and discipline, while others look on their organizations as unionized workers (except that they carry guns, have badges, and have power over civilians). 

And just to remind everyone of what military training and discipline is like, we turn you over to Gunny Hartmann…

Is this demeaning?  Is it the end of the world?  Or have Americans become a bunch of snowflakes?  If so, we shouldn’t look forward to tangling with North Korea, let alone Russia or China.  War aint beanbag.

There is a choice to be made here.  Do we want the people to whom we hand guns and badges to be informed by a disciplined, military outlook?  Or do we want them to merely be civilians with guns and badges?  Can we reach a happy medium?

So far as the complaints of individual employees go.  This is why Sussex County needs an Ethics Committee – a real committee, not one made up of hand-picked insiders.  The last Freeholder Board failed to create such a committee.  Jonathan Rose promised, but failed to deliver.  That’s a pity.

Employees – whether PBA, FOP, CWA, or anyone else – should be able to report problems and they need to be taken seriously.  In the same way that the Office of the Inspector General works in the military.  So let’s resolve to ask the Freeholder Board to take action on this soon.  Form an Ethics Committee, so these issues don’t need to be fought out in a political campaign – with bottom feeders like Sarah Wallace using one and all for her own political and ideological purposes.

Pro-Sanctuary State NBC “hit job” triggers calls for FCC investigation

We’ve received word that Republican leaders are planning to contact the chief counsel of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with evidence that NBC aired what amounted to a negative political ad against Republican Sheriff Mike Strada.  A Sussex County Republican, Strada is leading the fight against Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme to block federal law enforcement and to allow illegal aliens to reside in New Jersey and access welfare, health, education, and legal benefits (many of which are not available to legal resident  taxpayers).

Sarah Wallace is a Bergen County Democrat.  She is what’s called a “hard” Democrat – totally loyal to her party, never missing an election, always supporting whatever Clinton or Murphy that appears on the ballot.  And she is proud of it.

Given the public information available about her, we were surprised when we learned that NBC – the parent company of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC – chose her to do a segment on the primary campaign between Sheriff Mike Strada and Jail Guard Andy Boden.  Especially as Boden had previously bragged to a member of the local, Sussex County media, that the interview was going to be a “hit job” on Sheriff Strada.

Further complicating matters is Sheriff Strada’s central role in opposing Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme.  In the past, Sarah Wallace has done interviews that were very favorable to illegals and against members of law enforcement.  In fact, Sarah Wallace is currently being sued by a police officer for her conduct and behavior.

Last November, a New York judge accused someone championed by Sarah Wallace – named Manny Gomez – of “coercing a witness to a gang slaying not to testify.”  According to the New York Daily News (November 3, 2018), police have suggested that Sarah Wallace and Manny Gomez have “an apparent relationship” and that Wallace does stories that favor Gomez. 

Why did Boden go to Wallace, a Democrat, and why was he so sure she would do a “hit job” for him on Sheriff Strada?

And why are the NBC attacks being promoted by the Democrat Party – if this is supposedly a Republican primary?  In a departure from normal journalistic protocols, NBC has promoted their “hit job” on Sheriff Strada to left-wing blogs.  Was Bergen Democrat Sarah Wallace herself the source of promoting the “hit job” on those leftist blogs? 

Candidate Boden continues to claim that County Clerk Jeff Parrott triggered the psychological examination that resulted in a police psychiatrist finding him “unfit” for duty.   Boden claimed that it was the result of him picking up petitions to run for office.  The County Clerk disputes Boden’s contention that he came to his office to obtain the nominating petitions.

After months of being asked to produce evidence to support his claim, Boden finally “discovered” an email that he claims is from the County Clerk’s office, in which they instructed him to obtain the petitions on-line.  This is itself a departure from Boden’s original story, which was that he visited the County Clerk’s office.  But that embellishment aside, how are we to believe that this email isn’t doctored in the same way that the FAKE video was doctored that his campaign said was coming days before it was released?

In fact, Boden’s psychological evaluation came after a series of incidents including some that left female employees intimidated and fearful of having him over them.  After a police psychologist found him “unfit for duty” and he was placed on leave, Boden went to Sheriff Strada and asked him to restore him to duty – which meant giving him back his power over people, a firearm, handcuffs, and badge.  The Sheriff’s office told Boden that he needed to get well first and re-evaluated by a mental health professional, before he could be re-instated.

Boden’s claim that he was ruled “unfit for duty” because he was running for office, repeated again in the Wallace interview, is clearly a lie.The public testimony of the police psychologist who ruled Boden “unfit for duty” makes it very clear that Boden is not being honest:

A.     The whole point of the

fitness-for-duty evaluation in many cases is to

avoid things getting to that point.  We are --

you know, as the IACP, we're looking for

conditions that are going to impact someone's

ability to safely and effectively do their work.

We want to keep that environment safe.  We also

want to treat people compassionately.  And if we

see that someone is under duress, to try to

intervene and help them.

             Fitness-for-duty evaluations are

often seen as punitive in nature, but they don't

necessarily have to be or need to be.  The idea

is to intervene much in the same way as an EAP

and get someone help before there's an incident,

before someone does get injured or before

something becomes career ending.

      Q.     Based upon the information that

you had received and gathered during the course

of this assessment, could you rule out that

Lt. Bannon (sic) wouldn't hurt somebody

prospectively if allowed to work while getting

therapy?

      A.     I could not rule that out.

      Q.     At any point did you tell

Lt. Bannon (sic) that he had passed the

assessment?  Boden.  I'm sorry. 

      A.     No.  We don't give anyone results,

pass or fail, at the end of the evaluation.

      Q.     Does somebody pass?

      A.     They are found fit to return to

their duty.

      Q.     Right.  Or unfit.

      A.     Or unfit.  And then when unfit,

they are given conditions with the goal of

restoring fitness.

      Q.     And your case -- and in this case,

what were those conditions to restore fitness?

      A.     Lt. Boden was to engage in

individual treatment outside of the treatment

that he had already been receiving with his wife

with the sole purpose on managing his stress

level, identifying coping mechanisms that work

for him so that he could return to his position.

      Q.     And in the meantime, as an

individual who was unfit for duty, he should not

be working while receiving that initial

treatment, correct?

      A.     You cannot return to duty if you

are found unfit.

Boden’s case mirrors the current national debate concerning mental health and gun laws.  Should employers act when they observe traumatic stress in employees (in this case, confirmed by a mental health professional) or should they wait until after something actually happens?  It is a complex issue.

In the Wallace interview, Boden also claimed to have had no knowledge of the doctored video that was sent around in an attempt to damage Sheriff Mike Strada’s family.  The video also attempted to destroy the reputation of an innocent young firefighter.  NBC and Sarah Wallace made no attempt to protect the innocent woman whose image was used in the FAKE video doctored by Andy Boden’s campaign.  They did not receive her permission to use the video of her which was made against her will and then doctored to make her look bad.  Night after night NBC and Sarah Wallace ran the doctored image of this innocent woman, simply for salacious clickbait.  She is a private citizen and Andy Boden, his campaign, Sarah Wallace, and NBC have much to answer for. 

Andy Boden, his campaign, Sarah Wallace, and NBC used the video knowing that it was found to be a FAKE and totally false by the media and law enforcement.  Despite Boden’s lies in the Wallace interview, a statement from Sussex County Republican Chairman Jerry Scanlan makes it very clear that it was the Boden campaign behind the release of the doctored FAKE video:

The above is the direct testimony of the Republican Party Chairman regarding the attempted shakedown that occurred before the FAKE doctored video was released.  Clearly Boden’s campaign knew all about the video that later nobody wanted to take credit for.  Why did NBC not require Sarah Wallace to contact this source before airing its “hit job”? 

Why did Andy Boden tell Sarah Wallace that he knew nothing?  Why did Sarah Wallace and NBC allow Boden to lie?

NBC lies in "hit job" by Bergen Democrat

Sarah Wallace is a Bergen County Democrat.  She is what’s called a “hard” Democrat – totally loyal to her party, never missing an election, always supporting whatever Clinton or Murphy that appears on the ballot.  And she is proud of it.

Given the public information available about her, we were surprised when we learned that NBC – the parent company of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC – chose her to do a segment on the primary campaign between Sheriff Mike Strada and Jail Guard Andy Boden.  Especially as Boden had previously bragged to a member of the local, Sussex County media, that the interview was going to be a “hit job” on Sheriff Strada.

Further complicating matters is Sheriff Strada’s central role in opposing Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s Sanctuary State scheme.  In the past, Sarah Wallace has done interviews that were very favorable to illegals and against members of law enforcement.  In fact, Sarah Wallace is currently being sued by a police officer for her conduct and behavior.  

Last November, a New York judge accused someone championed by Sarah Wallace – named Manny Gomez – of “coercing a witness to a gang slaying not to testify.” According to the New York Daily News (November 3, 2018), police have suggested that Sarah Wallace and Manny Gomez have “an apparent relationship” and that Wallace does stories that favor Gomez.  

Why did Boden go to Wallace, a Democrat, and why was he so sure she would do a “hit job” for him on Sheriff Strada?

In any case, the resulting story did more to harm Andy Boden than it did to help him.  On camera, Boden was induced by Wallace to lie about two important aspects of his story.

The first is that his psychological examination was the result of him picking up petitions to run for office.  The County Clerk, Jeff Parrott, disputes Boden’s contention that he came to his office to obtain the nominating petitions.  It appears that Andy Boden is lying about this and that he lied in testimony given at his fitness hearing.  As this statement by his attorney shows:

According to the County Clerk and his office, Boden did not come into the office to pick up the nominating petitions – he accessed them on line, so that nobody could have known that he was running.

In fact, Boden’s psychological evaluation came after a series of incidents including some that left female employees intimidated and fearful of having him over them.  After a police psychologist found him “unfit for duty” and he was placed on leave, Boden went to Sheriff Strada and asked him to restore him to duty – which meant giving him back his power over people, a firearm, handcuffs, and badge.  The Sheriff’s office told Boden that he needed to get well first and re-evaluated by a mental health professional, before he could be re-instated. 

Boden’s claim that he was ruled “unfit for duty” because he was running for office, repeated again in the Wallace interview, is clearly a lie.  The public testimony of the police psychologist who ruled Boden “unfit for duty” makes it very clear that Boden is not being honest:

 A.     The whole point of the

fitness-for-duty evaluation in many cases is to

avoid things getting to that point.  We are --

you know, as the IACP, we're looking for

conditions that are going to impact someone's

ability to safely and effectively do their work.

We want to keep that environment safe.  We also

want to treat people compassionately.  And if we

see that someone is under duress, to try to

intervene and help them.

            Fitness-for-duty evaluations are

often seen as punitive in nature, but they don't

necessarily have to be or need to be.  The idea

is to intervene much in the same way as an EAP

and get someone help before there's an incident,

before someone does get injured or before

something becomes career ending.

      Q.     Based upon the information that

you had received and gathered during the course

of this assessment, could you rule out that

Lt. Bannon (sic) wouldn't hurt somebody

prospectively if allowed to work while getting

therapy?

      A.     I could not rule that out.

      Q.     At any point did you tell

Lt. Bannon (sic) that he had passed the

assessment?  Boden.  I'm sorry.

      A.     No. We don't give anyone results,

pass or fail, at the end of the evaluation.

      Q.     Does somebody pass?

      A.     They are found fit to return to

their duty.

      Q.     Right. Or unfit.

      A.     Or unfit. And then when unfit,

they are given conditions with the goal of

restoring fitness.

      Q.     And your case -- and in this case,

what were those conditions to restore fitness?

      A.     Lt. Boden was to engage in

individual treatment outside of the treatment

that he had already been receiving with his wife

with the sole purpose on managing his stress

level, identifying coping mechanisms that work

for him so that he could return to his position.

      Q.     And in the meantime, as an

individual who was unfit for duty, he should not

be working while receiving that initial

treatment, correct?

      A.     You cannot return to duty if you

are found unfit.

Boden’s case mirrors the current national debate concerning mental health and gun laws.  Should employers act when they observe traumatic stress in employees (in this case, confirmed by a mental health professional) or should they wait until after something actually happens?  It is a complex issue.

In the Wallace interview, Boden also claimed to have had no knowledge of the doctored video that was sent around in an attempt to damage Sheriff Mike Strada’s family.  The video also attempted to destroy the reputation of an innocent young firefighter. It was found to be a FAKE and totally false by the media and law enforcement.  Despite Boden’s lies in the Wallace interview, a statement from Sussex County Republican Chairman Jerry Scanlan makes it very clear that it was the Boden campaign behind the release of the doctored FAKE video:

The above is the direct testimony of the Republican Party Chairman regarding the attempted shakedown that occurred before the FAKE doctored video was released.  Clearly Boden’s campaign knew all about the video that later nobody wanted to take credit for.

So why did Boden tell Sarah Wallace that he knew nothing?  Why did he lie?

Memorial Day Remembrance

Courtesy of Sussex County Watchdog

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide; he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of and for Union Civil War veterans.  His proclamation, Logan adopted the Memorial Day practice that had begun in the Southern states three years earlier.

The first Northern Memorial Day was observed on May 30, 1868. The northern states quickly adopted the holiday. In 1868, memorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states, and 336 in 1869. In 1871, Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday and by 1890, every northern state had followed suit. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been reinterred in 73 national cemeteries, located near major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.

Since 1868 Doylestown, the county seat of Bucks County, in Pennsylvania, has held annual Memorial Day parades which it claims to be the nation's oldest continuously running.

Here is a clip from a movie about the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the “bravest of the brave” preparing for the storming of the Confederate Fort Wagner, in 1863.

Sussex County boosts one current and one former infantryman serving or having recently served in elected office.  Sheriff Mike Strada was a platoon leader (SGT) in Iraq during Desert Storm.  Former Freeholder Rich Vohden served in the Korean War in the U.S. Army Infantry.

Candidate brags to local media about NBC “hit job” on Sheriff

By: Sussex County Watchdog

Since its founding in 2012, the contributors here at Watchdog have generally been just ordinary citizens, not professional journalists.  Nevertheless, we have got the ball rolling on a number of big stories in Sussex County – including the illegal negotiations to sell the county solid waste facility (caught in time and prevented), the solar program that ended up going bust (which ultimately cost taxpayers $26 million), the corruption at the county college (leading to the resignation of several trustees), and environmental issues impacting the health of county workers (CWA members) in Newton (which was addressed after our report).  Whether via tips or submitted columns, we publish stories that address the bad behavior of the government and corporate establishment.  

Generally we work with for-profit corporate media, which is advertising based. As we do not run ads, we do not have a need for click-bait, as they do.  Nevertheless, we respect them for the work that they do.  So we were shocked when a local media person had a story concerning a media organization outside the county – in New York City, in fact – that was using Sussex County to attract viewers.  

Apparently, a candidate for Sheriff in the upcoming GOP primary – Andy Boden – bragged to local media that he had arranged for a “hit job” on his opponent, Sussex County Sheriff Mike Strada.  It seems that Boden said the “hit job” would be about how Strada has suspended him for running, and that now he must work construction and that his wife had to take a job.  Boden claimed that the “hit job” was being done on his behalf by a friend of a friend who has a show on NBC out of New York City.  

Andy Boden is a rather sad case.  Earlier this year, a police psychologist found him “unfit for duty” and he was placed on leave.  Boden went to Sheriff Strada and asked him to restore him to duty – which meant giving him back his power over people, a firearm, handcuffs, and badge.  The Sheriff’s office told Boden that he needed to get well first and re-evaluated by a mental health professional, before he could be re-instated. 

Boden’s case mirrors the current national debate concerning mental health and gun laws.  Should employers act when they observe traumatic stress in employees (in this case, confirmed by a mental health professional) or should they wait until after something actually happens?  It is a complex issue.

Boden’s case has been further complicated by his candidacy, which was not his idea, but rather that of a local union fighting to preserve the jobs of corrections officers at the Sussex County jail (the Keogh-Dwyer Correctional Facility).  The jobs of many who work at the jail were put in jeopardy by the passage of Bail Reform, a bi-partisan bill aimed at reducing the number of people incarcerated while waiting for trial.  Before bail reform, many innocent people were locked up for weeks or months simply because they couldn’t afford the cost of bail.  They often lost jobs, homes, and relationships while they were locked up – only later to be found “not guilty” or have the case against them dismissed.

After bail reform became law in New Jersey, jail populations began to diminish drastically and elected officials started to consider shared services agreements that would allow them to close or scale-down some facilities and save money for taxpayers.  The August 2014 “needs assessment” on the Sussex jail (Keogh-Dwyer Correctional Facility), conducted by Pulitzer/Bogard Associates LLC, clearly outlined the devastating impact keeping the jail open would have on county taxpayers.  Making the jail compliant with basic standards would cost $11 million in short term and $64 million in long term expenditures. 

At the insistence of county Freeholders, Sheriff Strada has been working to scale-down the jail and enter into shared services agreements with Morris County. An agreement to house Sussex County’s female inmate population has recently been reached (and the quality of life for female inmates markedly improved, according to media reports).  

A working group that includes county bureaucrats, elected officials, and union leaders has been working to place every corrections officer likely to be displaced by the plans for the jail.  It is our understanding that County Administrator Greg Poff will shortly announce that positions have been found for every officer likely to be displaced.  Unfortunately, some union people have continued to oppose any changes to the jail.  They’ve complained about the length of the commutes to other facilities and such.  And it is this group who recruited Andy Boden as their candidate and spokesperson.  

They have been using their media contacts to shop around “dirt” on Sheriff Strada and even used a fake Facebook account to distribute a fake video of an “incident” between the Sheriff and a female firefighter, which was later found to have been doctored by the media (including the Star-Ledger/ NJ.com and the New Jersey Herald).  After the media spoke with the female firefighter, who confirmed that the incident never happened, Andy Boden claimed to have had no knowledge of it – despite the fact that Boden’s campaign managers had met with the local party chairman and threatened him with the release of the video some 48 hours before it was released.  This according to a legal statement given by the party chairman.

Boden’s managers went to a well-known statehouse blog in Trenton with their “dirt” – but after the reporter reviewed the transcript of the public hearing Boden asked for regarding his “unfit for duty” status – the story that was written was not to Boden’s liking:  

Incumbent Sheriff Mike Strada faces a challenge from corrections officer Andy Boden, who suspended earlier this year after a police psychologist ruled he was unfit for duty.

Following his suspension, Boden has mounted an offensive against the three-term sheriff, accusing him of endangering his deputies and misusing public funds.

“My decision to run is to end the culture of harassment and mental abuse that Strada has created and fostered. His actions, along with his posse’s, will come out in the upcoming weeks,” Boden said. 

Boden has been suspended since early March. The New Jersey Herald first reported his suspension.

In testimony provided to the New Jersey Globe by Strada’s campaign, a police psychologist said he or she could not rule out the possibility of Boden harming someone if he was allowed to continue working while receiving therapy.

The psychologist recommended the corrections officer receive additional treatment to restore fitness for duty.

“Lt. Boden was to engage in individual treatment outside of the treatment that he had already been receiving with his wife with the sole purpose on managing his stress level, identifying coping mechanisms that work for him so that he could return to his position,” the psychologist said.

For further reading, visit New Jersey Globe at…

https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/sussex/mud-flies-in-sussex-sheriffs-race/

Watchdog is attempting to find out just who the NBC person is who Andy Boden was speaking about when he told local media that a “hit job” was being done on Sheriff Strada.  Stay tuned…

Bramnick has a message. Will NJ Republicans follow?

Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick recently released this most excellent video.  Bramnick starts by detailing what Republicans are against…

But then, more importantly, Bramnick lays out three solid policy positions that points New Jersey Republicans in the direction of what we should be for…

(1) Cap State Spending at 2% (just like local government spending is capped).

(2) Cut the State Income Tax by 10% (make NJ more competitive w. other states).

(3) Full Deduction of Property Taxes on the State Income Tax (a move that takes the property tax issue away from Democrats like Andy Kim, Mikie Sherrill, and Josh Gottheimer).

In the video, Bramnick is engaging, folksy, and compelling.  So finally, here is the core of something to move the Republican Party forward.  So why isn’t everyone banging the same drum? 

Two days after Bramnick’s video went up on Youtube, the NJGOP – the State Republican Party – blasted out its weekly newsletter via email.  There was some very good stuff in there.  Unfortunately, the Assembly Republican Leader’s video was not part of the newsletter.  An oversight that should be corrected at the earliest opportunity. 

On Thursday, the Garden State Initiative – a free-market, pro-business think tank – held a meeting about the state of New Jersey’s economy and how it can be improved.  All the experts present agreed that the business climate went south after the Democrats gained control over the Legislature, nearly two decades ago.

That said, the most prominent plan for recovery featured at the gathering was the one put forward by Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat and so a leader in the party responsible for the downturn in the first place.  As with legislation protecting the Bill of Rights (specifically the 2nd Amendment) and culturally traditionalist social legislation (like the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Protection Act), the Senate President will always be handicapped in how much he can accomplish by his need to appease the far-Left of his party’s caucus.  In the end, Sweeney will go as far as Leftist Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg allows him to go – and is anyone under the illusion that this Marxist-lite fellow-traveler is pro-business or pro-taxpayer?

In a column published on his Save Jersey news website, Matt Rooney brilliantly dissected the Trenton Democrats last week…  

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).

So why aren’t pro-business and pro-taxpayer forces pushing the Republican Plan put forward by Bramnick and making its three points the basis of not only the recovery of our party’s fortunes, but those of the state’s taxpayers?  Why aren’t they pulling together behind the Bramnick plan, then building on it, to tackle the obvious divide between the haves (those municipalities who bathe in money, courtesy of the Abbott decision) and the have nots (those who pay the highest property taxes in America)?   

As New Jersey 101.5’s Dennis Malloy recently noted, the public frustration over property taxes and government in the Garden State is stifling:  “Being the state with the highest property taxes in the nation used to be the number one issue in almost any campaign for public office in New Jersey. Lately, (crickets)! Why? …most people have given up hope that it will ever be normal or fair or affordable to most people. There is no one on the horizon with the guts to be honest about it and promise to fix it…” 

And yet, in the midst of this frustration, there are thousands of brave souls who are spending their time and energy – both in and outside social media – to address the oppression of their neighbors and fellow taxpayers.  Too often, they find themselves on their own, without the assistance or direction from the Republican Party, the business community, or even established figures within the state’s conservative movement. 

Take the grassroots effort to Recall Governor Phil Murphy, as an example.  This effort is in the process of training hundreds of volunteers in the basics of one-on-one political outreach that could be harvested in future GOTV operations.  But is anyone providing them with any real assistance?  Listen to this appeal from one of the most effective recall leaders, Bill Hayden of Sussex County:

https://www.facebook.com/raidenhayden/videos/10214053859525724/?notif_id=1557702128406942&notif_t=live_video

In May 1940, the allied armies of France, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands faced the threat posed by a newly re-armed Germany.  One of the great myths about the Fall of France is that the Germans had more tanks.  They did not.  In numbers, weaponry, and armor-protection, the German tanks were outclassed by those of the French Army and its allies.  So why did the Germans so easily over-power the superior tanks of the French?

The French used their tanks piecemeal and fought actions individually.  Many were not even equipped with radios.  The Germans fought coordinated actions, in which not only individual tanks within a unit fought in support of each other, but entire units worked in concert with other units to achieve a particular goal.  It wasn’t hardware that won the battle, but tactics – how the hardware was used. 

The three major units of New Jersey’s Republican Party – the State Committee (NJGOP), the Senate Republican Majority (SRM), and the Assembly Republican Victory (ARV) – do not work in concert or present a unified message or vision.  From there is gets worse.  Each county, each candidate, each club marches to its own beat.  And the party is barely on speaking terms with the movement conservatives who make up its base and constitute its most loyal voters.  Working together could amplify a message and make it punch through to distracted voters.  But instead of amplification, we have a cacophony of murmurs, each from its own silo.   

Jon Bramnick has offered a simple, three-point way forward.  Everyone should amplify it.  That would make a start at working in concert.

At Thursday’s meeting, Garden State Initiative President Regina Egea said voters should ask every politician how they intend to lower the cost of living and the cost of doing business.  The Bramnick Plan provides the answers.

Skylands Tea Party: RECALL MURPHY rally this Saturday

Skylands Tea Party group President Bill Hayden is throwing a rally this Saturday, May 11th, at 11am, on Newton Green (Newton, Sussex County) to Recall Leftist Governor Phil Murphy.  The rally will be an opportunity for beleaguered taxpayers to make their voices heard and sign the recall petition.

Volunteer and union firefighters became the latest of Governor Murphy’s victims, when he announced that he was stealing more than $33 million in money meant to provide services for firefighters who are old and without sufficient means or who have post-traumatic stress troubles.  Murphy announced that he is stealing their money so that he and First Lady Tammy Jane Murphy (nee Macbeth) can use it to fund One Percenter fashion statements… like subsidized legal services for undocumented immigrants illegally resident in the United States.

Saturday, May 11, 2019 at 11 AM

Newton Green, Newton, NJ

For more information, visit the Skylands Tea Party at… 

https://www.facebook.com/skylandsteaparty/

For those who cannot attend, Skylands President Hayden urged fed-up taxpayers and freedom-loving citizens to join the Recall Gov. Murphy effort and volunteer by following these links…

https://m.facebook.com/RecallPhilMurphy/

https://helpsavenj.com/

Hayden added:  “Please if you can, join in the efforts and let’s not only rid us of this scourge, called Governor Murphy and the Democrats, but restore sanity to public office.”

This Saturday: Stand against Gov. Murphy in Sussex County

Governor Phil Murphy has cut education funding for Sussex County and his administration has dragged its feet on stopping illegal dumping in Vernon. 

Murphy is pushing a bizarre New-Left agenda of making taxpayers pay for illegal immigrants with his Sanctuary State programs to fund subsidized legal and education benefits for illegals.  Murphy has allowed dangerous criminals to flow into New Jersey, simply because they claim illegal immigrant status, while he works to take away the rights of New Jersey residents to defend themselves and their families from violence.  

Murphy has driven out jobs (over 9,000 last month alone) with higher business taxes and higher property taxes, while calling for taxes on everything up to and including the rain. His administration is a by-word for corruption – not only hiring convicted politicians who ripped-off taxpayers, but even tolerating the rape of its own female employees.

This Saturday, you have a chance to let him know in person just how pissed off we are.  Governor Murphy will be in Sussex County to place his stamp of approval on Democrat Assembly candidates Deana Lykins, an insurance industry lobbyist, and Dan Smith, the city attorney of Orange, in Essex County.

Murphy will be arriving at an event put on by the Sussex County branch of the Trenton Democrats.  The event starts at around 9 in the morning.  Murphy is supposed to get there by 10.  The location for the event is the Walden Village Clubhouse, 1 Rolling Brook Way, Hardyston. 

The New Jersey Herald announced that the event will be “open to the public” but that might change on Saturday.  That’s how Murphy rolls.

Bill Hayden of the Skylands Tea Party is organizing a counter-protest.  You can and should access his effort at

https://www.facebook.com/events/1991865810926266/?ti=icl

This is a great opportunity to tell the Governor about the illegal dump in Vernon and about his cuts to education funding in Sussex County.