The false narrative of Mikie Sherrill and Lisa Bhimani

In November 2017, three members of the so-called “Resistance” held a press conference to condemn the tax cut plan of President Donald Trump.  They were Mikie Sherrill, a resident of Montclair and then a candidate for Congress in District 11; Lisa Bhimani, a medical doctor and today a candidate for the Assembly in District 25; and Kellie Doucette, who has just been given a congressional staff job by Congresswoman-Elect Sherrill.

At their press conference, the three “resisters” spoke on behalf of the state’s “middle class” and claimed that Trump and the Republicans were only out to help “big corporations and the ultra-wealthy”.  They acted as though they were representative of the families who get by on the median-income of Northwest New Jersey. We now know, in the cases of Mikie Sherrill and Lisa Bhimani, it was all an act. Both Sherrill and Bhimani are rich.  They are establishment members of the One Percent.

But what about Kellie Doucette?  She spoke as if she were a working mom, pinching every penny.

Doucette has just been appointed to be Mikie Sherrill’s “face” in Sussex and Morris Counties.  So who is she?

Well, it turns out that Kellie Doucette had a very bottom-line reason for opposing the Trump tax cuts.  Doucette is a transplant to New Jersey from Bermuda, where her husband, John P. Doucette, is the President and CEO of the Reinsurance Division of Everest Re Group Ltd., a publicly traded reinsurance company headquartered in Bermuda.  The corporation describes itself this way:

“Everest Re Group, Ltd. is a Bermuda holding company that operates through the following subsidiaries: Everest Reinsurance Company provides reinsurance to property and casualty insurers in both the U.S. and international markets. Everest Reinsurance (Bermuda), Ltd., including through its branch in the United Kingdom, provides reinsurance and insurance to worldwide property and casualty markets and reinsurance to life insurers… Additional information on Everest Re Group companies can be found at the Group’s web site at www.everestregroup.com.”

It turns out that the Trump tax cuts helped American companies at the expense of off-shore companies, like those based in Bermuda.  This is from a website maintained by Bermuda (www.bermuda-online.org):

2017. December 21.  US tax reforms approved this week by the US Congress will be “credit negative” for the Bermuda re/insurance market, Fitch Ratings says. The US credit rating agency added that it expected the tax reforms, which will take effect from January 1, to benefit US reinsurers at the expense of Bermudian and other international reinsurers serving the US. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will cut the US corporate tax rate to 21 per cent from 35 per cent, reducing Bermuda’s tax advantages over US rivals, and a new tax on premiums ceded by US insurers to foreign affiliated reinsurers will be levied.

2017. December 18. Bermuda-based reinsurers are weighing restructuring options in response to US tax reform legislation that could be signed by President Donald Trump as early as this week and come into effect by the start of next year. Tax expert Will McCallum said that the island’s major industry will see its cost of doing business going up when the reform takes effect and some companies will likely have to relocate hundreds of millions of dollars of capital to the US.

According to public SEC filings, John Doucette was paid $2,557,414 in 2017.  That’s $49,181.03 a week – that’s $10,000 more than a Deputy Sheriff makes a YEAR in Sussex County!  

Hey… is this “Resistance” movement beginning to feel more like a “counter-revolution” to you too?  A long-suffering working class, under-represented in Congress and the Legislature, screwed-over by BOTH political parties votes for Obama in 2008 (and is promptly screwed again) then in its pain and desperation turns to Trump in 2016… and now the “Resistance” has come, to put us all back in our place!

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

Donald Trump's campaign saw through the false political divide of Democrat and Republican to the vast economic and social divide that is the truer measure of America today.  Authors as diverse as George Packer of the New Yorker (The  Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America) to Charles Murray (Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010) to Chris Hedges (Days of Destruction Days of Revolt) to David Brooks (BoBos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There) have written about this, with Brooks actually employing Donald Trump as an example of what the "new upper class" finds unfashionable.  

And to counter this revolution, we have a One-Percenter “Resistance” made up of the likes of Mikie Sherrill, Lisa Bhimani, and Kellie Doucette.  

Congresswoman-Elect Mikie Sherrill wants Kellie Doucette to come into Sussex County and tell us how we should live.  The Congresswoman has sent Doucette to “feel our pain.” But there’s a problem with this… and it’s Kellie Doucette.

Just how insulated from the reality of the working-class is Doucette?  Well, when she moved from Bermuda to New Jersey, she settled in Chatham, a town with pretty good schools… but apparently, not good enough, because she sends her kids to boarding school in Delaware.  And not just any old boarding school… no way.

When Hollywood is looking for a boarding school that just oozes establishment wealth and privilege, they turn to Saint Andrew’s School, situated on 2200 acres in Middletown, Delaware.  You will remember seeing this well-appointed institution and its lush grounds from the Robin Williams film, Dead Poets Society, or from The West Wing, when they wanted to show what a really posh prep school looked like.  Yep, this is one posh school that Kellie Doucette sends her kids to… fall tuition for 2018-19 will set you back a cool $60,470 (per student).  

Yep, tell that to the working families of Ogdensburg – with a per capita income of just $29,447 – next time you are in Sussex County.  Hey, forget about feeling our pain, folks like you are our pain.

But Kellie Doucette has a solution for people who once had good-paying blue-collar jobs but who now must make do with under-employment, working two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet… abortion.

Kellie Doucette sits on the Board of an organization called Ibis Reproductive Health, and serves on their Finance Committee.  Ibis provides her biography:

“Kellie Doucette began her career in the health policy field, and worked for over ten years as an actuary in the individual disability and long-term care reinsurance markets in the United States and Bermuda. However, in 2016, she shifted her focus to the political sphere, first as a founding member of Chatham Moms for Change, and then in 2017 as the campaign manager for a local political campaign.  Kellie is currently the Constituency Director working with a congressional campaign in New Jersey’s 11th district, managing the constituency outreach for what has become one of the top watched congressional campaigns and races in the country this election cycle.

Kellie received her AB in Economics from Harvard in 1992 and completed her Associateship of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) in 1999. Kellie is also a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, of which she is a proud alumna and current parent, serving as Chair of the Advancement Committee and a member of the Finance Committee.” 

Ibis is all about abortion.  Its website makes Planned Parenthood look like a bunch of cautious moderates.  It operates several separate websites targeted to potential “client groups” – such as http://www.laterabortion.org/

Ibis even has a website aimed at teenagers with epilepsy, in which it promotes sterilization as a “birth control” option.  No kidding… here, check it out… http://girlswithnerve.com/birth-control/birth-control-options/

These people are off-the-hook.  Establishment moes and moettes who think they know better because they were well-born or have figured out a way to rig the system in their favor.  Now they want to masquerade as “comrades” and lead a “revolution” that will secure their fortunes and attitudes and leave America and its working people in the dust.  Mikie Sherrill got over on us this year, now Lisa Bhimani is trying for next year.

Are we going to let them get away with it again?

AFP flip-flops on tax cuts

What a difference a few weeks and hiring a donor's kid makes. 

Earlier this year, AFP issued a press release detailing what the group "Accomplished in 2016".  It's most recent accomplishment was:  "Saved state taxpayers $1.4 billion in tax cuts-once completely phased in-in the final omnibus bill, including a repeal of the estate tax which save taxpayers $320 million alone and will protect families from the government raiding inheritances when a loved one dies."

Instead of thanking the legislators who voted for these $1.4 billion in tax cuts that AFP is now bragging about as their "accomplishment," AFP decided to screw them and to mark the vote that they listed as a "success" as a "bad" vote. 

Groups like AFP use these appeals to illustrate their effectiveness and ask for money.  This is fraud.  AFP cannot be on BOTH sides of an issue like this.

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NJ GOP must fight Red-Shirt Fascism

On Friday night, a couple members of Bill Spadea's Red-Shirt movement held a "rally" at the former headquarters of the notorious American National Socialist Bund.  For some strange reason, instead of demolishing the former Camp Nordland, the town leaders of Andover Township have maintained the building that hosted numerous Nazi, Fascist, and Ku Klux Klan rallies in the 1930's.  Sussex County historian Wayne McCabe has written a book about the goings on at "the barn at Lake Iliff in Andover Township."

The Red-Shirts were voicing their opposition to Ballot Question 2, which simply states:

A "yes" vote supports this proposal to dedicate all revenue from gas taxes to transportation projects.

A "no" vote opposes this proposal, thus devoting the same levels of revenue to transportation projects.

The non-partisan organization ballotpedia.org provides the following details:

Amendment design

Question 2 would create a constitutional requirement that all revenue derived from taxes on motor fuels be deposited into the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF).[1] Currently, only 10.5 cents of the gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is required to be deposited into the TTF.

Transportation Trust Fund

Question 2 would require all revenue from tax revenues on motor fuels to be deposited into the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF). The TTF was designed to fund the Department of Transportation and NJ Transit, which then use the revenue for transportation-related projects.[2]

Question 2 and the gas tax

Question 2 was intended to complement a gas tax increase. The amendment itself does not increase the gas tax.[3][4] On September 30, 2016, Gov. Christie (R) and the Democratic-controlled state legislature agreed to increase the gas tax 23 cents per gallon. As part of the agreement, the estate tax was eliminated, the Earned Income Tax Credit was increased, a tax deduction for veterans was created, and the state sales tax will be reduced from 7 to 6.625 percent in 2018.[5] Question 2 would guarantee that revenue from the additional 23 cents gas tax and the existing 10.5 cents gas tax to the Transportation Trust Fund.[6] Gov. Christie signed the bill on October 14, 2016.[7]

Americans for Prosperity, a leader in its opposition to the gas tax increase, supports the passage of Ballot Question 2:

"Americans for Prosperity supports the ballot measure and constitutionally dedicating the remaining revenues collected from the tax on diesel and the petro tax to the transportation fund. At the same time, AFP wants voters to be clear that this referendum does not authorize a gas tax increase, nor does it in any way resolve the transportation challenges the state is facing. The remaining revenue from these two taxes amounts to less than $30 million, a mere fraction of the $1.2 billion collected for the TTF last year. Americans for Prosperity is steadfast in our opposition to a gas tax hike. We continue to urge lawmakers to pursue reforms to rein in wasteful spending and to ensure our transportation dollars are used solely for our roads and bridges."

Ballot Question 2 is the latest BIG LIE seized upon by Red-Shirt founder Bill Spadea for the purposes of (1) increasing his value to the Townsquare Media Corporation, owners of radio station NJ 101.5; and (2) stirring up mistrust, anger, and rage against government and existing political parties for the furtherance of the Fascist Red-Shirt Movement. 

Spadea's argument appears to be that the tax cuts in the Tax Restructuring program (eliminating the estate tax, the tax cut on retirement income for most New Jersey seniors, the sales tax cut, the $3,000 personal income tax exemption for veterans, and the earned income tax credit for low-paid workers) will take revenue that is needed for pension payments for public employee unions. Spadea speciously argues that a vote on Ballot Question 2 would leave "teachers without proper funding".

First of all, this is nonsense and based on some entirely false premise that the Red-Shirt leader cooked up in his head.  Second, it is essentially a left-wing argument, one made by Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan, at odds with the political spectrum Spadea and the other Red-Shirts claim to represent. But then again, they didn't call it national socialism for nothing!

The anger is the thing.  Getting listeners to act out in an emotional rage is what Spadea's mission is and the level of sometimes violent rage he's built up is truly remarkable.  The foul and pornographic language, the threats of violence against legislators and their families posted on social media, have been breathtaking. 

Townsquare Media permits Spadea to spew hatred against people who use public transportation as though they were a lower form of human being -- and his Red-Shirt followers (and some elected officials) lap it up.  As a salesman, politician, and movement leader, Spadea appears to know more about transportation engineering than civil engineers and planners, who explain the common sense fact that public mass transportation removes millions of cars from the road that would otherwise be clogging said roads and adding to road wear and lengthening commuting time.

Spadea's latest argument against putting the money from the gas tax into a lock-box for road and bridge repair is that capital projects should be purchased up front instead of being financed over the life of the project.  That would be like buying a house or a car for cash.  Few can afford to do that and taxpayers cannot afford to see their property taxes go up to pay for a new bridge up front  Capital borrowing spreads the cost out over the life of the bridge. 

It's common sense but common sense is not what Bill Spadea and his Red-Shirters are about.  They want anger, they want rage, they want fear, they want hate... and increasingly, they are succeeding.

Spadea's rants have so frightened Assemblyman Erik Peterson, that last week his office put out a press release stating "Peterson has consistently opposed these measures" while apparently forgetting that he voted to put the Question on the ballot in January of this year:

ACR1 Amends State Constitution to dedicate all State revenues from motor fuels and petroleum products gross receipts tax to transportation system.

Session Voting:
Asm.  1/11/2016-  3RDG FINAL PASSAGE   -  Yes {75}  No {0}  Not Voting {4}  Abstains {0}

Peterson, Erik - Yes

What a knucklehead!

But that's how it is now.  Emotion trumps reason.  The Big Lie conquers factual truth.  Fear makes people forget their own voting records.  And anger, rage, and hate are the order of the day.  We have been here before, as this footage from a speech by an American Brown-Shirt leader in Madison Square Garden reminds us.  Yes, we have been here before and we have defeated the forces of rage and have survived. 

Beck dismisses tax cut for vets as "cosmetic"

Sen. Jennifer Beck dismissed two tax cuts aimed at helping veterans and commuters as "cosmetic."  Her comment was made to reporter John Reitmeyer, and appears today in NJ Spotlight. 

One of those tax cuts is a $3,000 income-tax cut for honorably discharged veterans and the other is a new state income tax deduction worth up to $500 annually for commuter households making $100,000 or less.

To balance these tax cuts fiscally, the plan is to scrap a proposed state income tax deduction for wealthy people who contribute to charities.  The deduction on charitable contributions was strongly supported by Senator Beck and the leader of the Republican caucus, Senator Tom Kean Jr. 

* * *

Why is Bill Spadea out-and-out lying on NJ 101.5 and why is his station manager, the Townsquare Media corporation, and the Oaktree Capital Management corporation allowing him to lie?  It appears that he has something for Senator Beck that causes him to lose all semblance of objectivity.  While this might be understandable, the lengths to which Spadea has taken it are remarkable.

Again, we remind those concerned that the federal government grants for-profit corporations a monopoly on the use of a certain radio frequency provided that they abide by a few rules and regulations.  One is that they should at least try to be honest.  The FCC website states:

"As public trustees, broadcasters may not intentionally distort the news. The FCC has stated publicly that 'rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest'."

What this means is that a radio station shouldn't out and out lie just to inflame public opinion in an effort to jazz up the ratings in order to sell more advertising and reap a windfall in corporate profits.  Neither should it do so because it finds the spokesperson for one position more personally appealing than that of another.  Facts and a fair presentation of the arguments on BOTH sides is the only course worthy of the name journalism.