Is Woke Democrat candidate making a list of local businesses to boycott?

By Sussex Watchdog

Not content with stripping billions away from local school districts, Democrats are now making ideological lists of local businesses that survived the pandemic and the lockdown mandates of Democrat Governor Phil Murphy. These lists are based not on the products or services these businesses offer, not on their pricing and warranties, not even on customer service or retail ambience.

No, the Democrats want to discriminate for and against local businesses based on their active support of things like vaccine and mask mandates, abortion up to and including the day of birth, Critical Race Theory and support for defunding the police, transgendered agenda and LGBTQ+ curriculum, illegal immigration, and Goldman-Sachs/ Tammy Murphy’s plan to use farmland and lakes for solar panels. Take a look at the line-up of hashtags in the post below.

That’s the whackadoddledoo wokeness of corporate Democrats for you. Big “D” Democrats – not little “d” as in those who practice actual democracy. Big “D” as in authoritarian Dicks.

It isn’t enough to have a nice product, in a well-kept establishment, with friendly service… they want to know what you are thinking, and you better identify how you think… or else! And if you are not thinking what they’re thinking – exactly like they’re thinking it – then history shows they will call you names and cancel you, shun you, turn you and your business into a version of the undead. How many poor unfortunates have lost their jobs or income for expressing the “wrong” opinion? And what’s worse, while torturing and bullying people this way, the Democrats will claim “tolerance” and “anti-hate”. Real sweethearts.

And if you don't fly the approved flag, post the approved sentiments in your window, or support the approved candidates???

It's just more divisive woke bullshit.

The candidate is Damaris Lira. On Tuesday, she became the Democratic Party nominee for County Commissioner in Sussex County. So… one of her first acts as the Democrat nominee is to work on a list that categorizes local businesses as “them” or “us”??? Wasn’t this the method used by another political party, in central Europe, nearly a century ago?

And why would any small businessperson vote for a candidate who, as a County Commissioner, would look to favor one business over another? Maybe they would if they knew they were on the approved list – but what if they weren’t?

Woke Democrats (and their go-along-to-get-along, wannabe cousins, Woke Republicans) appear to have one answer to everything – divide and bully. They claim to be representing “marginalized” or “oppressed” groups when it is clear to everyone that those they represent are either directly in power or favored by those in power. But then remember, the worst crimes against humanity have been by people in power who claimed to be acting out their aggression in self-defense.

Carly Sitrin (She/Her) is POLITICO’s Education Reporter… and she is “woke”

By Rubashov

There are few giveaways as plain as this one.
 
Carly Sitrin, a reliably Establishment reporter with roots in Boston’s PBS network, wrote a work of apology on behalf of New Jersey’s political establishment. It was an attempt to publicly forgive them for the damage they’ve done to the curriculum the state’s school children are learning from. But Sitrin went further. She attempted to blame those who noticed.
 
The word “transgender” didn’t even exist until the 1960s. Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11 to 21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. Despite what Sitrin and others would have you believe, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue – so put away those blue and red pom-poms. But it has been a growing concern among parents and reformers within the medical establishment, who have observed a ceaseless rise in the use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions to treat children who express “discomfort” with their gender identity. That is a major departure from the past, when clinicians used “talking therapies” to help children adjust. Of course, the medication of children in general has for some time been a cause for alarm to parents and forward-thinkers in the medical community.
 
Then there’s the religion thing. The transgender movement is a faith-based ideology akin to religion. And just as some believe in trans-substantiation (that bread can be made flesh and wine made blood) those who subscribe to transgenderism believe that DNA can be altered, chromosomes undone, simply by the action of the will. They believe that an individual, born male, can will himself into being female – and vice versa.
 
The outward sign of adherence to faith-based transgenderism is the use of pronouns after your last name. If you believe, you use “preferred” pronouns after your last name. Carly Sitrin (She/Her) is a believer. And she advertises her belief on her LinkedIn page and such. She tells who she is and what she believes in. It is her faith and it is natural enough for her to defend her faith – even if that means placing faith before journalism. We should expect nothing different from her.
 
Numerous people on the Left have suffered the wrath of this new, thrusting, proselytizing faith. The author of the Harry Potter novels had to go into hiding because she suggested that women were there own thing. The author Camille Paglia suffered similarly. Feminists like Kara Dansky have been leading a fightback from the Left. Her book, The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, has been burnt in public.
 
In her Politico story, Carly Sitrin (She/Her), asks parents to forget what they saw when Governor Phil Murphy sent all those kids home from school over the threat from COVID. Distance learning, the children at home, learning side by side with their parents, is what ignited the current debate. Parents saw, they experienced it first-hand. They cannot be made to unsee – no matter the efforts of Carly Sitrin (She/Her) and a hundred like her.
 
Carly Sitrin (She/Her) attempts to argue that if something isn’t spelled out in law, it isn’t mandated. She knows better. She knows that laws are often written very loosely. Heck, we argue over that with the Second Amendment.
 
Laws are written loosely so that the establishment bureaucracy can interpret them as broadly (or as narrowly) as they wish. The law (An Act concerning diversity and inclusion instruction in school districts and supplementing chapter 35 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes), sponsored by Senator Vin Gopal and signed by Governor Murphy in March of last year, at the root of the current curriculum uproar is an example of such loose and subjective language:
 
C.18A:35-4.36a Curriculum to include instruction on diversity and inclusion.
1. a. Beginning in the 2021-2022 school year, each school district shall incorporate instruction on diversity and inclusion in an appropriate place in the curriculum of students in grades kindergarten through 12 as part of the district’s implementation of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.
b. The instruction shall:
(1) highlight and promote diversity, including economic diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance, and belonging in connection with gender and sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, disabilities, and religious tolerance;
(2) examine the impact that unconscious bias and economic disparities have at both an individual level and on society as a whole; and
(3) encourage safe, welcoming, and inclusive environments for all students regardless of race or ethnicity, sexual and gender identities, mental and physical disabilities, and religious beliefs.
c. The Commissioner of Education shall provide school districts with sample learning activities and resources designed to promote diversity and inclusion.

To understand how all that aspirational language will take form, we need to look at an earlier piece of legislation, also supported by Vin Gopal. It is called “An Act establishing the Transgender Equality Task Force to assess legal and societal barriers to equality and provide recommendations to Legislature.”
 
2.    a.  There is hereby created a task force to be known as the “Transgender Equality Task Force.” The purpose of the task force shall be to assess the legal and societal barriers to equality for transgender individuals in the State, and provide recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature on how to ensure equality and improve the lives of transgender individuals, with particular attention to the following areas:
     (1)   healthcare, including, but not limited to, access to healthcare providers that are trained in transgender medical issues, including sexual health;
     (2)   long term care for the chronically ill and senior citizens in the transgender population;
     (3)   education;
     (4)   higher education;
     (5)   housing, including, but not limited to, homelessness prevention and reduction for transgender youth and adults;
     (6)   employment; and
     (7)   criminal justice, including raising transgender awareness among law enforcement through training, and facilitating the appropriate placement of transgender individuals in correctional facilities based on an individual’s gender identity.
     b.    The Transgender Equality Task Force shall consist of 17 members as follows… a representative of the Department of Education whose duties or expertise includes protecting the rights of minority students or eliminating discrimination in the delivery of educational programs, policies, or initiatives
…one public member to be appointed by the Governor, who shall be a representative of a social service agency that provides services and supports to transgender individuals; a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union; a representative of Garden State Equality; and a representative of The Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey.
 
Note that the law is specific enough to include the special interest groups making the policy recommendations, but loose in its description of what those policies are. Fair enough, the latter might scare voters (like it has) and, as Ronald Reagan said, “Personnel is policy.” Government doesn’t write the textbooks or lesson guides. It just picks those involved that do. In this way, politicians like Phil Murphy and Vin Gopal can say, “Not my bad.” And writers like Carly Sitrin (She/Her) can try to cover for them.
 
Except that Murphy sent all those kids home and parents saw it with their own eyes. And they can’t unsee it.

Abigail Shrier is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020). A graduate of Columbia College, University of Oxford, and Yale Law School, her work regularly appears in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other publications.

Finally, we must applaud Carly Sitrin (She/Her) for getting Senator Holly Schepisi’s own consultant – the company that administers the Facebook page on which the good Senator has posted so much good information – to essentially attack her:

“New Jersey GOP strategist Chris Russell said those kinds of extreme right-wing buzzwords aren’t effective in the state and don’t resonate with the typical New Jersey Republican voter who leans more socially moderate, but he said Republicans should still find a way to tap into that parental outrage.”

Hey, put away those pom-poms, this isn’t about party politics. This is something much larger. It brings people who think of themselves as “Left” together with people who say they are “Right”. This is about children. It's about the future.

New Murphy administration LGBTQ+ Directive tells Sheriffs to confine men & women together

It looks like the Murphy administration is at it again. Punishing democratic institutions with centralized overreach, unfunded mandates, and higher property taxes. At this rate, county and municipal governments will have less power and influence in New Jersey than they had in the former Soviet Union.

To cover this, we would like to introduce a news blog called “The Informed Conservative”. You can access it here: https://informedconservative.blog

This column was posted on “The Informed Conservative” just minutes ago…

The New Jersey Attorney General releases LGBTQ Equality Directive.
November 20, 2019

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal released the LGBT Equality Directive instructing the state’s 38,000 law enforcement officers on how to deal with the LGTB community. The directive’s provisions include law enforcement cannot ask a person’s anatomy unless it’s necessary to an investigation, must use people’s chosen names even if that name does not appear on official documents, cannot question or detain someone for using a restroom “consistent with that person’s gender identity or expression” or conduct “invasive search procedures to determine a person’s genitals or assign gender”. Wouldn’t you or I be arrested for giving police a false name or information?

According to the Attorney General’s Directive it addresses law enforcement interactions with transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. It states that “law enforcement’s overriding goal must be to treat individuals in a manner that is appropriate to their gender identity or expression, which may be different from the gender they were assigned at birth or the gender that is listed on their official identification”.

The Directive goes on to state:

Law enforcement officers therefore shall:

A. Address individuals using their chosen names that reflect their gender identity—even if the name is not the one that is recognized on official legal records and even if that name changes over time—as well as their chosen pronouns;

B. Include chosen names and chosen pronouns in all relevant documentation.
The Attorney General directs law enforcement that “whenever the action that an officer takes depends at least in part on an individual’s gender, then that action shall be performed in accordance with the individual’s gender identity, regardless of the gender that individual was assigned at birth and/or their anatomical characteristics”. It continues In other words, officers must treat a transgender woman as they would treat any other woman, and they must treat a transgender man as they would treat any other man”.

Not taking officer safety or comfort into consideration the Directive instructs:

For the purpose of conducting a search, officers shall treat a transgender woman as they would treat any other woman, and officers shall treat a transgender man as they would treat any other man, regardless of the gender that individual was assigned at birth and/or their anatomical characteristics.

But certain searches exist for which cross-gender searches are prohibited (e.g.,
non-exigent custodial strip searches) and where the gender of the person being
searched thus matters. In those cases, where only a female officer can search a cisgender woman and only a male officer can search a cisgender man, then it is also the case that only a female officer can search a transgender woman and
only a male officer can search a transgender man.

Not taking into consideration the safety or comfort of other prisoners the directive instructs:

If detained individuals are held in areas that are segregated on the basis of gender, law enforcement shall:

A. House, place, or otherwise detain individuals in line with their gender identity
or expression, regardless of the gender that individual was assigned at birth
and/or their anatomical characteristics unless they request otherwise. In other words, a transgender woman shall be housed with other women, unless she requests otherwise and a transgender man shall be housed with other men, unless he requests otherwise.

B. Permit individuals to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity or
expression, regardless of the gender.

Because the Attorney General apparently believes that New Jersey law enforcement officers do not have more important priorities he further instructs:

To ensure that law enforcement fully understands the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and continues to build relationships with the LGBTQ+ community, the following training and community engagement steps shall be taken:

A. The Division of Criminal Justice shall, by March 1, 2020, develop a training program to explain the requirements of the Directive. This program shall be available through the NJ Learn System or by other electronic means. All state, county, and local law enforcement agencies shall provide training to all officers regarding the provisions of this Directive before June 1, 2020.

B. Further, the Division of Criminal Justice shall, by June 1, 2020, and in consultation with groups representing the LGBTQ+ community, create a broader training on LGBTQ+ rights that shall be available through the NJ CLEAR System. That training shall include information about the basics of gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and intersex status; issues affecting the transgender community; and issues relating to implicit bias and cultural humility.

C. Each County Prosecutor shall, in collaboration with the Division of Criminal Justice, undertake efforts to educate the public about the provisions of this Directive, with a specific focus on strengthening trust between law enforcement and LGBTQ+ individuals. By December 31, 2020, each County Prosecutor shall report to the Attorney General on those public education efforts.

D. All law enforcement agencies shall seek to establish relationships with organizations focused on LGBTQ+ issues, and other community leaders, to maintain a dialogue about issues affecting LGBTQ+ individuals.

Much like the Attorney General’s Immigrant Trust Directive his LGBT Equality Directive is ridiculous, over reaching and puts people in danger. First, if you or I were to give law enforcement fraudulent information such as an incorrect name we’d be subject to arrest. By saying that we “identify” as someone else we are free to go out and commit crimes then give false information to police?

By saying that a man who believes he’s a woman or a woman who believes she is a man can be housed with inmates who are the sex the person “identifies with” the Attorney General is putting all of the prisoners, including the “transgendered” prisoner in danger.

By forcing a female officer to conduct a search of a male prisoner who “identifies” as a female or a male officer to conduct a search female prisoner who “identifies” as a male the Attorney General is not taking the comfort of officers into consideration and potentially putting officers in danger.

Forcing law enforcement to take LGBTQ based training and requiring law enforcement agencies to establish relationships with “organizations focused on LGBTQ+ issues” the Attorney General is wasting law enforcement resources that can be used to fight crime.

A man who thinks he is a woman or a woman who thinks she is a man is mentally ill. Rather than enable people with mental health challenges and potentially put law enforcement officers in danger we should be focused on getting these people the help that they need. Like his Immigrant Trust Directive this Directive ignores the rights of the majority of New Jersyeans and puts people’s safety at risk.

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Malinowski’s dilemma: One school shooter a Democrat. The other is Transgendered.

The couple involved in the Colorado school shooting are a modern Bonnie & Clyde… well, sort of.

It is reported that “she” is Maya Elizabeth McKinney – except that her public defender said on Wednesday that his client uses male pronouns and goes by the name Alec.

And our modern day “Clyde” is a fellow (still, as of this printing) reportedly called Devon Erickson, described as an “actor and musician.”  According to published reports, Mr. Erickson “shared two posts about politics – one criticizing President Donald Trump and one praising Barack Obama. Erickson is a registered Democrat.”

Ray Lesniak will be glad to know that Mr. Erickson lists paintball (along with videogames and skateboard) as an activity.  So maybe that deadly paintball assault weapon that Lesniak warned us about is germane after all.  No word yet on whether or not he used it in the school shooting.

Both suspects are “white” – so maybe Tom Malinowski will be emboldened to continue arguing that the biggest terrorists on earth are White Americans.  But somehow we don’t think these two were what he had in mind. 

This is what happens when you conflate juvenile attention seekers and the mentally deficient with genuine terrorists.  As our erstwhile “Bonnie” wrote in a social media post… “I probably sucked more today than anyone in the history of kung fu. In the history of China. In the history of sucking.”

These are not the words of a terrorist group, taking credit for an act of terror. 

Tom Malinowski should take note and remember the difference.

Hugin should think before hurting the GOP any further

Bob Hugin’s campaign for the United States Senate was a disaster.  Everyone associated with it should be embarrassed, should wear the scarlet letter “L” as an external sign of their shame and contrition.

But there will be no contrition because these are people too proud to admit that their “vision” was flawed, that they outspent an extraordinarily flawed incumbent three to one and still lost badly.  Hugin lost to Bob Menendez, a Democrat incumbent so flawed that one in three Democrat primary voters rejected him.

What’s worse is that the Hugin campaign was deliberately designed to suppress traditional Republican turnout while enormous amounts were spent to create a surge amongst “soft” Democrats and Democrat leaners who had soured on Menendez.  The result of this strategy is best summed up when veterans of the Hugin campaign brag that they “won six Congressional districts.” Too bad that in five of those six districts, the Republican candidate for Congress lost, including two incumbents.  

As recently as 2016, all six of those districts had been represented by a Republican.  Now, just one remains.

Writing in the New Jersey Globe today, David Wildstein notes the re-emergence of Bob Hugin, addressing a meeting of Mercer County Republicans, placing his stamp of approval on the state’s first transgender candidate for the Legislature.  Here we go again. Let’s not learn the lesson that $40 million wasn’t enough to convince voters that Republicans are more reliable social liberals than Democrats, instead… try, try again.

The candidate Hugin spoke on behalf of is Jennifer Williams.  She is running for Assembly in the 15th Legislative District, a district that Republicans have almost no chance of picking up in 2019.  But because Jennifer Williams is the first transgendered candidate of either party to run for the Legislature, she will become a focal point of the 2019 campaign cycle.  Williams worked on Hugin’s campaign, so perhaps Hugin will provide her with the resources to make her campaign even more of a focal point.

The trouble is, 2019 will be a low turnout election, and Republicans are not fighting a statewide campaign but instead, are fighting to hold on to a few remaining Republican enclaves.  Is this the time to be highlighting “a different kind of Republican” or is it time to drag everyone who is likely to vote Republican to the polls? And as for non-traditional Republican voters, are these more likely to be LGBTQ voters or poor working class Roman Catholics?  Yes, there are choices to be made and making one choice often negates the other. So which is the surer bet?

Unfortunately, from all the hype, all we know about Jennifer Williams is that she is what some call a “transwoman”.  That is likely to be of little use in motivating traditional Republican turnout and – in the era of Donald Trump – unlikely to motivate enough LGBTQ voters to make up for what you lose.  The hoopla resulting from this “first” will most certainly bleed beyond the borders of the 15th District, turning off and giving up as it goes.  So that Republicans could neither gain the 15th or the boost necessary to save endangered seats.

For the good of her party, Jennifer Williams should play down the significance of her “gender” and instead focus on a message that aggressively defines the Trenton Democrats as what they are.  But can Williams even use the term, “Trenton Democrats”, as a negative in Legislative District 15? Williams claims to be a “conservative”, well this would be the time for her to craft a message that illustrates what that means.

Candidate Williams has secured the endorsement of the GOP establishment in Mercer and Hunterdon Counties.  We suspect that there will not be much competition for such a thankless task. We wish her well but hope that she does not become the “face” of this year’s Republican legislative campaign in New Jersey, and we hope Bob Hugin doesn’t make it his mission to make it so.

Science doesn't back up 'Gender is a social construct'

Dr. Debra Soh is a researcher into human sexuality.  She is science columnist for the Globe & Mail newspaper.

Dr. Soh has written against anti-conversion therapy laws which include both sexual orientation and gender identity, believing that such laws conflate the two and prevent legitimate therapeutic counseling for individuals with gender dysphoria.  She believes that the current societal view to allow for gender transition in childhood is mostly based on homophobia due to studies which show that many transgender children will desist and detransition in adolescent and early adulthood and come out as homosexuals.

In this talk, Dr. Soh makes the point that science doesn't back up the current political dogma on the Left that gender is a social construct.  She details how the politically-mandated teaching of GSE dogma in public schools has led to a “social contagion” of transgenderism among vulnerable children.  The same GSE-influenced establishment that once pushed opioids on society is now pushing a new solution and a new promise of happiness.

Trenton Democrats: Nothing on property taxes… but 222 new laws favoring LGBT special interests.

This is from the latest begging letter from Garden State Equality (GSE) – the folks who said that all they wanted was to pass same-sex marriage and they would be satisfied.  Hey, if they ever were “satisfied” there would be no reason for groups like Garden State Equality to exist and they’d all be in fear of losing their payday.  They can’t let that happen… and so they stoke the politics of fear…

“We’ve passed 222 civil rights laws in New Jersey protecting the LGBTQ community. And we’re not slowing down, because there’s more work to do.

In 2019, we’re going to ban the gay and trans panic defense, work to end LGBTQ youth homelessness, fight back against Trump’s transgender military ban, and push to pass the Equality Act. And we’ll continue our existing work for the LGBTQ community to build safe schools, expand healthcare, and support older adult populations.

In the last 12 months, we passed six new pro-equality laws that make our state stronger and safer for LGBTQ people.

Just last week alone: Governor Murphy signed the LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum bill into law—the second of its kind in the entire nation—and the historic Babs Siperstein Law went into effect, allowing transgender New Jerseyans to update their birth certificate without restrictions.

We know this fight means just as much to you as it does to us, and that’s why we need your help. We never would have made this much historic progress without you…”

… And then they hit their donors up for money.

Meanwhile, if those donors pay property taxes… they will continue to get screwed.  And if they own businesses… screwed again.  And when it rains… screwed and screwed again.

See, it isn’t about who you sleep with that brings people together.  That’s kind of personal.  What is universal is the screwing we’re all getting from the Trenton Democrats and their master screw-up-in-charge Governor Phil Murphy.

Groups like Garden State Equality (GSE) are masters at the politics of fear – and masters at using it to get paid.  The professional political class in Trenton appreciates their services because so long as people are focused on stuff like “the transgender military ban” they won’t notice the fact that they are getting poorer, taxed more, regulated more, less free. 

222 new laws… Nothing on property taxes.

The Hill: What conservatives got wrong in 2016

Conservative 'social issues' are winnable

— if the GOP grows a backbone

December 20, 2016

By: Frank Cannon

NB:  In the November 8, 2016, election, Republicans picked up one State Senate seat, extending their majority to 35-15, and Republicans maintained their 74-46 advantage in the State House of Representatives.

When Gov. Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) dared to sign HB2, a bill that repealed a Charlotte ordinance which would have forced private businesses and charitable religious organizations to allow grown men who “identify” as women to use the same public bathrooms and showers as girls, the left banded together with its allies in corporate America, the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media and spent the next eight months carpet bombing the state of North Carolina.

As my colleague Terry Schilling pointed out in The Federalist:

“They launched corporate boycotts. They took away the NBA All-Star game. They cancelled sold-out concerts. And then, after ensuring the economic pain would be as excruciating as possible on residents of North Carolina, Roy Cooper and the Democrats placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of McCrory.

“The left essentially staged an economic crisis in order to win an election. Nasty.”

This blitzkrieg by progressives, an obvious attempt to bully the GOP into submission on the “gender identity” issue, made McCrory’s race one of the most consequential of the 2016 cycle.

He was outspent by nearly $8 million and was up against an avalanche of opposition from progressive elites, who dominated the news media and pop culture.

And despite all of this, McCrory barely lost. Just one or two million dollars more in financial support from conservative donors likely would have put him over the top. Unfortunately, these donors largely froze. Why?

One of the big fads among conservative organizations and donors is spending millions and millions of dollars in an attempt to change institutions that are virtually unchangeable — academia, the mainstream media, pop culture, the entertainment industry — institutions over which the left has a complete stranglehold.

This is misguided, at least when it comes at the expense of engaging in critical political races.

Politics is the only part of the culture that can easily be driven by ordinary people. Everything else — academic institutions, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, even corporate America — is all controlled by the progressive elites.

We can’t decide what books are published, what TV shows are produced (and what agendas those TV shows push), what universities teach, or what corporate America sells. The idea that we are going to direct all our money attempting to change those aspects of culture, rather than the one aspect of culture where we can have a real impact and reverse cultural trends — by winning in politics — is insanity.

So why aren’t conservative organizations and donors spending more on politics? Why didn’t they protect McCrory, go on offense fighting the culture war, and save themselves tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in future spending on efforts to play defense?

Conservatives don’t succeed by persuading the elites. We succeed by persuading the people.

There was no academic work in favor of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. It was opposed by every elite. Yet ultimately, Reagan’s tax cut model became GOP orthodoxy… because Reagan won.

Trump’s policies on trade, immigration, and even abortion were universally derided by GOP elites during the campaign. Now, he is completely transforming GOP policy and preparing to affect real change on those issues, despite being opposed by elites. Why? Because he won.

Winning elections is not only an efficient and cost-effective way of affecting cultural change, but for conservatives, it is perhaps the only way to do so successfully.

The irony of ironies is that McCrory would have almost assuredly won had conservative organizations and donors pitched in just another $1 or $2 million — relative pocket change when compared to multi-million dollar projects being funded merely to study how conservatives might use different messaging on social issues in future elections.

While those projects go on, and while Washington policy wonks wonk out, winnable political battles are being outright surrendered — such as what happened in North Carolina, where voters, by and large,  supported the actual provisions in HB2.

Now, with a political establishment that is in all likelihood unwilling to go the way of McCrory, believing that fighting on social issues is a death sentence, conservative organizations and donors are going to pour their money into legal efforts to defend against activist courts and academic efforts to write white papers no one will read.

Amazingly, despite Republicans now holding the House, the Senate, and the presidency, those of us who believe that men probably shouldn’t be showering with women are preparing for 2017 as if we were relegated to minority status!

The underlying message of not letting men shower with our daughters is a winning one, but only if it is actively promoted. That doesn’t happen unless conservative donors pony up.

Liberals and their corporate and entertainment allies spent millions of dollars driving home the shameful idea that, if North Carolina voters didn’t vote Democrat, liberal institutions would abandon the state, and people would lose jobs. Extortion was their central campaign message!

This was an easy message to counter, especially given the extreme nature of the Left’s position — that grown men have a civil right to shower with young women, and that any business or organization that dissents from this view should be removed from the public square.

But driving home a message takes money, and the money wasn’t there.

Conservative organizations and donors pinched pennies and refused to go all-in to help McCrory, and now those same donors are going to spend ten times, twenty times, maybe even a hundred times as much fighting the narrative created by the very election they abandoned — the idea that progressive gender ideology cannot be defeated or discussed in politics without it spelling sure defeat for the Republican.

Get ready, donors, to spend millions of dollars in court fighting the practical implications of “gender identity” being considered a protected class.

Get ready to spend millions more fighting the Left’s new “proven” strategy — that by colluding with corporate elites, the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media — they can get literally anything they want, and the GOP will just cave.

This could have been prevented. We could be celebrating a popular defeat of progressive gender ideology. Instead, we are up against a narrative, promoted even by the likes of establishment conservatives like Sen. Thom Tillis, that “controversial social issues” cost us big league.

What a shame. The only question now is, will conservative organizations and donors learn this lesson for the next North Carolina? Or will we continue channeling Don Quixote — tilting at windmills we can’t defeat, while refusing to fight the battles we can actually win?

Frank Cannon is the president of American Principles Project.  Follow him on Twitter @FrankCannonAPP..

Senator Beck should drop support for trans-men in girls' toilets bill

If we are to avoid another performance like 2015, the Republican legislative caucuses of both chambers should use 2016 to prepare for 2017.  The most important thing is to do yourself no harm. 

We've detailed before how bills like S-283 have no base of support and how they could do enormous damage -- not only to the prospect of turning out our base -- but with any voters who believe in privacy between the sexes and with protecting vulnerable women and girls.  Polling shows large majorities in favor of traditional privacy no matter how the question is posed. 

Such a poll was recently conducted in the Eleventh Legislative District in Monmouth County.  More on that later.

Suffice it to say that modesty might draw barbed mockery from some, but in a district in which 48 percent of all registered Republicans are aged 60 or over and 66 percent of Republican super voters (3 of 4 or above) are aged 60 or over, it is a safe bet that it still counts for something.  And we can't wait to find out.

When educated as to the number of convicted male sex offenders who could use a law like S-283 to gain access to girls and women for their self-gratification, the response is off-the-charts.  Republicans, Democrats, Independents -- it doesn't matter.  Many in the LGBT community break ranks with their lobbyist class and oppose S-283 on the grounds that it leaves too many people vulnerable to sexual abuse, rape, and even murder.

We understand from a highly placed source in the Legislature that S-283 will be making an appearance again.  This source also confirmed that S-283 will have GOP support. Prominent among those GOP supporters is Senator Jennifer Beck, a co-sponsor of S-283.

We didn't expect such a betrayal of the Republican base in an election cycle as rebellious as 2016-17 is turning out to be.  Of course, Senator Beck is making a lot of noise on other issues in an attempt to get conservative voters to forget who she really is, and her decades-long record as a lobbyist and legislator devoted to the liberal causes dear to the heart of the political and corporate establishment.     

If passed into law, Beck's legislation allows a man, with a penis, to become a legal "woman", simply by saying that he is seeing a therapist and then re-submitting his birth certificate to reflect his "new sex".  No surgery required. 

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

What S-283 will do is endanger the lives of women and girls in New Jersey.  And come election time every legislator who supports S-283, regardless of their party, is going to have to answer some tough questions from average constituents about why you had to do this and not something important, like lowering property taxes, ending the tax on retirement income, or fixing the Transportation Trust Fund. 

Watch the video below and see if you are ready to answer those questions:

Transgender father starts life as six-year-old girl

This is the world as Senate President Steve Sweeney would have it. 

First, violins please.  The right mood music is always important when telling these stories.

Yes, a transgendered father of seven children has left his family (screw them, may they be the taxpayers' responsibility now) because he no longer identifies as an adult male.  Like many a modern day "hero," this 46-year-old man has decided that the world has to let him be what he wants to be.  And what he wants to be is a six-year-old girl.  So say hello to six-year-old  Stefonknee (pronounced Stephanie) Wolscht:

In medical circles they have a name for this.  It is called identity disorder.  Some say that it is a problem with humility or the need to play God.  These voices will soon have to cave to political pressure or face a harsh dose of re-education.  They will be made to "celebrate" such heroism.  In the future, we will see entire brigades transform into kindergarten classes on the battlefield.  In the West anyway.  ISIS don't play that.

People like Steve Sweeney have been busy providing a political framework for this radical transformation.  In his last campaign, he was pictured with little children, perhaps in his next he will be "presenting" as one of the children.  Anything is possible.

Earlier this year the Democrats, with Sweeney as principal cheerleader, passed a bill (S-1195) allowing a person with a penis to claim that he is a woman and to have his birth certificate altered to reflect this.  Next year they will no doubt pass a bill that allows him to change his age as well.  Then Mr. Wolscht can legally compel primary schools to allow him to urinate with the other little girls, or to nap with them.  This is the world according to Sweeney.

On Thursday, December 17th, Senate President Sweeney is trying to over-ride the Governor's veto of S-1195.  Like so many others, Sweeney has accepted so much money from lobbyists working to pass nonsense like this that he has no choice but to keep at it.  It must be demeaning to have had to disregard all the folkways of youth and place and trade... to become what he is today.  But become it he has.