Why did Nick DeGregorio refuse to take questions from conservative leaders?

By Rubashov

Some people seem to have been talked into thinking they’re entitled. That they don’t need to answer questions because they have the inside track.

Enter Nick DeGregorio. Nick is a young man in a hurry to make his mark in the world. There’s nothing wrong with this. Personal ambition is a necessary feature to political office.

But personal ambition is a poor reason for holding office. Simply “getting ahead” or “moving up the ladder” is an empty motion. A candidate needs to ask himself – and needs to be asked – to define his intentions. Why do you want to hold office and what will you do with it if you get there?

Nick got involved in politics as an acolyte of fellow Marine, Bob Hugin. Nick’s campaign is using the same punchline Hugin used in his failed 2018 bid for the United States Senate: Vote for me, I’m a Marine. It’s easy to see why, they both hired the same political insider to guide them.

Asking for someone’s vote based on your military service isn’t a bad approach, just a shallow one. Hey, running for Congress isn’t the same as running for Post Commander of the local VFW. There’s a bit more to it than your method of service. And using this approach, shouldn’t we all be voting for Mikie Sherrill?

Nick has every right to run, but as we learned from Bob Hugin’s 2018 campaign, being a Marine doesn’t make you a conservative. Hugin launched his campaign by trashing much of what traditional conservatives hold dear (before reminding them that he was, indeed, a Marine).

In contrast, Nick is taking the silent approach. On his campaign website, we are treated to many paragraphs about what he did in the military, but there’s nothing there about what he’d do in Congress. No issues page. No policies.

In fairness, Nick does notice some of the problems facing voters today. His website devotes a single paragraph to those details:

“Taxes are out of control. Businesses and jobs are fleeing, taking our neighbors with them. Our classrooms—once safe places for our children to learn to think for themselves—are now devolving into testing grounds for radical political ideology. And behind it all are the career politicians and insiders, who are too busy serving themselves in Washington to care about the mess they have created for the rest of us here at home.”

No ideas or solutions. No platform or policy page on his campaign website.

Nick sounds the way he does because behind Nick are those career political “insiders” that his website claims “are too busy serving themselves… to care about the mess they have created for the rest of us.” Nick’s campaign has identified the problem… and the problem is Nick’s campaign.

But Nick shouldn’t be singled out. His campaign is not unique. Most political campaigns today begin by hiring a “career insider” to fashion prose about how other “career insiders” represent a threat to the way of life of average voters. And we’re not arguing they don’t, we’re just pointing out the hypocrisy of the exercise.

There are some “career insiders” who appreciate policy and some who don’t. Those who don’t generally push the “I’m just here to win” mantra. That’s because policy is hard work. Specifically, taking a policy and turning it into a winning message is hard work. Much easier to maintain a policy-free-zone and tell voters what they want to hear, spinning and zipping until you cross the finish line. But that is no way to build a party. A party is constructed of planks and platforms – which is just another way of saying issues and policies.

And so, it was notable when Nick DeGregorio turned down an invitation to share his views with a panel of statewide conservative leaders that included Mayor Steve Lonegan; Marie Tasy (New Jersey Right to Life); Alex Roubian (2nd Amendment Society); Rev. Greg Quinlan (Center for Garden State Families); John Robert Carman (NJ Constitutional Republicans); and Josh Aikens (AriseNJ). Every other candidate for the GOP nomination in the 5th District participated, as did every candidate in the neighboring 7th District – including elected officials like Senator Tom Kean Jr. and Assemblyman Erik Peterson. Perhaps Nick hasn’t fully formed views on issues like taxation and abortion and the Second Amendment? More likely, it’s because the “career insider” running Nick’s campaign wants to get though the primary using little more than the word “Marine” so that he can define Nick in a way that will appeal to some mythological entity known as the “soft Democrat”.

Of course, this is an act of deception. It is the opposite of leadership.

It takes personal courage to serve in wartime. It takes moral courage to adopt policy positions and believe in them enough to want to sell them. And just as personal courage moves the ball forward in war, moral courage moves us forward as a nation.

Ronald Reagan is mentioned on Nick’s campaign website: “Together, we can – and will – win the battle of ideas and ensure, as President Reagan said, that America remains a shining city upon a hill for generations to come.” How can one not mention ideas when discussing Ronald Reagan? Even on a website without ideas.

Ronald Reagan was no Marine. But Ronald Reagan had ideas and convictions that he fought for. He had the moral courage it took to move America forward. No “career insider” ever got him to hide his light under a basket. And forget wimpy appeals to “soft” Democrats – Reagan converted a generation of Reagan Democrats to his way of thinking. He won and moved the policy ball forward. We need more candidates with Reagan's kind of courage.

President Reagan on how to deliver a message.

Murphy wants to make CAIR’s Chair a Judge. What did the ADL say about CAIR?

By Rubashov

When it writes about “white nationalism” or “white supremacists” the establishment media, the Murphy administration, and prominent Democrat politicians all rely on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for “expert testimony” – with the ADL providing statistics and background information on various groups and their leaders. For example, Andrew Campi of Governor Phil Murphy’s Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) recently joined Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ05) in hosting a virtual forum on battling "extremism, hate, and homegrown lone-wolf terrorism."

A press release put out by Congressman Gottheimer’s office noted: “Gottheimer has helped lead several key initiatives to combat homegrown lone-wolf terrorism, QAnon, extremism, Foreign Terrorist Organizations online, and to maintain election security.”

On Monday, Governor Murphy nominated a number of individuals to become judges on New Jersey’s Superior Court. New Jersey Globe, covered the story and highlighted one of the Superior Court Judges-to-be:

“Nadia Kahf practices immigration law in Haledon and would sit in Passaic County. She is the chairwoman of CAIR-NJ board, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, and has served on the board since 2003. She is the legal advisor to Wafa House, a Passaic County-based non-profit domestic violence agency.”

We wondered if anyone at the Murphy administration has read what the ADL has to say about CAIR. So, we looked and found a rather thorough article on the ADL website, complete with 68 footnotes detailing the sources that went into writing it. Below are the highlights, as they relate to the appointment of CAIR-NJ Board Chairwoman Kahf, as well as a link to the article itself (and the footnotes), so that anyone might read it and form their own conclusions:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Washington D.C.-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with 28 independent chapters around the country. Since its founding in 1994, CAIR has sought to position itself as the leading American Muslim civil rights organization. In recent years, much of its activity has centered on responding to the proliferation of anti-Muslim incidents and sentiment expressed nationwide.

Some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas. Hamas is designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States and is also viewed by the EU as a global terrorist organization.[1]

In addition, some of CAIR’s leadership have used inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric that on a number of occasions has veered into antisemitic tropes related to Jewish influence over the media or political affairs, or has descended into the vilification of Zionists, which includes the majority of American Jews, who view a connection with Israel as a component of their Jewish identity.[2] ADL defines Zionism[3] as the movement for statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.

…Although its main organizational mission is upholding the rights of Muslims in the United States, CAIR also comments on international issues, with a particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Key CAIR leaders have frequently expressed vociferous opposition to Israel and Zionism, claiming at times that Zionism and Zionists are fundamentally racist.

Antipathy towards Israel has been a CAIR staple since the group was founded in 1994 by several leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a now defunct organization that was once described by the U.S. government as part of “Hamas’ propaganda apparatus.” Nihad Awad, who was IAP’s Public Relations Director, became CAIR’s first Executive Director, a position he retains today.[4] IAP was active in the U.S. from 1981 until about 2004, and categorically rejected a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, writing in a December 1989 communique: “The only way to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine, is the path of Jihad…Hamas is the conscience of the Palestinian Mujahid people.”[5] In 1987, immediately following the establishment of Hamas, IAP began to print and distribute Hamas literature, including Hamas communiqués and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

One of the founding board members of CAIR’s Dallas office, Ghassan Elashi, was linked to the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Texas-based charity that, according to the U.S. government, became the chief fundraising arm for the Palestine Committee in the U.S. The Palestine Committee was created by Hamas’s parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, to support Hamas. Both HLF and CAIR were members of the Palestine Committee. In 2008, HLF’s five founding officers were convicted on more than 100 criminal counts and sentenced in May 2009 to between 15 and 65 years in federal prison for financing terrorism by funneling more than $12 million to Hamas.[6] According to news reports, evidence presented at the Holy Land Foundation trial demonstrated that other CAIR leaders were also linked to HLF and Hamas activity in the U.S.[7] As noted above and according to the trial testimony, the Palestine Committee was a U.S. wing of Hamas’ parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. The Palestine Committee was headed by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook,[8] who since 1995 had been designated by the U.S. government as a Specially Designated Terrorist.[9]

Throughout the HLF trial, CAIR organized support for the defendants and joined several other organizations, including the Muslim American Society, to form the “Hungry for Justice” coalition to support HLF.[10] Two CAIR leaders acted as media contacts, while Khalil Meek of CAIR’s Dallas chapter served as the coalition’s primary spokesperson. He described an earlier, related case in the prosecution of HLF as an “Israeli trial tried on American soil.”[11]

CAIR was included on a 2007 Department of Justice list of nearly 250 “unindicted co-conspirators” in the HLF case. A federal appeals court subsequently ruled that the government had been wrong to publicly identify CAIR and others on that list and that the list should be sealed.[12] CAIR’s name remains on the list.

In response to CAIR’s involvement with the Holy Land Foundation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation distanced itself from the organization. In the past, the FBI had interacted with CAIR representatives regarding community outreach activities, civil rights complaints and criminal investigations. However, in 2008, the FBI issued an instruction to its field offices that they should sharply curtail “non-investigative interactions” with CAIR.[13] This instruction was elucidated in an April 2009 letter to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, in which the FBI explained that it would cease to liaise with CAIR “until [they] resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.”[14] To our knowledge as of this writing, the FBI has not retracted this protocol.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad’s repeated statements in support of Hamas also loom over the organization. Awad is quoted as saying during a March 1994 panel discussion at Barry University in Florida (prior to his involvement with CAIR) that “after I researched the situation inside Palestine and outside, I am in support of the Hamas movement more than the PLO.”[15] In its defense, CAIR notes that Awad’s statement was made “before CAIR was formed,” and that “Hamas did not commit its first suicide bombing until October 1994.”[16] In 2000, when he was asked about Hamas during an Al-Jazeera interview, Awad refused to condemn what had clearly become a terrorist organization. “We do not condemn, and we will not condemn any liberation movement inside Palestine or inside Lebanon,” Awad said.[17] CAIR has countered by noting that in 2006 Awad stated that he “[does] not support Hamas today.”

Awad also appeared at a rally convened in April 2002 next to antisemitic Imam Abdul Alim Musa, the founder of the extremist group Sabiqun. Among other virulently antisemitic statements, Musa has claimed that the Jews ran the slave trade; that, compared to the what had been done to Native Americans and African Americans the Holocaust was “small potatoes;” that Jews are the enemy of humanity; that Jews control America and that Jews have manipulated Arab leaders into being drunk, broke and engaged in internecine warfare.[18] In the photo below, Nihad Awad is shown next to Musa, delivering a speech under a Hezbollah flag.

More recently, CAIR has supported and advocated for Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted by an Israeli court in 1970 for her role in a 1969 bombing of a supermarket that killed two Israeli students, and who was later released as part of a prisoner exchange. As a member of the Rasmea Defense Committee, both of CAIR’s Midwest chapters (Chicago and Michigan) support the idea that Odeh “is a leading member of Chicago’s Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities,” and that she “is a community icon who overcame vicious torture by Israeli authorities…and an example for the millions of Palestinians who have not given up organizing for their rights of liberation, equality, and return.”[19] The Rasmea Defense Committee was active up until September 2017, when Odeh was deported to Jordan.

Although CAIR does not appear to endorse the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as an official policy, CAIR frequently tweets in support of BDS campaigns[20] including academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. In April 2020, they joined American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) in calling for a boycott of Israeli dates. CAIR has a close relationship with other pro-BDS, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel groups like JVP and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Moreover, some of CAIR’s leadership, including Zahra Billoo, Hussam Ayloush and Imraan Siddiqi, have been particularly outspoken in support of BDS.

CAIR’s Executive Director Nihad Awad has made numerous anti-Israel comments, some of which have played into conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the media or U.S. government. During a May 2021 CAIR webinar, Awad stated that “the mainstream media had monopoly over the talking points – [parroted from] the pro-Israel organizations.”[21] In 2014, he claimed that Israel “is the biggest threat to world peace and security.”[22]

At an August 2014 anti-Israel rally in Washington D.C., Awad endorsed a view he attributed to Latin American countries, that Israel is a “terrorist state” because allegedly its official policy is to target innocent civilians and has also said that AIPAC did not promote American values but was a foreign lobby that controls the U.S. Congress. He told the audience “Do not accept Israeli talking points. AIPAC should have its hand off the United States Congress. They have corrupted our foreign policy; they have corrupted our political leaders.”[23] In July 2014, Awad had similarly tweeted: “Israel lobby has corrupted American politicians by skewing US foreign policy to support killing of civilian population in #Gaza…”[24] Also that month, he alleged U.S. policy toward the Palestinians was “driven by the Israel lobby.”[25]

(N.B.: The following is noteworthy, because it concerns the Executive Director of CAIR-NJ who works under the direction of CAIR-NJ Chairwoman Nadia Kahf…)

Salaedin Maksut, Executive Director of CAIR-NJ, has demonized Zionism and Zionists on several occasions. In an October 31, 2021, post on Facebook, Maksut referred to Zionism and “other racist and oppressive ideologies.”[51] On May 10, 2021, he tweeted: “Israel is a state based on a racist doctrine. Zionism is racism, pure and simple.”[52]

At an anti-Israel rally on May 11, 2021, Maksut played into antisemitic themes about Jewish power and culpability for racism in the United States, remarking to attendees: [53]

“We have to realize that the same foot and the same knee that is choking the Palestinian people is the same foot and the same knee that is choking the Black and Brown people in this country. The powers that are funding the oppression of the Palestinian people are the same powers that are funding the oppression of minority groups in this country. It is the same money. They are cutting the same checks. They are the same people. They are sitting in the same offices of government.”

He concluded with the chant: “Zionism is racism.” Whatever his intent, altogether such rhetoric can be interpreted as suggesting that pro-Israel and Zionist Americans, and by extension the mainstream Jewish community, is the primary cause of racist oppression and brutality in the United States.

Maksut made similar remarks at a rally in July 2020. [54] Faced with criticism, he doubled down in a tweet: “I stand by what I said. ‘In order to defeat this evil that is Zionism, we must realize that the foot on the necks of the Black and Brown people of this nation is the same foot and the same knee that is choking the Palestinian people....’” [55]

…CAIR is closely connected to American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training and education to students and Muslim community organizations around the country. AMP promotes extreme anti-Israel views and at times has provided a platform for antisemitism under the guise of educating Americans about “the just cause of Palestine and the rights of self-determination.”[62] In 2017, Nihad Awad spoke at AMP’s 10th annual conference.

In October 2021, CAIR-Minnesota hosted AMP Chairman, Students for Justice in Palestine co-founder and UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian for their annual “Challenging Islamophobia” conference.[63] In October 2018, CAIR hosted Bazian at its National Leadership and Policy Conference.[64] On several occasions, Bazian’s claims about Israel have straddled the line between antisemitism and anti-Israel activism. In July 2017, Bazian retweeted an antisemitic post that included an image of man dressed in distinctive Orthodox garments, reading: “MOM LOOK! I IS CHOSEN! I CAN NOW KILL, RAPE, SMUGGLE ORGANS & STEAL THE LAND OF PALESTINIANS *YAY* #ASHKE-NAZI.”[65] The UC Berkeley administration criticized him for cartoons that “crossed the line” into antisemitism.

Although Bazian subsequently apologized, claiming the image “is offensive and does not represent [his] views,”[66] he has continued to occasionally engage in similar rhetoric, which calls the sincerity of his apology into question. In August 2021, he re-tweeted an antisemitic cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier organ harvesting the heart of a deceased Palestinian man.[67] In May 2021, he tweeted: “Zionist Jews are so over taken[sic] and blinded by power, might and control over Palestine that they don't have the capacity to look in the mirror and ask the question of what role they are playing and how they became a powerful instrument in Western imperialism.”[68]

The ADL’s full article (with source footnotes) can be accessed here:

https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/the-council-on-american-islamic-relations-cair

CAIR and BLM rally against the Jewish State.

If media players and politicians wish to use the ADL as an “expert” source for defining what is or isn’t an “extremist” group, shouldn’t they at least acknowledge the ADL’s commentary on groups like CAIR?

We hope that all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will do their duty and question CAIR-NJ Chairwoman Nadia Kahf appropriately. We trust the Republicans on the Committee will do so regardless of the conformist mentality which holds that the ADL matters mightily when looking to condemn someone we disagree with – and not at all when commenting on a fellow-traveler.

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell

Is the League of Women Voters involved in a Democrat Party scam?

By Rubashov

If you are a candidate running in the General Election this November, you may have already received a request to attend a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters (LWV). Your first question might be: "Are they on the level?" Wikipedia describes the League of Women Voters (LWV) as follows:

“The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that was formed to help women take a larger role in public affairs after they won the right to vote… Originally, only women could join the league; but in 1973 the charter was modified to include men. LWV operates at the local, state, and national level, with over 1,000 local and 50 state leagues, and one territory league in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Although officially non-partisan since its founding in 1920, the LWV has adopted left-of-center policy positions on many issues so that it has come to mirror the Democrat Party. Wikipedia makes this clear:

“The League of Women Voter's primary purpose is to encourage voting by registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV supports a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, universal health care, abortion rights, climate change action and environmental regulation, and gun control.”

Wikipedia notes that the LWV supports the Kyoto Protocol and opposes the Keystone Pipeline project. Wikipedia highlights other policy positions adopted by the LWV:

“The League lobbied for the establishment of the United Nations, and later became one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization with the U.N.”

“The League supports the abolition of the death penalty. Furthermore, the League of Women Voters supports abortion rights and strongly opposed the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act.”

“LWV supports universal health care and endorses both Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act. It also supports a general income tax increase to finance national health care reform for the inclusion of reproductive health care, including abortion, in any health benefits package.”

“The League actively opposed welfare reform legislation proposed in the 104th Congress. It also opposes school vouchers. In 1999, LWV challenged a Florida law that allowed students to use school vouchers to attend other schools.”

“In May 2019, the League joined 400 other national, state, and local groups, in urging Congress to ensure passage of legislation that offers a path to citizenship to Dreamers and beneficiaries of temporary protected status and deferred enforced departure.”

“The League advocates gun control policies including regulating firearms and supporting licensing procedures for gun ownership by private citizens to include a waiting period for background checks, personal identity verification, gun safety education and annual license renewal.”

Nevertheless, the LWV presents itself as a non-partisan group – particularly when it comes to moderating debates between candidates of both major parties. But is it genuinely non-partisan? The LWV hasn’t been permitted to moderate a presidential debate for decades. Now, a situation in Passaic County calls into question the LWV’s suitability to moderate debates at any level.

Ringwood is a borough in Passaic County. Originally a Lenape settlement, it’s been officially a borough since the First World War and now has a population of just over 12,000 people. The borough is tucked into a beautiful landscape – the Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel grew up in Ringwood.

Recently, two of the three Republican candidates for Ringwood Borough Council received a certified letter from the local Democrats asking them to participate at a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters. This raised a flag, because the Democrat operative running the campaign for the local Democrats appears on the LWV website as a Member of its Board of Directors.

Dr. Jennifer M. Howard is the President of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. She’s a longtime activist from Princeton. Vice President Deborah McComber, of Morristown, “represented the League as co-organizer of the NJ Women’s March in Morristown 2018, adult advisor to March for Our Lives Morristown 2018, and webmaster for the NJ Women’s March 2019.”

LWV Secretary Lauren McCaskill “serves on the Long Branch Board of Education and is a graduate of Emerge New Jersey, a premier national training program geared towards increasing the number of Democratic women leaders in public office.” The League of Women Voter’s website notes that “Lauren has also worked on various political campaigns ranging from national to municipal races.”

And then we come to Jason DeAlessi. The LWV website describes Jason as “an entrepreneur who works in startups across the media, entertainment, real estate, and hospitality industries. His primary focus is currently with Fuerza Strategy Group, where he serves as Managing Director of the boutique digital and creative consulting firm on its projects with clients across the United States in the political and social justice arenas.” Jason “previously served as President of his local Board of Education.”

The LWV website does not explain that Jason DeAlessi is a Democrat Party operative active in Passaic County who previously worked on the state Democrat’s “flip the 40th” program (that’s 40th as in the legislative district). Jason has worked on a great many Democrat campaigns but what concerns us is his involvement with the Democrat candidates in the campaign the LWV wants to moderate a debate for. How is this not a conflict?

How involved is this member of the Board of Directors of the LWV? Well, while his group (LWV) is preparing the questions they’ll ask the candidates, he’s busy doing the opposition research on the Republican candidates. That’s a bit too partisan.

Has the LWV devolved into a networking/ client recruitment scheme for “social justice” entrepreneurs and Democrat Party start-ups? It appears so. And if so, it is simply one more establishment organization that has allowed itself to rot out from the inside through self-dealing, greed, and private corruption. It’s a long list.

“The entire business model of the Democratic Party is to avoid dealing with its own populists’ concerns, so they’ve never seen the Sanders wing of the party as anything but a threat to what they do for a living, which is basically take corporate money and then sell themselves as socially progressive. That’s what they do for a living. That’s their business.”

Matt Taibbi
Journalist and author of Hate, Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

Ringwood: Is national politics destroying neighborhood and civility?

By Rubashov

A few weeks ago, The Economist posed the question: “What gets lost when national politics eats everything?”

In an article, about how national politics is dividing a small town in Maine, the magazine cited a 2016 book by philosopher Nancy Rosenblum called Good Neighbors: The Democracy of Everyday Life in America. Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph S. Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government at Harvard University and co-editor of the Annual Review of Political Science. She studies modern political thought and constitutional law. Professor Rosenblum has been the Chair of both the government department at Harvard and the political science department at Brown University, and a member of the leadership of several professional organizations in political science and political philosophy.

In her book, Professor Rosenblum warned of imposing abstract and totalist political ideologies over the daily interactions of a community and the people who live there. Rosenblum writes: “For reciprocity among neighbors as ‘decent folk’ turns on the real possibility of disregarding precisely the social inequalities, racial and sectarian differences, and conflicting ideological commitments that citizens bring to public life.”

The Economist notes: “Passions about such matters can simplify and coarsen relations among neighbors. They collapse the generous spaces made – not always, but often enough – for eccentricities, personal lapses and political opinions, for the tolerance and empathy that sustain pluralism.”

Looking around New Jersey, you can find no better example of what happens when one group decides to erase those “generous spaces” than the town of Ringwood, in Passaic County. Yes, Ringwood, a semi-rural enclave once called Stonetown. By the 1960’s it had been transformed from farms to residential developments and summer homes. Back then there was a sort of hippie commune, called Camp Midvale.

The Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel grew up there and provided this background: “The original founders of the camp were a European hiking group, the Nature Friends. They were pioneer conservationists. They were an open people and their camp was an interracial camp.” Ah, the sweet air of tolerance!

In 1991, the site of Camp Midvale became the Weis Ecology Center and today is the New Weiss Center for Education, Arts, and Recreation. The Highlands Nature Friends, Inc. is the non-profit membership organization that owns and operates The New Weis Center. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

But today, neighborhood groups like the Highlands Nature Friends must share the public square with groups like the Ringwood Anti-Racism Collaborative – an organization not unlike the gangs of puritan witch hunters that once roamed the countryside, looking for people to burn. Pity the person whose social media pages get noticed by this group, because you will never pass muster, never be pure enough.

From what it has posted on its own social media page, this group appears to support “Antiracism and Equity”, while opposing “Equality and Whiteness”. The group advises its neighbors in Ringwood to “treat racism like COVID-19” and to do the following:

1. Assume you have it.
2. Listen to experts about it.
3. Don’t spread it.
4. Be willing to change your life to end it.

In humanspeak, this translates to:

1. You are guilty of the original sin of skin color!
2. Shut up and listen!
3. Don’t talk back!
4. Be willing to do what we tell you to do and (most importantly) pay the price we tell you to pay!

Yep, it is little more than modern day fascism. With an economic sting in its tail that is more scam than justice.

What effect will this have on the neighborliness one hopes to find in a small town? How will it end?

Well, Professor Rosenblum has this warning for us. Citing how some Americans stood by and watched as their Japanese-American neighbors were packed off to internment camps during the World War Two, she writes: “The family next door was seen through the lens of racial and political categories, and through the miasma of mistrust thrown up by war. Pluralism gave way to totalism.”

Author and civil rights pioneer Lillian Smith offers this perspective (given when she accepted the Charles S. Johnson Award for her work):

“It is his millions of relationships that will give man his humanity… It is not our ideological rights that are important but the quality of our relationships with each other, with all men, with knowledge and art and God that count. The civil rights movement has done a magnificent job but it is now faced with the ancient choice between good and evil, between love for all men and lust for a group’s power.”

“Every group on earth that has put ideology before human relations has failed; always disaster and bitterness and bloodshed have come. This movement, too, may fail. If it does, it will be because it aroused in men more hate than love, more concern for their own group than for all people, more lust for power than compassion for human need.”

“We must avoid the trap of totalism which lures a man into thinking there is only one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now.”

Unfortunately, the "anti-White" ideology of the Ringwood Anti-Racism Collaborative has been wholly embraced by the local Democrat committee in Ringwood and by its candidates. One candidate for town council, Jessie Kitzman, is a young and very radicalized Public Defender who has completely lost touch with common sense. For example, Kitzman calls for the abolition of confinement for criminals – at a time when violent crime is surging across the United States.

Except that she doesn’t believe that…

Kitzman does crazy...

What is happening in Ringwood is an example of what not to do if you value your town, your neighbors, and civility. We will be following the goings-on in Ringwood over the next months and reporting back.

Stay tuned…

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”
 
Robert Heinlein, author

Gottheimer denies Commissioners’ legal counsel at NJOHSP briefing.

On March 22nd Congressman Josh Gottheimer sent an invitation to the Sussex County Board of Commissioners to attend a “briefing” by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) on “the latest domestic terror threats in our State.”

The invitation, signed by Congressman Gottheimer and on official stationery, did not contain the date and time for the briefing or the location at which it was to be held. It did contain this paragraph:

“I will follow up with specific details on the briefing with NJOHSP and look forward to working together to stop hate, domestic terror, and extremism in all forms.”

But Congressman Gottheimer never did follow up with specific details. According to InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack, he instead politicized the briefing, using it as a political hit piece on the Commissioners. On a March 25th InsiderNJ post, Snowflack wrote:

“Today, Gottheimer, whose 5th District includes most of Sussex County, released a letter he sent to the county commissioners on March 22.”

Despite Gottheimer’s attempt to use the briefing as the basis for a political attack, his congressional office was contacted by Sussex County Commissioner Chris Carney, a union worker with Local 825 of the Operating Engineers. Carney, who was selected to fill the remainder of Josh Hertzberg’s term and who is running this year for a full term on the Board, demanded that Gottheimer hold the briefing.

In response to Commissioner Carney, Gottheimer’s office sent a follow-up to the Board of Commissioners, slating the briefing for today at 12:30pm by Zoom. The Board responded that it would be attending, along with the Board’s special counsel. After initially agreeing to this arrangement, Gottheimer’s office contacted the Board to inform them that their attorney would not be allowed to hear the briefing.

Why?

Why would the Board’s attorney not be permitted to hear a briefing by the Director of the NJOHSP? Might he ask some difficult questions? Would his presence make it more difficult to smear the names of private citizens and open the participants up to civil suits? Would he provide some unfortunate clarification as to what is or isn’t an actual crime?

So many of the NJOHSP “incidents” involve “flyers, pamphlets, and signs” that promote “white supremacy”, “white nationalism”, “neo-Nazism”, and “hate” of various kinds. But is this a crime when anyone can purchase Mein Kampf, by Adolph Hitler, on Amazon.com. What is more Nazi than Mein Kampf? Does each purchase count as an “incident” or is it uncounted?

The truth is that any government agency can increase or decrease the number of “incidents” by defining or redefining them in a way that expands or contracts their numbers. Is this what’s going on?

And here is another curious thing about this briefing. In January, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Congressman Gottheimer to the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. But this is the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) – a STATE agency that has nothing to do with Congress.

As a Congressman, Josh Gottheimer has no responsibility for or oversight of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP). He doesn’t vote on their budget – the STATE legislators who represent Sussex County do. In fact, Senator Steve Oroho and Assemblyman Hal Wirths are ranking members of their respective chambers’ budget committees. So why were they not invited to this briefing? Might they ask questions too?

Is this briefing anything more than political theater, for the benefit of a political ally, provided by the appointee of a Governor facing re-election? As such is it an abuse of power, a fraud, and a waste of taxpayers’ money?

We suggest a proper, academic review of the history of terrorism and the causes of extremism. One that does not whitewash the part played by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. It could be named in honor of that great liberal – a true, old-fashioned liberal – United States Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho.

“In examining the CIA's past and present use of the U.S. media, the Committee finds two reasons for concern. The first is the potential, inherent in covert media operations, for manipulating or incidentally misleading the American public.
The second is the damage to the credibility and independence of a free press which may be caused by covert relationships with the U.S. journalists and media organizations.”

U.S. Senator Frank Church
(Veteran. Burma campaign. WWII)

Democrat Gottheimer needs to spend less time condemning and more time explaining

By Sussex County Watchdog

He’s at it again.   Yesterday, in the midst of an actual shooting war between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Congressman Josh Gottheimer called a press conference to tell us that the real threat came from… other Americans.  Especially “white” Americans. 

Why is Gottheimer ignoring the existential threat posed to Israel and Jews around the world by the Islamic Republic of Iran?  Why is he trying so hard to change the subject?  Founded in the wake of the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran rests on a “foundation of three pillars.”  They are:  (1) The mandatory veil (hijab) for women; (2) Opposition to the United States of America; and (3) Opposition to Israel.  Look it up! 
 
Instead of trying to blame Americans for all the world’s troubles, perhaps Congressman Gottheimer should adopt a little humility, search his own past, and atone for some of his own actions.   Before he was elected to Congress in 2016, Josh Gottheimer followed his buddy Mark Penn, the Clintons' polling guy, to take over an international public relations/lobbying corporation called Burson-Marsteller.  These folks are a real piece of work. 
 
Hey, don't take out word for it.  Here's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had to say about the firm where Josh Gottheimer held the number two position as International Vice President (his buddy Mark Penn was International President):

Yep, Josh Gottheimer and his pal Mark Penn ran the "PR Firm from Hell"!
 
Maybe Josh Gottheimer should explain what he got up to at the "PR Firm from Hell"?  Maybe offer a little apology?

Did Jay Webber abandon Passaic County conservatives?

In Bergen County, conservative Steve Lonegan has a full slate of county candidates running against the dregs of the BCRO and its hapless leadership, led by Paulie "the hand" DiGaetano.  There is a weirdness within the Bergen County political establishment -- Democrats and Republicans -- in that they derive great pleasure by mimicking the folkways of a traditional Mediterranean criminal elite.  We don't get it, but it seems to turn them on.

Over in Essex County, Assemblyman Jay Webber has his own slate of county candidates.  Webber, who has taken the phrase "Reagan Republican" and made it his own, was expected to link up with Lonegan in Passaic County -- where they both faced the county machine.   Whether this "machine" is the remnants of the once powerful organization that totally dominated Passaic County or the reconstituted second coming of the same remains to be seen, but it is still formidable nonetheless.  And so it made all the sense in the world for the two conservatives to link up in common cause.

But in the rush towards the April 2nd filing deadline, they failed to agree on ballot slogan and Webber raised objections to some of those candidates recruited by Lonegan.  "It became the Jay show," said one conservative activist. 

Webber bracketed his campaign with that of Brian Goldberg, a candidate for U.S. Senate.  Goldberg is running as a fiscal and social conservative this year -- a curious conversion from the social liberalism he displayed when he ran for the same office in 2014.  Lonegan was left with the conservative insurgents running for county clerk and freeholder.  Essentially, Webber split the movement and cut the conservative insurgents off his ticket.

The only way the county-level conservative insurgency was going to have a chance at winning was to be led by well-financed conservative congressional candidates in districts 5 and 11.  They have Lonegan in District 5 -- but that is just two towns (Ringwood and West Milford).  Webber booted them from his ticket in District 11 -- that's eight towns (Bloomingdale, Little Falls, North Haledon, Pompton Lakes, Totowa, Wanaque, Wayne, and Woodland Park).

To give our readers an idea of what this did, here are two sample ballots, one from a Ringwood, in District 5, and the other from Wayne, in District 11...

Now imagine how strong the conservative ticket would have been if it had stretched from U.S. Senate down through Freeholder in ten of the county's sixteen towns?  Instead, those conservatives running on the county level found themselves cut-off Jay Webber's ticket, all but assuring their defeat in the June primary.

Was this an act of treachery on the part of Webber?  Does he have a deal with the party bosses in Passaic County?  Why assure the defeat of the conservative insurgents and the ensure the hegemony of the machine?

There are many questions here but sadly only one certainty:  A great opportunity was missed to build a conservative infrastructure in the Passaic GOP.

McCann gets support from weird sources outside NJ

Candidate John McCann is endorsed by an Arizona politician who opposed religious freedom .  In 2014, Jan Brewer became notorious for her flip flop on religious freedom -- opposing legislation (SB-1062) that gave individuals and legal entities an exemption from state law if it substantially burdened their exercise of religion. 

McCann's supporter allowed government to force people to do things that run counter to their religious beliefs and placed commerce above spirituality.  Despite these efforts, SB-1062 was passed by a large majority in both houses of the Arizona legislature. 

Another indication of where the McCann campaign is heading is his embrace of Dr. Darrell Scott.

John McCann's campaign released a statement that reads:  "Dr. Darrell Scott endorses John McCann for Congress."

Who is Darrell Scott? 

His Wikipedia page states:  "As a minor, Scott aspired to be a drug dealer and pimp; Scott sold drugs, used cocaine, stole automobiles and took his father's 9mm pistol to school at age 16 and was expelled for it.  While in his 20's, Scott became a born again Christian after being inspired by his wife who was born again months earlier, after a neighbor had urged her to attend church. 

Scott is the founder and pastor of New Spirit Revival Center, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.  Scott's non-denominational church operates out of a former Jewish Synagogue built in 1924, a 115k square foot facility, that has a daycare, banquet hall and radio station, with 3,500 members as of 2005.  The radio station broadcasts under call sign WCCD (1000 AM) – branded Radio 1000. WCCD."

In the 2016 presidential election, Darrell Scott became a prominent African-American supporter of Donald Trump.  Speaking of Darrell Scott, candidate John McCann said: "Dr. Scott is an inspirational leader fighting for change in Washington.  I look forward to going to Washington to work with our President and Dr. Scott to revitalize our communities and win for every American."

What does this mean?

Well, in March of last year, Darrell Scott suggested to the President of the United States that he was in contact with the "top gang thugs" in Chicago and that they would agree to "lower the body count" if the Trump administration would agree to "come and do some social programs."

Yeah, no kidding.

There was a huge and damaging (to Trump) outcry over these comments and Darrell Scott had to walk them back.  His excuse was that he was tired when he made the comments.

Here is a video and story from Fox News in Chicago:

http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/ohio-pastor-walks-back-comment-chicago-gang-leaders-trump

But what we're interested in is where that title "Doctor" comes from.  As Darrell Scott is a pastor, we are quite content to honor him with the title "Reverend," but "Doctor" indicates that he holds a "Doctorate" in some subject and Wikipedia doesn't list any institution of higher education that he attended. 

So we looked into it a bit, and we discovered that Darrell Scott's "doctorate" is an honorary one, from an unaccredited institution.  Out of respect for Darrell Scott, we will not go into the details, but we suggest to the McCann campaign that they update their statement to read "Rev. Darrell Scott" and leave "Dr." for those who have earned that title.

Is John McCann, attorney for the Sheriffs' Association, ineligible to practice law?

Candidate for Congress John McCann has been providing legal advice to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino for years.  The Bergen County Record calls McCann the "right-hand man" to Democrat Saudino.  McCann is also the lawyer for the New Jersey Sheriffs' Association. 

So how come he is listed as "ineligible" on the New Jersey Attorney Index?

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Based on a search that includes both his private law office and the Bergen Sheriff's office, it appears that candidate/attorney John McCann is "administratively ineligible" to practice law in New Jersey.  Here is the exact definition of his status from the NJ Judiciary website, as reported in the New Jersey Attorney Index:

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According to a records check by an employee of the NJ Courts, John McCann is ineligible to practice law in New Jersey as a result of his failure to pay required New Jersey Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection fees since October 2012.  If so, then he has been unable to practice for five years.  This could place some of the cases he's been involved with in some jeopardy. 

We invite Mr. McCann to pen a clarification or response to the information printed here.

Pro-abort McCann attacks Cruz endorsement of Lonegan

Self-described "Arlen Specter Republican" John McCann has attacked conservative Steve Lonegan for picking-up the endorsement of United States Senator Ted Cruz. 

Through an anonymous "spokesperson", McCann -- who the Bergen Record calls "the right hand man" of Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino of Bergen County -- said that Lonegan was "out of touch" by accepting the endorsement of Senator Cruz. 

So let's see.  John McCann's model of a Republican office-holder is Arlen Specter, a RINO so extraordinary that he finally switched parties to Democrat because he believed he had become so distasteful to Republican primary voters.  A big government liberal who never met an abortion clinic that he didn't want to fund.

In contrast, Steve Lonegan has the strong support of one of the nation's top conservative leaders, Senator Ted Cruz.  The American Conservative Union rated Ted Cruz as voting the conservative position 100 percent of the time.  The National Taxpayers Union gave Cruz a 95 percent rating, while the Club for Growth rated Cruz at 96 percent.

When Arlen Specter was a Republican, before he embraced his "inner Obama" and became a Democrat in name as well as in practice, he didn't make it above 50 percent and some years flirted with zero.  This is who John McCann is modeling himself on.

You have to ask yourself... Don't we already have a liberal holding the seat?  And then the penny drops... McCann is a Democrat patronage employee put up by the Democrats to trash the Republican primary.  He isn't real.  Just a tool... for the Democrats.

The facts here are plain.  The Democrats (McCann included) know and respect the fundraising prowess of Senator Ted Cruz.  They know he will raise a half-million to a million dollars for the Republican in the race, Steve Lonegan.  They know that there are more than 2,000 Cruz donors who reside in New Jersey.

By attacking Ted Cruz, the spokesperson for "Stumbling John" McCann shows just how clearly out of touch he is.