Socialized medicine. Your body. Not Your choice.

RW

I have warned about Ezekiel Emanuel before.

In August 2009, I wrote:

If you lump all the mad scientists that have been put on the big screen by Hollywood, you are still not going to come up with the mad, totally insane ideas of Ezekiel Emanuel.

It is no surprise that he would turn up with mad advice during the current COVID-19 panic.

In a co-authored article in The New York Times, he writes along with Aaron Glickman and Amaya Diana:

We need to sharply reduce coronavirus infections to turn the tide and quell the pandemic. The best hope is to maximize the number of people vaccinated, especially among those who interact with many others and are likely to transmit the virus.

How can we increase vaccinations? Mandates.

Vaccines should be required for health care workers and for all students who plan to attend in-person classes this fall — including younger children once the vaccine is authorized for them by the Food and Drug Administration.

And get this from the article:

Religious or philosophical exemptions should not be allowed...Mandates are the last tool we want to deploy to increase vaccination rates. But all indications are that the United States is going to need a mandate to reduce transmission, achieve herd immunity and get back to normal.

Also:

Polling suggests almost 60 percent of all Americans are already vaccinated or want a vaccine as soon as possible. But younger people, white evangelicals and conservatives are among those less likely to feel the urgency. To return to our prepandemic lives, we will need to achieve herd immunity, with 70 percent to 85 percent of the population having some form of immunity. That’s a steep climb.

Mandates are the fastest way to get to herd immunity.

This, I remind you is for a virus that is of no serious consequence to 99% of the population and near-zero consequence to students. Further, presumably, those at high risk are already vaccinated if they have chosen to be.

This is the big problem: Emanuel is a member of Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board.

I stand by my 2009 take on him :

There is no other way to put this. Ezekiel Emanuel is probably the most dangerous man on earth.

He has a severe authoritarian complex and always manages to work his way into a position where he can act on it.

Why are Democrats silent when religious freedom is attacked by their Party?

Laura Berman Fortgang is a Democrat Assembly candidate in LD26.  She has more to lose than most when it comes to protecting religious freedom.

In addition to having a business as a professional “life coach,” a Bergen Record (NorthJersey.com) story from July 2016 reports:

Laura Berman Fortgang, a resident of Verona for almost 21 years, dreamt of taking her musical theater skills to Broadway and being an actor, but when she was unconvinced she would make it to the big time, she transferred her skills to another career path: life coaching… Berman Fortgang decided she wanted to do more for the community and for herself, so she got ordained in 2006 at the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City.”

The One Spirit Interfaith Seminary states that it “inspires passionate, caring individuals and communities to live engaged lives of authenticity, celebration, compassionate service, and integrity.”  The Seminary promises “inclusivity” that with “respect, and open-mindedness of the Interspiritual perspective, we honor individuality, diversity, the wholeness of the human experience (both darkness and light) and the universal expressed through all authentic wisdom paths and traditions.”

A review of its offerings includes a section titled, Wicca: Rediscovering the Magic of Life on a Sacred Planet. 

Shamanic Wicca is a deeply transformative spiritual practice that unlocks the divine magic residing within each of us, encouraging us to question, explore, and discover our place and purpose in the holy web of life. This is a universal and urgent calling that humanity must answer now… Without a guru, text, or prophet, Wicca is a path of personal revelation that can be integrated into other spiritual or religious paths, though it may challenge certain elements of other traditions – like the subjugation of women and the Earth and suppression of the Feminine Divine. Modern Wiccan Cosmology is derived from experience as the Earth reveals itself as embodied divinity, spiritual guide, and teacher.

On the faculty of the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary is Phyllis Curott, described as “one of America’s first public Wiccan High Priestesses, an activist attorney and author” and the founder of  “Faith in Women and the first shamanic Wiccan tradition, the Temple of Ara, in 1985.”   

People of the Book – Biblical Christians, Torah Jews, and adherent Muslims – are under attack by the Democrat Party and its media allies.  On Wednesday, a Christian pastor was viciously attacked in a Star-Ledger (NJ.com) editorial and in a political hit piece, on a blog, orchestrated by state Democrats.  The pastor was mocked for his beliefs.  His “crime” – going to the aid of people in difficulty when asked to do so.

Instead of remaining silent, shouldn’t Democrats like Laura Berman Fortgang step up and tell her political party to back-off?  After all, she isn’t just ordained in her religion, she is also a candidate for political office.

The same Bill of Rights that allows Laura Berman Fortgang to practice her beliefs, should protect Christian pastors as well.  And yet faith is under attack in the legislature and the courts every day, with the Democrats and their media allies appearing to endorse some while set on destroying others.   

The time is now for Candidate Fortgang.  Call New Jersey Democrat Chairman John Currie and tell him to back off and back his media stooges off…

609-392-3367

Democrat Suleiman’s racialist comment about “GOP base”

Atlantic County Democrat Party Chairman Michael Suleiman today issued a press statement in which he made racialist comments about the “GOP base”.  Suleiman said:  “They (the GOP) never miss an opportunity to not stand up to their base.” 

What does Suleiman mean by the “GOP base”?

Does he mean “property taxpayers”?

Maybe he means “religious Christians and Jews”?

Or the “unionized working class” that his own party once represented?

Or is he making a snide reference to “white Christians”?

Suleiman needs to explain himself because he holds a taxpayer-funded patronage job and some of the people he might be disparaging pay his very generous salary, benefits, and perks.  In March 2018, the Democrats gave Suleiman a public job as the lobbyist for the South Jersey Transportation Authority.

While the Democrats cut school funding across New Jersey, guys like Suleiman get paid.  Of course, Suleiman supports Murphy’s illegal Sanctuary State scheme that bullies law enforcement into ignoring the findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission).

Suleiman is a made member of a corrupt political machine.  He would support a horseshoe crab for office if his party told him to.  Suleiman’s Twitter page is filled with selfies featuring the love-struck Suleiman with Hillary Clinton, Phil Murphy, and Cory Booker.  Talk about having some explaining to do – we’re surprised this moron didn’t feature panegyrics to Jeff Epstein and Al Alvarez. 

Oh, and we wonder what Suleiman thinks about this stunt by Cory Booker…

While attacking taxpayer advocate Seth Grossman, Suleiman ignored this anti-Jewish prank by Cory Booker.  What does Suleiman have against taxpayers like Grossman?

But wait… in his statement, Suleiman compounds his racialism by making ethnic (and racial) assumptions about who comes into the United States illegally. He makes the claim that it is “race-baiting” to oppose illegal immigration.  That is a horrible generalization.  The term “illegal” does not denote a racial or ethnic group.

For Suleiman’s information of the 707,265 LEGAL immigrants who became LEGAL naturalized American citizens in 2017, 17 percent were from Mexico (118,559), followed by 7 percent from India (50,802), 5 percent each from China (37,674) and the Philippines (36,828), and about 4 percent each from the Dominican Republic (29,734) and Cuba (25,961).  Nationals of these six countries accounted for 42 percent of all naturalizations.  Other leading countries of origin included Vietnam (19,323 or 3 percent), El Salvador (16,941, 2 percent), Colombia (16,184, 2 percent), and Jamaica (15,087, 2 percent).

In common with many Democrats, Michael Suleiman uses race as a measurement for every human interaction.  People who do this – who think in terms of “people of color” – are called racialists.  Wikipedia notes that “Racialism is the belief that the human species is naturally divided into races, that are ostensibly distinct biological categories.”

The philosopher W.E.B. DuBois argued that racialism was merely the philosophical position that races existed, and that collective differences existed among such categories.  DuBois held that racialism was a value-neutral term and differed from racism in that the latter required advancing the argument that one race is superior to other races of human beings.

But science has largely erased such arguments.  Aside from some genetic correlations in the incidence of diseases in this subset or that, the idea of “racial identity” that is forced down every American child’s throat, that haunts our society in everything from census forms to employment applications, is entirely a political construct.  The American idea of “race” is nonsense and calling people “racist” is a nonsense game.  The actor Morgan Freeman got it right…

The Democrats’ insistence on the primacy of race is an inverted return to their past.  Like then, Democrats today are obsessed with what measure of blood from this group or that flows through someone’s veins.  They seem to forget that our blood – the blood of our common humanity – is categorized, not in terms like Black or White or “of color” or “not of color” – but as O, A, B, and AB.

The Democrats need to end their obsession… and embrace humanity.

So-called “Equality Act” seeks criminalization of Faith

Look into the eyes of the young girl below.  See her fear.  What civilized nation would make her endure such a thing?

A male student claiming to be a female is shown wrestling a female student. Reality Check: There are distinct biological differences between the two sexes. If the so-called “Equality Act” passes, no female will ever have true equity in any physical activity. Gender specific activities will cease. No more boys or girls glee clubs, girls softball, only mixed gender activities will be allowed. It will be the death of female sports, the end of female athletes, all role models will be biologically male.  Total domination by patriarchy. Total.

Like the Law for the Protection of Blood and Honor, the so-called “Equality Act” is a monstrous violation of civil rights dressed up in some misleading frilly-sounding language. It is blatantly unconstitutional. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment. An even greater danger is posed by the presence on the Courts of  highly-polarized Leftist judges. Will they recognize this obvious attack on freedom of conscience and free speech or will they expand this barbarity and legislate from the bench?

Here is what the so-called Equality Act does:

• Churches would be forced to host same-sex ceremonies.  

• Churches will lose tax-exempt status for noncompliance. 

• Colleges will lose accreditation for noncompliance. 

• Noncompliant colleges will be ineligible to receive student loans, causing most religious schools to compromise their core mission or close. 

• If churches or religious organizations take overnight trips, including sports or mission trips, they cannot segregate rooms by biological gender.  

• Biological men will have access to bathrooms, showers, and nursing-mother rooms at any time, and stay as long as they please.  

• Churches would be forced to hire staff involved in LGBT conduct, even positions of authority in affiliated daycare classes and give them complete access to all children in the restrooms.  

• Cross-dressers could demand that they be greeters, ushers, Sunday School teachers, and more.  

• Even the smallest slight would give someone the legal right to sue the church. For example, if a person assumed they were turned down for a staff position because of a LGBT lifestyle, they could sue the church for damages, even if that was not the reason they were denied the job! 

Every single Democrat from New Jersey is a co-sponsor of this barbaric assault on Western values and religious freedom.  This should put to rest once and for all that there is more than a nickel’s worth of difference between a Murphy Democrat and a Norcross Democrat. 

Republicans like Mike Testa should take note.  Even so-called “conservative” Democrats like South Jersey’s Congressman Jeff Van Drew are enthusiastically participating in the gang rape of our constitutional freedoms – our personal right to a life of the soul and to live according to our own conscience. 

Let there be no doubt now.  The Democrat Party is the party of crony capitalist authoritarian pigs and the sooner they are all tossed onto the dung heap of history, the better. 

Call your Congressperson NOW!

Tell them to vote NO on HR5!

Capitol Hill Switchboard

202-224-3121

For more information, or to find out how you can help defeat the anti-freedom authoritarians, visit the website of the Center for Garden State Families…

https://www.gardenstatefamilies.org/

Arizona politician who opposed religious freedom bill, endorses McCann

Candidate John McCann stumbled again today, rolling out the endorsement of the Arizona politician who opposed religious freedom .  McCann's campaign today announced that he has been endorsed by former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. 

In 2014, Brewer became notorious for her flip flop on religious freedom.   As Governor, she vetoed legislation (SB-1062) that gave individuals and legal entities an exemption from state law if it substantially burdened their exercise of religion.

Brewer allowed government to force people to do things that run counter to their religious beliefs.  Brewer placed commerce above spirituality.  Despite SB-1062 being passed by a large majority in both houses of the Arizona legislature, Brewer vetoed the bill. 

This is just another indication of where the McCann campaign is heading.

A challenge to AFP

Yesterday, AFP circulated an arrogant missive filled with lies about Senator Steve Oroho, one of the most consistently conservative legislators in New Jersey.  You know the Steve Oroho we're talking about  -- the guy who started attending Right to Life marches when he was a teen.  Oh, that's right, AFP doesn't support the Right to Life, we forgot.  On the Second Amendment, Steve Oroho rates an A+ for his leadership -- but that wouldn't impress AFP, because they couldn't care less about the Second Amendment. 

The people who fund AFP aren't much on Religious Freedom or traditional values, but they wouldn't mind legalizing prostitution and narcotics.  The thing they are really passionate about it not raising taxes on petroleum products -- like gasoline.  And that's because they make their billions in the petroleum industry.

The email was circulated by AFP's field director, a young man who doesn't need to worry about property taxes, because his mom and dad do.  There's nothing wrong with being young, but should he really be the one lecturing us on life choices?    

Steve Oroho has spent his life trying to squeeze the most out of a dollar.  As a young CPA, he worked for W. R. Grace when the leadership of that company was charged by President Ronald Reagan to find ways to cut spending and make the federal government run more efficiently.  Steve honed those skills as a senior financial officer of an S&P 500 company, as the Sussex County Freeholder who saved money and reformed the budget process, and as the conservative leader on the Senate Budget Committee.

The state is faced with a very difficult choice on how to fund roads and bridge repair -- raise property taxes or raise the gas tax.  Approximately one-third of gas tax revenues in New Jersey come from out-of-state drivers.  All property taxes come from the people of New Jersey.  So which do you think is the best way to pay for improvements to roads and bridges, an increase in the gas tax or an increase in property taxes?

Steve Oroho has worked very hard to fashion a plan so that raising property taxes will not be necessary to fund road and bridge repairs.  Instead, a modest increase in the gas tax to fund the TTF would be balanced with several tax cuts.  These would include the elimination of the tax on retirement income and a phase-out of the estate tax. 

So who at AFP instructed their young field director to tell us that a property tax increase is preferable to a gas tax increase, that the end of the tax on retirement income isn't worth fighting for, and ditto for the phase out of the estate tax?

How does AFP decide on which issues to fight for and  which to ignore?  Who decided that the tax on retirement income should remain and that property taxes should fund roads and bridges instead of a tax on petroleum products, and at what level was the decision made?

The paid staff at AFP have titles like "field director" and "executive director", but excuse us -- did anyone vote for you?  Did anyone elect your state chair or your leadership? Steve Oroho is a Senator because he won a contested election in 2007 and then three more elections after that.  Steve Oroho won an election in which every member of the Republican establishment in Trenton supported his opponent.  And this wasn't his first victory as an underdog, in 2004 he defeated an incumbent Freeholder Director who had the support of her county party.  What elections have you won?

AFP's executive director loves to brag that the group has over 100,000 "members."  Okay then -- do those members get a vote?  Are they really members or just consumers?  You know, consumers of the bullshit AFP dishes out to them when its real "members" -- its billionaire shareholders -- decide to turn it on to lobby to prevent at all costs a tax on one of their petroleum products?

We're just asking.  Now AFP can prove that their "members" are really members.  All it takes is a vote.  Here in America, we're big on votes.  So here's the challenge to AFP. Send a private mailing to each of your members and ask them to mark on a secret ballot which of these taxes they would most like to see eliminated:

-- the gas tax

-- the property tax

-- the tax on retirement income

-- the estate tax

Then, with the consent of your "members" and guided by their will, they can direct that young field director as to which issues to push and which to ignore.

AFP boss says Clinton would make better President than Trump.

Beware of ex-liberals like Jeffrey B. Steinfeld

Jeffrey B. Steinfeld is the president of the Pascack Valley Regional High School Board of Education.  Mr. Steinfeld is a well-known immigration and criminal defense attorney, who maintains a number of political relationships that allows him to practice municipal law as well.  According to his law practice's website, Mr. Steinfeld specializes in "sexual offense cases":

"When a person is arrested in New Jersey for a sex crime like lewd conduct, child pornography, child molestation, sexual assault, indecent exposure, sexual battery, pimping, prostitution or pandering, they will likely be treated as if they have already been found guilty... We cannot stress enough how important it is that you speak with your attorney before answering questions or making statements to police or prosecuting lawyers.  They can, and most likely will, use your words and actions against you, which will damage your case.  You will need aggressive and highly experienced representation.  We have extensive litigation experience and are well versed in all laws pertaining to New Jersey sex crimes... If you have been arrested or are under investigation for a sex crime, contact a New Jersey Sex Crimes Lawyer from our firm now for help."

Let's read that last part again.  Just so it is clear, Mr. Steinfeld identifies himself, on his website, as a "Sex Crimes Lawyer."

Mr. Steinfeld recently wrote a column in the Bergen Record (April 8, 2016), in which he took to some name-calling in defense of "transgender rights."  In this case, the "right" of a person with a penis to use the same facilities as girls aged 14 through 17.  Mr. Steinfeld admitted to being "angered" before writing the letter, and it this anger that may have got the better of him. 

In his column, Mr. Steinfeld accuses those who support "religious freedom" of "bigotry" and calls them "radical and extreme."  He goes on to cite a group that is steeped in its own controversies, The Southern Poverty Law Center, as evidence that those who disagree with him are guilty of "anti-LGBT hate."  Enough of the name-calling!

Mr. Steinfeld is a member of the ACLU.  We recall when people said organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU were "communist front" groups. According to some, these groups are "anti-Christian" and "anti-American."  And we remember how people like Mr. Steinfeld said that to name-call like that was unfair. 

Here at Jersey Conservative we respect the ACLU for its committed defense of the First Amendment, even as we disagree with them on what appears to be their war on religion.  We try notto name-call because people and organizations are seldom all-good or all-bad.  Name-calling nurtures a childish and simplistic view unworthy of adults whose business should be the process and furtherance of democracy.

If Mr. Steinfeld cannot understand why someone would be concerned about allowing people with penises into the toilet, showering, and changing facilities of underage girls, perhaps he should watch the video below:

And if Mr. Steinfeld still wants to engage in name-calling, perhaps he should consider how he might be characterized for choosing to make money as a Sex Crimes Lawyer and for representing the clients he has.  Clients like the man who pleaded guilty to the sexual assault of his daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend.  Or the man who beat his school teacher wife to death with a baseball bat.  Or the man convicted of killing his girlfriend's two-year old son.  Or the 39-year-old man convicted of giving alcohol and drugs to a 13-year-old girl and then raping her.  Need we go on?

Mr. Steinfeld may well argue that everyone -- even a violent sexual predator -- has the right to be heard and that judgment should be reserved until all the evidence is scrupulously examined.  We can't say that we disagree, but we would simply add that the same should apply to average people without criminal charges against them -- average people who are only concerned for the safety and welfare of a child or grandchild.  We question Mr. Steinfeld's temperament. 

Jeffrey B. Steinfeld calls himself a liberal when, in fact, he is nothing of the sort.  A liberal is tolerant of other opinions , generous of spirit, someone who is -- well -- liberal. Now Mr. Steinfeld might have been a liberal at some point in his life, but his recent letter indicates that he has left liberalism some way behind and is now more of an authoritarian -- demanding that everyone adhere to his way of thinking and name-calling when he doesn't get his way.  Now that's not liberal, which makes Mr. Steinfeld an ex-liberal.  We'll be watching him and the voters of the Pascack Valley Regional High School Board of Education should too.

Eustace & Gusciora: Silent on Slavery in Qatar

Was it only a week ago when Democrat Assemblymen Tim Eustace and Reed Gusciora acknowledged that issues like poverty and funding the Transportation Trust Fund were more important than LGBT vanity tropes?  What a difference a week makes.

Today, legislation sponsored by Eustace and Gusciora will be rushed to the Assembly floor for a vote. This legislation is so important -- more important in fact than tackling child hunger, poverty, foreclosure, the lack of jobs, homelessness, and every other problem facing New Jersey -- that it had to be rushed to the floor without the benefit of public comment.  That is correct.  Public comment was not permitted.  Citizen participation was denied. 

Wow.  Is the LGBT movement really that afraid of public opinion?

The bill is A-3613.  It "prohibits state-sponsored travel to states adopting religious freedom statutes without protection against discrimination."  Now those last four words should give us pause -- and hope.  Pause, because the phrase "without protection against discrimination" is very subjective.  Hope, because by adding that condition, the two Assemblymen appear to be indicating that they would be open to "religious freedom statutes" that address and protect against wanton discrimination. 

We're going to go with hope.  We're going to reach out to Brother Eustace and Brother Gusciora and ask them if we can meet together and jaw a while.  We'll keep you up to date on our progress.

Now for the sad part.  When the members of the New Jersey Assembly take the momentous step of banning travel to places within the United States of America today, here is what they won't be doing.  They won't be banning travel to Qatar.  Why should New Jersey take a stand on Qatar?  Because Qatar is using slave labor to build projects related to the World Cup.

Don't believe us?  This is a headline from the Guardian(U.K.):  "Modern Day Slavery in Focus in Qatar" (March 30, 2016).  From Mother Jones:  "Qatar is treating its World Cup workers like slaves" (May 26, 2015).  From Reuters:  "Qatar complicit in modern slavery" (October 28, 2015).  Here is what Amnesty International had to say about Qatar: 

The authorities arbitrarily restricted the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. A prisoner of conscience was serving a lengthy sentence for writing and reciting poems.

Amnesty just issued a report (March 31, 2016) titled, "Qatar World Cup of Shame."  Here are a few excerpts:

Migrant workers building Khalifa International Stadium in Doha for the 2022 World Cup have suffered systematic abuses, in some cases forced labour... “The abuse of migrant workers is a stain on the conscience of world football. For players and fans, a World Cup stadium is a place of dreams. For some of the workers who spoke to us, it can feel like a living nightmare,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.

“Despite five years of promises, FIFA has failed almost completely to stop the World Cup being built on human rights abuses.”

...Amnesty International uncovered evidence that the staff of one labour supply company used the threat of penalties to exact work from some migrants such as withholding pay, handing workers over to the police or stopping them from leaving Qatar. This amounts to forced labour under international law.

“Indebted, living in squalid camps in the desert, paid a pittance, the lot of migrant workers contrasts sharply to that of the top-flight footballers who will play in the stadium. All workers want are their rights: to be paid on time, leave the country if need be and be treated with dignity and respect,” said Salil Shetty...

Qatar’s kafala sponsorship system, under which migrant workers cannot change jobs or leave the country without their employer’s (or “sponsor’s”) permission, is at the heart of the threats to make people work... Some of the Nepali workers told Amnesty International they were not even allowed to visit their loved ones after the 2015 April earthquake that devastated their country leaving thousands dead and millions displaced.

My life here is like a prison... a metal worker from India who worked on the Khalifa stadium refurbishment, complained when he was not paid for several months but only received threats from his employer:  “He just shouted abuse at me and said that if I complained again I’d never leave the country. Ever since I have been careful not to complain about my salary or anything else. Of course, if I could I would change jobs or leave Qatar.”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/qatar-world-cup-of-shame/

But Assemblymen Eustace and Gusciora are not going to peep about Qatar.  You see, it is easy to pick on Americans living in North Carolina, but not so easy to stand up to the powerful people in New Jersey who represent the State of Qatar. 

We happen to have a copy of the signed contract between this powerful firm and the Embassy of the State of Qatar -- signed last December -- courtesy of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (enforced by the United States Justice Department).  This powerful partnership of lobbyists, political consultants, and public relations specialists receive a retainer of $100,000 a month just for making sure the State of Qatar isn't embarrassed by the likes of Eustace and Gusciora.  Last year, they pocketed as much as $155,000 a month just in consulting fees. 

Among the New Jersey politicians who have accepted money from these folks (and whose names appear on various Foreign Agents Registration Act statements) are Assembly Speaker Vinnie Prieto, Senator Bob Gordon, Senator Theresa Ruiz, Assemblyman Nicholas Chiaravalloti, Assemblyman Jon Wisniewski, Assemblyman "David" Lagana, and Mayor Steven Fulop. There's also a host of county and local elected officials on these statements too, which has to make you wonder.

So go ahead boys.  Make your fashion statement.  Spite your fellow Americans for their religious freedom -- while you cower before the State of Qatar and its slavery and abuse of human rights.  We have no anger for you.  Just pity.

Migrant workers in Qatar helping to construct offices for the 2022 World Cup reportedly haven't been paid after a year of toiling in the desert heat in slum like conditions. Sharan Burrow from the International Trade Union Confederation thinks Qatar should be boycotted until fundamental labor laws are in place.