Democrats push Tax Hikes & Spending, trash 2nd Amendment

by Bill Collier 

Listening to Josh Gottheimer's ally and friend, Governor Murphy, speak in Trenton yesterday about his grandiose plans to tax our way to prosperity, as if that ever works,  one wonders how any moderate Democrat wouldn’t denounce such radical, out of touch ideas.

In a nutshell, Governor Murphy says yes to more taxes and regulations, massive spending, and more nanny state interference in our lives. As if New Jersey's taxpayers aren’t already paying more than enough and getting little value in return. Of course, the radical “progressive” agenda proclaimed by Murphy has not a moderate thread, something that SHOULD alarm Gottheimer but clearly doesn’t.

Murphy wants to change the temperature of the planet somehow by taxing and regulating you into poverty. He doesn’t want offshore drilling, conjuring images of disaster. He even wants to tell neighboring states not to do fracking. He is against energy independence, he thinks he can control the planet’s climate, and he is thumbing his nose at our neighbors.

He is also against the Bill of Rights, well, at least the second amendment. Like every tinhorn tyrant and milquetoast bureaucrat, he is afraid of average people having and exercising their God-given right to self-defense. He would prefer to disarm us so, if we face a threat, we can call 911 and die.

So, he is against the Bill of Rights (because if you oppose one, you oppose them all) and he is against energy independence. He is against you spending your own money. But he is for lining the pockets of the bureaucracy, who get paid to run the many programs he imagines we need to save us, and who will also benefit from his mad effort to change the global temperature.

And where is his pal, Gottheimer? Gottheimer is in the corner, pretending he is NONE OF THAT CRAZY. But he is. He is all about everything Murphy, Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi are about. As he pretends to be a “problem solver”, perhaps he could burnish his credentials and denounce the radical nonsense his friend and ally Governor Murphy dumped on New Jersey in yesterday's speech!

Planned Parenthood refuses to account for spending

It is a neat trick to disguise your business as a cult.  Generally this is the domain of some dubious religious hucksters of questionable denominations, east and west.  But you got to hand it to Planned Parenthood, Inc.  They have their followers convinced that what they're doing is religion. 

Hence, their resistance to open their accounts and explain what they're doing with all the money they get from taxpayers.  During an Assembly Budget hearing earlier this week, Planned Parenthood again refused to answer questions about their finances -- such as its annual budget, annual revenue and executive compensation -- put to them by legislators.  

The kicker here is that these legislators actually support Planned Parenthood in principle -- they just want to make sure that the taxpayer money spent by them isn't wasted.  But just like any corrupt religious scam job, Planned Parenthood holds that you don't ask questions of god... even if it is your job as a legislator to protect taxpayers.

What's at stake is a proposed $7.45 million supplemental contribution to Planned Parenthood from New Jersey's taxpayers.

Two weeks ago, at a different committee hearing, Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi and Nancy Munoz asked the same questions.  They requested a breakdown of how the money would be spent, what the organization’s annual federal and state revenues are, and how much it pays its executives.  Why Planned Parenthood needs $7.45 million in taxpayer dollars, and how those dollars will be spent, still has not been answered.

To answer these questions, Planned Parenthood sent its Political Director.  That's right, they pay someone to be their Political Director.  Why?  Are they in politics or women's health? 

When asked to produce a budget, the political director looked for a time as if she was going to find one up her bottom, but it wasn't there.  So she had to reply to the committee that she had no budget to share with them.  No budget?  Who works that way?  She also couldn't produce an answer as to what Planned Parenthood's annual revenues were.  For that answer, she didn't even go through the motions of finding it up her bottom.  When asked about executive compensation (what rich know-nothings like herself pocket) she flatly refused. 

Why would working class taxpayers wish to spend their hard-earned money on an organization that pays an arrogant white-collar hack like her? 

We understand that for the uneducated few, Planned Parenthood is synonymous with "women's health."  But it's not.  It is only one of many providers all jostling for market share. 

No, you say?  It's a non-profit organization?  Sure, and so was the NFL.  And so are a lot of organizations that make billions and pay their executives millions.  Setting up as a "not-for-profit corporation" is simply a business model -- it's not an "I'm not greedy" pass.

And Planned Parenthood is greedy.  It wants total market share.  That's why it organized the way does -- to spend millions on lobbyists and even more on grassroots marketing -- to convince American women that only they provide the services that, in fact, hundreds of other organizations provide.  We're sure Macy's would like to have the same deal. 

Planned Parenthood uses well-paid lobbyists and political pressure to secure government money with as little questions asked as possible.  They want to keep all the vittles for themselves and starve their competition.  Planned Parenthood wants to have a monopoly -- and we all know what that does to consumers and taxpayers.  Consumers pay more and have less choice.  Taxpayers get ripped-off.

Planned Parenthood is a classic case of crony capitalism, delivered by that master of Wall Street chicanery himself... Governor Goldman-Sachs 2.0, Phil Murphy.  On Thursday, February 15th, the entire Assembly is set to vote to give that $7.45 million to a business that won't answer basic questions about how they spend it.

And if passed, you know that Governor Goldman-Sachs 2.0, Phil Murphy, will sign it -- no questions asked.  Just like those bailouts they gave to his corrupt friends on Wall Street.  No questions asked...

Is Hayden playing politics on public time?

Where does Bill Hayden get all this time to trash-talk people on Facebook?

Well, it appears that you -- the taxpayers -- might be underwriting a great deal of that trash-talk.  William J. Hayden (AKA Bill Hayden, Dell Hayden, Skylands Patriot) is an 18 year public employee of the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  He works as a supervisor, based in Trenton, where he pockets a salary and extras more each year than any legislator earns -- plus full benefits and a pension.  Hayden is a member of the CWA -- one of the most liberal unions in America.

Now he thinks we should give him a second public job -- as our legislator. 

He doesn't vote much.  He made it last November, but the last time before that was 2010.  What he does do is play on Facebook.  He spends a lot of time on Facebook.  Much of it in the middle of what most of us call "the working day."  For example, on Thursday, January 19, 2017, in the middle of the afternoon, when he probably should have been working, Bill Hayden was posting this threatening missive on his Facebook page:

That drone.  Was it state property?

Hayden is such an incompetent, he got it wrong and instead of posting a picture of the home of the political consultant Hayden hates so much, he posting a picture of the consultant's neighbor's home.  It caused quite a stir.  The home belongs to a perfectly innocent family with young children.  The police were notified and people were on the alert for Hayden-supporters traveling in from New Jersey to do whatever to the "target."

Really, is this the kind of behavior you want to see in somebody representing YOU?

Heck, do you even want your tax dollars spent this way?

Politicians fight in municipal court

It's a new-found perk to holding municipal office:  When you don't like something someone says about you, instead of hiring a lawyer and going to court using YOUR money, just file a criminal complaint, have it signed-off on by a municipal employee whose job YOU control, and then have the part-time prosecutor (a lawyer also in private practice) whose job YOU control prosecute the case for you.  Heck, YOU even control the job of the municipal court judge you will be appearing before. 

And even if they transfer it to another court, it is still the same law firms chasing the same municipal court appointments.  One year you are the prosecutor in this town, the next in that, or someone in your law firm is -- and it goes for municipal court judges too who are also lawyers in private practice (an unheard of practice across America).  Which one of these attorneys is going to stand up to a Mayor or Deputy Mayor who holds their living in his or her hands each January when they select the attorneys to fill the lawyer-only part-time municipal jobs the property taxpayers will be paying for?   

Yesterday, the Star-Ledger reported on such a case in Union County between Assemblyman Jamel Holley and Roselle Mayor Christine Danserau:

"Assemblyman Jamel Holley (D-Union) faces a petty disorderly person's charge of harassment that carries a $500 fine, but the money isn't the point, said Roselle Mayor Christine Danserau.

'This is about the fact that harassment is unacceptable,' said Dansereau, who claims she was the target of Holley's obscene tirades.

...The strained relationship between Holley and Dansereau stems from a dispute over the borough's proposed $56 million library and recreation center, called the Mind and Body project. Holley has been pushing for the project to move forward, and Dansereau has pushed for more details about how much it will add to homeowners' tax bills."

Guess what?  The taxpayers are paying for all of it because it's a perk of holding municipal office.

This systemic corruption is being examined right now by the media, legal organizations, and by the New Jersey Legislature.  The Gannett publishing organization -- the largest in America by circulation, reaching over 21 million people every day -- has been taking the lead with its watchdog investigative series on municipal court corruption in New Jersey.  The series has focused on the too cozy relationship between court employees and the local governments who pay their salaries.

New Jersey's municipal courts have been described by the media as "a system that increasingly treats hundreds of thousands of residents each year as human ATMs." 

"Many cash-strapped municipalities have turned to the law for new revenue...

Towns have the power to pass new rules or increase fines on old ones. And just like the singular judge-jury-and-jailer of the old Western days, a town first enforces the higher fines through its police force, then sends the defendant to its local court — which is headed by a judge appointed by the town leaders who started the revenue quest in the first place.

While municipal judges are sworn to follow the rule of law and judicial ethics, the pressure to bring in the money is potent in New Jersey, lawyers and former judges told the Press. In Eatontown, email records between town officials showed that increasing revenue generation by the local court was the main reason the council replaced the municipal judge in 2013..."

The New Jersey Legislature is planning to address the corruption at municipal courts, with the Chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee  calling the "fairness of the system into question" and for the Legislature to "study municipal court reform."  Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon (Republican Budget Officer) is promising to make it happen this year and plans on holding hearings across the state to understand the full extent of this local corruption -- case by case.  He calls the current system a "municipal money grab" and promises to explore "legal remedies."

According to the state Administrative Office of Courts, over 75 percent of the more than 4.5 million cases handled by municipal courts statewide are adjudicated with a guilty plea or a plea deal and some kind of payment to the court.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently studying how municipal court corruption impacts the state's residents, especially the poor.

The Gannett report notes that the New Jersey State Bar Association earlier this year assembled a panel to study the independence of municipal judges and whether the political pressure they face through their appointment impacts decision-making. The panel is still receiving testimony and hasn't yet disclosed its findings.

The Gannett report also notes that "the municipal court system can be altered or abolished by an act of the Legislature at any time."

It cites a former member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Municipal Courts, who said that "the first step in fixing the broken municipal court system is to professionalize staff."  Most prosecutors and judges are part-time employees who work in multiple towns. 

Blogs like More Monmouth Musings and Sussex County Watchdog have received tip-offs about local municipal corruption in the past.  If you have anything to pass along confidentially, please contact More Monmouth Musings at artvg@aol.com or Sussex County Watchdog at info@sussexcountywatchdog.com.

Bateman embraces the Big Lie (who will follow?)

Senator Kip Bateman has held elected office since 1983.  He's been in the Legislature for over two decades.  During all that time, while the fund that pays for our roads and bridges was running out of money, Kip Bateman did nothing but borrow more and kick the can down the road.

The gas tax has remained at 14 1/2 cents since 1988.  While every other state in America raised its gas tax to keep up with inflation, while President Ronald Reagan increased the federal gas tax to keep up with inflation, people like Kip Bateman did the politically popular thing of not raising the gas tax and instead borrowed more and more -- and New Jersey fell deeper and deeper into debt.

While everything else was adjusted for inflation again and again, the gas tax was not.  Why?  Because politicians like Kip Bateman could point to low gas prices whenever a property taxpayer complained about having the highest in the nation property taxes. 

As property taxes doubled and then doubled again -- costing taxpayers thousands upon thousands each year -- politicians like Kip Bateman would point to the gas tax and tell them that he'd save them a couple hundred. 

But he hadn't.  He just passed the taxes on to their children and grandchildren. 

The last time the gas tax produced enough revenue to pay for New Jersey's transportation needs was in 1990.    Because of the debt politicians like Kip Bateman allowed to accumulate, by 2015 the annual cost of that debt to taxpayers was $1.1 billion -- outstripping the $750 million revenue from the gas tax.

If Kip Bateman wants to know why it was necessary to raise the gas tax by 23 cents, he should look into a mirror and ask the question, because the answer is:  Senator Kip Bateman. 

23 cents a gallon, all in one hit, is what you get when politicians suspend the iron rules of economics and tell people that they can have something for nothing.  This is what happens when you don't adjust the cost of something for inflation.  A business would have gone bankrupt, but Kip Bateman knows that he can be a hero today and get re-elected, by passing the bill to a future generation.  It will be their problem, not his.

What Bateman and the other "Red Shirt" Republicans are doing to children, piling debt upon them so that their future begins in a hole, is made worse by the current lie coming out of the "Red Shirt" camp:  That the 23-cents increase applies to baby oil. 

This lie is up there with the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the "Flat Earth" movement, and George Bush "is responsible for September 11th."  What makes it even more disgusting is that those who are spreading this lie have consistently voted to kill unborn babies in the womb and have resisted humanitarian legislation to recognize (as does almost every other civilized nation outside of North Korea, China, and Vietnam) that 20-week old unborn babies feel pain. 

Europe recognizes this medical fact.  So does Latin America, Australia, most of Asia, and Africa.  But not New Jersey.  And it is because of those "baby oilers" that this state doesn't.