NJ Herald continues its attack on reality

Let's be clear, the New Jersey Herald is not a non-profit entity representing Sussex County.  It is owned by the for-profit Quincy Media corporation of Quincy, Illinois.  It is mainly a broadcast company, owning radio and television stations throughout the mid-west.  The corporation's only holding on the east coast, one of two newspapers it owns, is the New Jersey Herald. 

This corporation makes its millions in profit off advertising revenues.  It is not the words written by the reporters or the news shows on radio or television that matter -- they simply get eyes on the page -- it is all those advertisements for vinyl siding, used cars, socks, and suppositories.  That is where the money is, let's be clear on that.  Let's also be clear that the Herald isn't published for the benefit of the community, it is published to make a profit by a for-profit corporation over 1,000 miles away.  The day it doesn't make money and they see no hope of it making money, it will be gone. 

The Herald is still pissed off at Senator Oroho for suggesting that property taxes could be reduced by not requiring state, county, and local governments to pay media corporations to place all those public legal notices and advertisements in the back of newspapers.  Governmental entities have their own websites on which they could publish all those notices and advertisements for free.  Forcing them to pay newspapers to do so appears redundant and it costs taxpayers millions in property tax revenues.  It's like a mandated direct government subsidy to the newspaper/advertising industry.

Has the Herald ever covered this subject?  Have they ever written about it?  This is millions in property tax revenue that could be saved.  Doesn't that at least warrant a discussion?  But instead of a mature, honest, above-board discussion about a way to save taxpayers' money and maybe use that money to cut property taxes, what we have instead is a hissy fit followed by the big hate.

So now the Herald is in hate mode.  Big hate.  They want to screw somebody, and to do so they will blatantly ignore the facts about an issue, and will fashion a narrative by selectively using the voices of others, while preventing some from being heard.  This is accomplished by publishing letters to the editor from people who are attacking the object of the newspaper's hatred, while not publishing others.  On the comments page, they permit some to post comments but not others.  Both the Herald staff and its attorney admit to doing this by applying selective "criteria" in determining who gets to post -- something unique to the Herald.

Sunday's Herald was a case in point.  The New Jersey Herald published the letters of three Oroho haters (Nathan Orr, Troy Orr, and Bob Klymaz) who often publish in the Herald.

One letter, by Assembly candidate Nathan Orr, takes aim at Watchdog itself and calls us "an anonymous blogger".  Now as every reader of this website knows, we are a collective and we print whatever is sent to us and withhold names only upon request.  We do so in keeping with the longstanding American tradition of anonymous speech.  Benjamin Franklin published his attacks against the establishment of the day, anonymously, and one of the central documents in our founding are the Federalist Papers, also written anonymously.  Indeed, no less than the United States Supreme Court has defended the right to publish anonymously.  In its 1995 decision in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Court ruled:

"Anonymity is a shield... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular:  to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation."

Ask yourself this question:  What would have happened to the county worker who tipped us off about the unsafe work environment in its offices a couple years back?  We published, the Herald and others followed, and the situation was corrected.  If we had published the name, that employee would have been retaliated against and when the Herald reporter called, too scared to tell the truth.  The same goes for the scheme to sell the county dump and a dozen others.   

When citizens had information regarding the solar scam, it was Watchdog -- NOT the NJ Herald -- who brought their information to the FBI, the United States Justice Department, and Attorney General's office.  It was Watchdog -- NOT the NJ Herald -- that arranged those meetings. Where was the Herald? This website has protected the anonymity of dozens of whistleblowers.  Would candidate Orr have us turn whistleblowers over to be punished? 

Just last week, the NJ Herald was ignoring the upcoming solar presentation until we published and they followed in the nick of time to help make sure citizens turned out.  But where is the Herald's editorial about the NO-BID CONTRACT handed to the law firm that both George Graham and Gail Phoebus said should have been fired for their handling of the bailout?  There is none. 

It was left to Watchdog to point out this turnabout by Freeholder Director Graham, who is now the biggest cheerleader for the firm he wanted fired last year.  The Herald doesn't rock the boat with advertisers.

In his letter, candidate Nathan Orr makes much of the 11 percent he picked up in the 2015 Republican primary for Assembly, in which he edged out Marie Bilik for third place (Parker Space and Gail Phoebus won easily).  What candidate Orr doesn't realize, and any political scientist will tell him, is that in a highly contested, negative-filled primary like that was; one in which every candidate was being attacked -- except for Orr, who was being entirely ignored -- he served as a kind of "none-of-the-above" opt-out for voters.  People weren't so much voting for him, because he did nothing to communicate his message, as they were voting against everyone else.  In fact, Nathan Orr has tested so poorly in subsequent polling, that he is no longer tested at all.  It is a waste of a question because nobody knows him.  Sorry.

 

But that hasn't stopped Nathan Orr from giving us all the benefit of his "wisdom" on some very complicated issues.  Orr is fond of stating the obvious, such as "our Legislature should be decreasing taxes" and even more so of putting down others with snarky, juvenile comments.  Nathan Orr is Sussex County's Rachel Maddow.

Here are some questions for this candidate and public figure:  Have you worked out a detailed plan to solve any problem, even a little one?  Can you come up with even a minor reform and then follow it through:  Meet with your legislators, ask them to set up a meeting with the Department of Transportation, and show them your better way?  Have you ever gone down to Trenton to testify for or against a piece of legislation?  Any legislation?  Anything at all?  Do you get involved in the local government of your town?  On an economic development committee even?  Have you ever worked with a democratic body of any kind to learn how difficult it is to find agreement?

And while we're at it, let's pose those questions to the other letter writers who seem to have all the answers, but who somehow never show up to do any of the hard work to actually make it happen.  Frankly, the NJ Herald letters page is beginning to sound like a stream-of-consciousness play set in a bar. Everything is simpler looking through the bottom of beer glass.  "Come on Joe, let's have another, if we keep drinking like this we'll solve all of America's problems and the world's too!"

Nathan Orr is a particularly young version of an Ann Smulewicz type.  The comment pages of the Herald are full of this type:  People who are in politics but who lack the honesty to own up to it.  Instead, they push the idea that elected officials are some alien life form -- "bad", to their "good".  And corporations like Quincy Media exploit this to sell newspapers. 

They dehumanize fellow human beings so they can more easily urge others to destroy them.  So Steve Oroho, a neighbor, the football coach at Pope John, active in community organizations and charities, is portrayed as this evil alien being.  And they've done the same thing to farmer Parker Space, and military mom Alison Littell McHose, and businesswoman Gail Phoebus, and high school sports hero Gary Chiusano, and platoon leader Mike Strada, and businessman Jeff Parrott, and the list goes on and on.  All our neighbors, all people we know, all people who we can walk up and talk to anytime. 

The Nathan Orrs of the world don't talk to people, they talk at them.  They dehumanize them, turn them into "things" that need to be destroyed.  And corporations like Quincy Media exploit this to sell newspapers.  Maybe it's time we've learned more about the person behind the corporate label -- Mr. Ralph Oakley of Quincy, Illinois -- before allowing him to manipulate us into hating our neighbors?

The Bilik campaign tries to squash free speech

The retaliation has stepped up for anyone who opposes the solar bailout that has cost Sussex taxpayers millions while politically connected consultants and vendors continue to bill county taxpayers and rake in fees.  The solar crew will go to any lengths to suppress opposition to their deal -- even if it means trampling the Bill of Rights to do so.

They tried imposing a gag order on the Freeholder Board -- something Assembly candidate Marie Bilik criticized Freeholders Gail Phoebus and George Graham for opposing.  Now they are calling and threatening newspapers and even sending threatening letters to at least one outspoken opponent of the solar deal. 

Marie Bilik has implicated herself in these, frankly, scummy tactics.  Her campaign has morphed into an apology for the solar bailout vote and other actions taken by Sussex Freeholder Richard Vohden, who at times is more prominently featured in the campaign than the candidate herself.  And then there are the energy company representatives she has surrounded herself with.  They lobby elected bodies in search of taxpayer-funded public contracts, but Bilik apparently sees no conflict in this.

Now the Bilik campaign has demanded that at least one taxpayer-advocate shut up.  The campaign claims to have sent a letter demanding that the taxpayer-advocate stop making any "statements regarding the staff of the Marie Bilik for Assembly campaign as well as the staff’s employers and clients."  This is a direct reference to energy companies that solicit business from taxpayer-funded county and municipal governments.  It is an attempt to gag anyone from questioning those public contracts.  Just shut up all you taxpayers and pay.

It won't work.  Not in America.

To make their threat, the Bilik campaign employed an insider attorney with a history of being on the wrong side of taxpayers and residents in Morris County.  Don't take Watchdog's word for it.  Here are excerpts from a Star-Ledger report, written by respected journalist Ben Horowitz.

Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)

September 25, 2013

Lawsuit: Landfill defrauded state by not disclosing $2.5M in debt

Author: Ben Horowitz; Star-Ledger Staff

The state filed two lawsuits yesterday against the owner-operators of the Fenimore Landfill in Roxbury, charging they defrauded the state by failing to disclose nearly $2.5 million in debt, misappropriated more than $1.26 million in tipping fees, created a "nuisance" and violated the state's solid waste and air pollution laws.

"People are leaving their houses and haven't been at their houses in days and weeks because of the smell."  Rotten-egg-like odors from hydrogen sulfide emissions have been traced to construction debris at the landfill.

The suits, filed in Morristown against Strategic Environmental Partners, say that since November, the Roxbury Health Department has received "almost daily" reports from residents complaining of headaches, breathing difficulties and nose and throat discomfort, due to the odors from the landfill. Roxbury school officials and teachers have kept children inside because of the gases.

"The irresponsible, unlawful actions of these defendants not only have cost the state a significant amount of money and fouled our environment, they have exposed an entire community to noxious odors that are extremely unpleasant to live with and have the potential to make people feel ill," acting Attorney General John Hoffman said in a statement.

The landfill had been closed since 1979 when Strategic, operated by Rich Bernardi and his wife, Marilyn, reopened it in 2011 with plans to cap it with more debris, close it and install a solar facility.

The DEP charged in its lawsuit that Strategic fraudulently obtained approval to reopen the landfill when it misrepresented its solvency by omitting the $2.5 million in debts from its financial statements.

Strategic also failed to deposit tipping fees of between $1.2 million and $3.4 million in an escrow account to be used for the landfill cleanup, as required in the DEP consent order that allowed the landfill to reopen, the suit says.

Rich Bernardi said the issue of the escrow account has already been litigated with the DEP for more than a year in both Superior Court and before an administrative law judge, but "we never got a ruling from either one."

Bernardi's attorney, Matthew Fredericks, accused DEP of "trying to impose rules on (Strategic) that are not imposed on any other party." He said the DEP cannot make the owner of a "legacy landfill" -- one closed before 1982 -- comply with escrow requirements, a point he has raised repeatedly in the prior litigation.

Matthew Fredericks is the attorney for the Bilik campaign.  So now you know.

Every politician has an attack dog

One-party states don't have "negative" campaigns.  In one-party states all the candidates share the same "insider" perspective and everyone thinks everyone else is a "goodfella" because they all are.  The Soviet Union had elections, so did National Socialist Germany, but they didn't have campaigns that focused on the contrast between candidates because none existed (outside of hair color, height, weight, age, and so on).

So when you hear a person complaining about the "negativity" of a campaign, what they are really complaining about is democracy.  Because it is only in democracies that you find "negative campaigning". Everywhere else you find detainment camps.  And when you read about this pundit or that talking about the good old days of early American democracy, remember that those good old days featured negative campaigns that would make today's campaigners blush. 

Every political operation has it's attack dogs.  They vary in terms of competence but they are all there none-the-less doing battle on behalf of a candidate or, in the case of this election, a government vendor with a contract before the county.

So here's a run-down on how Watchdog sees the attack dogs of election 2015:

Phil Crabb and Rich Vohden have one...

The Sussex County GOP has one too...

 

Marie Bilik has two...

 

Warren County's GOP takes a different approach...

 

There's a reason the Essex GOP leaves Sussex in the dust...

 

But the Hometown Conservative Team had one...

 

As for Parker Space.  He doesn't have an attack dog, but he has a tiger named Chris Russell...