Rasmussen poll: Voters Don’t Like ‘Antifa’ Protesters.

Memo to Cory Booker, Bob Menendez, Phil Murphy, Madame de La Murphy, Mikie Sherrill, Tommy Malinowski, and Andy Kim… all that hanging with the Linda Sarsour crowd and the bourgeois suburban offspring who make-up Antifa ‘aint helping your image.  

Rasmussen polling reported today that most normal people think Antifa is right up there with dogshit… and their numbers have got worse since September 2017. 

Rasmussen reports:  “Voters are even more critical of the so-called “antifa” protesters who surfaced again this past weekend in Charlottesville and Washington, DC and continue to think they’re chiefly interested in causing trouble.”

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 18% of Likely U.S. Voters share a favorable opinion of the Antifa protesters, with six percent (6%) who view them Very Favorably.  That compares to 24% and eight percent (8%) respectively last September.

Fifty-four percent (54%) have an unfavorable opinion of these protesters, including 39% with a Very Unfavorable one.  Twenty-eight percent (28%) are undecided.  See the survey question wording below:

National Survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters

Conducted August 14-15, 2018
By Rasmussen Reports

1* Do you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable impression of the so-called “antifa” protestors?

2* Which is closer to your point of view – The antifa protestors are primarily a valid protest movement representing the concerns of many Americans, or the antifa protestors are primarily troublemakers looking to cause a public disturbance? 

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence 

You can access more from Rasmussen here:  www.rasmussenreports.com 

Rasmussen Reports invites you to be a part of our first-ever Citizen-Sourced National Midterm Election Polling Project. Learn more about how you can contribute. 

Disappointed in the guys running the Freeholder Board

In 2015, the New Jersey Herald supported the election of two local mayors -- Jonathan Rose and Carl Lazzaro -- to the Freeholder Board.  They beat an incumbent Freeholder and his running mate.

On election night, the defeated incumbent said:  "(My running mate) and I didn't only have two individual opponents, we also had the New Jersey Herald as an opponent." 

That's true, along with many regular Republicans who looked at the solar project as a scam and a taxpayer rip-off.  For these reasons, Watchdog also supported Rose and Lazzaro. 

The Herald called the failed solar project "far and away the biggest issue of the campaign."  Rose and Lazzaro were elected on the promise of either making the solar project run efficiently or getting our money back.  

But after getting elected, they formed a Freeholder Board majority with incumbent George Graham that left millions worth of valuable solar panels and equipment unused and rotting away in a warehouse.  

Instead of taking legal advice to go after the bond attorney whose responsibility it was to protect Sussex County taxpayers -- they re-hired him and accepted a large campaign contribution from him. 

They spent more than $500,000 to "study" the problem -- by giving a no-bid contract to the same lawyer whose office had approved the solar project in the first place.  That's right, his office was the taxpayers' last line of defense -- but said "do it" anyway.  Why was hehanded the contract to figure out what had gone wrong? 

Rose and Lazarro praised that report -- which never once mentioned the failure by the bond attorney or the lawyer who wrote the report -- but cost taxpayers $8,064 per page and is all but useless in pursuing a case to claw back some of the millions lost by Sussex County property taxpayers. 

The solar fiasco happened because there were no taxpayer controls over borrowing.  So when a Republican candidate for Freeholder named Herb Yardley suggested that Sussex County adopt the same ordinance that Warren County uses to curb debt -- that no new borrowing occur without the approval of the voters -- you would've expected the majority on the Freeholder Board to support him. 

But that's not what happened.  Freeholders Graham and Lazarro came out in opposition to taxpayer control over borrowing -- leaving the door wide open to future solar-type scams.  To make matters worse, these Freeholders refused to support fellow Republican Yardley because he was in favor of this conservative, common sense proposal.  

Warren County is cutting property taxes because of this reform, while in Sussex County property taxes continue to go up.  But these Sussex Freeholders actually opposed giving property taxpayers controls over debt so much that they would have rather seen a liberal Democrat win than elect a conservative Republican who supports such a reform measure.

Then there's the Freeholders' recent vote to borrow to spend millions more on new buildings for the county community college at a time when community college enrollment is shrinking by 8,000 hours a year and county population is in decline.  It makes no sense -- and the voters had no voice to stop it. 

Why?  It all comes back to transparency and open government.  Rose and Lazarro campaigned on being transparent but have been anything but.  No-bid contracts negotiated and handed out without the knowledge of the Board.  And backroom dealing is so commonplace that county insiders knew Jonathan Rose was the next Freeholder director before he did.  Before the vote was taken, it had been published in the Freeholder agenda.  

If Rose and Lazarro want to be re-elected, they are going to need to explain how the next three years will be different from the last three.  They will need to own up to past mistakes and set out an agenda to correct them.

Stay tuned...

Rasmussen Poll: Voters mixed on trusting Government

Trust... but verify. 

President Ronald Reagan's message regarding dealings with the then Soviet Union seems to have been adopted by most American voters in how they view their own government, according to a recent poll by the Rasmussen research organization.  Rasmussen describes it as "cautious trust."  Among the poll's findings:

--Just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters trust the federal government to do the right thing at least most of the time, including just four percent (4%) who almost always trust them to do the right thing.

--Fifty-two percent (52%) trust the government to do the right thing some of the time, while 21% rarely or never trust the feds to do the right thing. That’s down from the 30% who rarely or never trusted the government in 2016.

--Twenty-eight percent (28%) of Republican voters and 30% of Democrats trust the federal government to do the right thing at least most of the time. Just 18% of voters not affiliated with either major party agree.

--Thirty-seven percent (37%) of black voters trust the government at least most of the time, compared to just 25% of whites and 23% of other minority voters.

Rasmussen surveyed 1,000 likely voters nationally.  The poll was conducted April 23-24, 2017.  The poll had a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.  The question asked was as follows:

"How much of the time do you trust the federal government to do the right thing?"

  4% Almost always
22% Most of the time
52% Some of the time
21% Rarely or never
  1% Not sure

Curiously, trust in government declined with educational attainment.  With just 64% of those without a high school diploma reporting any trust at all.

Attended high school, but did not graduate

  6% Almost always
21% Most of the time
37% Some of the time
22% Rarely or never
 14% Not sure

High school graduate

  7% Almost always
23% Most of the time
49% Some of the time
20% Rarely or never
  1% Not sure

Attended college, but did not complete

  6% Almost always
17% Most of the time
51% Some of the time
25% Rarely or never
  1% Not sure

College graduate

  4% Almost always
21% Most of the time
54% Some of the time
21% Rarely or never
  1% Not sure

Graduate school

  1% Almost always
27% Most of the time
54% Some of the time
18% Rarely or never
  0% Not sure

Very interesting data.  For more information, visit www.rasmussenreports.com.

Has the NJ Herald become part of the story?

The New Jersey Herald has become a very dodgy newspaper.  It suppresses stories as a favor to major advertisers, as in the case of the Sussex Community College, and directly steps into campaigns to rearrange the "balance" or place a "thumb on the scale." 

The Herald doesn't follow a story, it sets a narrative and then writes the story to fit -- even if it's like putting a square peg into a round hole.  To ensure that its reporters stick to the narrative, it plays them off against each other for plum assignments.  The goal is to please the boss and you do that by screwing whoever he happens to have a hard on for.  And you can always tell who the boss has a hard on for. 

Lately, the man the Herald dreams about screwing is Senator Steve Oroho.  And not just because he's the only legislator in Sussex County who doesn't have a business that advertises with the Herald.  The Herald wants to be a political party boss, wants to pick winners and losers in politics, wants its butt kissed by candidates and office holders.

The Herald likes drama -- and when there is no drama they assign a reporter to manufacture it.  And that means stepping directly into campaigns and taking part, favoring one side over another. 

Here are a few instances when a Herald reporter has directly got involved in a political campaign, looking to destroy one side in favor of another.  It is a simple story -- one that can be told in just three text messages:

(1) Hey guys, I'm writing such slanted shit on behalf of your campaign, that if I keep it up, somebody is going to notice.

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: Apr 14, 2015 4:21 PM

I need to talk to you about XXXXXXXXXXXX. Simply put, there's no way I can retain my credibility as a journalist if I don't, in some way, address XXXXXX's reasons for voting to do the original solar project in 2011 without seeking voter approval then. If I don't, people will come to see me as a shill for the XXXXXXXXX campaign, and I can't have that happen.

(2) Hey guys, the candidates' debate is coming up.  How about it if the Herald lets your campaign choose which questions we ask your opponents?

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: May 18, 2015 4:11 PM

BTW, we're still trying to come up with a specific question for XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX. The list if questions is being finalized tonight. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

(3) Hey guys, I know the primary is over, but shouldn't we totally destroy your opponent so that he can't try a comeback in 2016?

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: Aug 1, 2015 1:21 PM

Do you know anything about a sexual harassment lawsuit or some such thing being filed against XXXXXXXXXX several years ago back when he was XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?...XXXXX had mentioned something about it to me a while back, said she believes it was settled. I'd sure love to get my hands on it, though.

This is not journalism.  It is waging a political campaign.

Leaked Emails: Politico’s Ken Vogel Filed Story with DNC Before His Own Editors.  Like Hillary and the DNC, Sussex County has its own media corruption problem.