The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, a new study from Gallup and the Knight Foundation shows that a whopping 86 percent of Americans believe media outlets lean one way or another politically, with 49 percent saying there’s “a great deal” of bias while 37 percent say “a fair amount.”
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports , following the high-profile resignation of a New York Times opinion page editor, most voters are eager to find fair and balanced media coverage but think the majority of news organizations these days are politically biased.
Continue reading Only 27% of Voters Feel News Organizations Generally Remain Impartial
December 8,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Lodi NJ, Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino and the Division of Alcohol Beverage Control have ordered the liquor licenses of two North Jersey “gentleman’s clubs” to be sold or transferred to a bona fide third party by January 3, 2018, because of alleged noncompliance with a previous Consent Order.
The two clubs, Satin Dolls in Lodi and A.J.’s Gentleman’s Club in Secaucus, have until December 17, 2017 to cease providing live entertainment. The Satin Dolls club served as the fictional “Bada Bing” in the HBO television series “The Sopranos.” If live entertainment is provided after that date, the licenses will be suspended immediately and the owners will be subject to potential disciplinary charges.
The two clubs and their owners have been the subject of investigation and legal proceedings initiated by the Division for more than six years, during which the owners, various members of the Cardinalle family, sought to retain ownership of the licenses and continue to operate the businesses.
The Division has alleged that Anthony Cardinalle, who was criminally disqualified from maintaining involvement with the clubs’ operations, nonetheless continued to run the businesses. The Division also alleges that the owners failed to account for large amounts of cash flowing in and out of the businesses.
Under an order signed by Director David P. Rible on November 20, 2017, the Cardinalles’ involvement with the clubs must end.
“The Cardinalles may have wanted to keep the business in the family, but that’s not how it works. Their continued flouting of Alcoholic Beverage Control laws cannot and will not be tolerated,” said Attorney General Porrino. “Illegal activity was glorified at the ‘Bada Bing’ in the fictional world of Tony Soprano, but it has no place in modern-day New Jersey It’s time to shut it down.”
In 2011, a Consent Order with the companies Route 17 Entertainment Inc. (Satin Dolls) and Sea-Card Enterprises Inc. (A.J’s Gentleman’s Club) mandated that Luceen Cardinalle, the wife of Anthony who was listed as the sole shareholder of both corporations, turn over the licenses to her daughter, Loren Cardinalle. The Cardinalles were ordered to pay $1.25 million in penalties as a compromise in lieu of revocation of both licenses, and Loren Cardinalle was ordered to transfer both licenses to a bona fide third party by December 31, 2015.
“The holding of licenses to sell and serve alcohol is contingent upon the owners’ behaving in a reputable manner,” said Director Rible. “The Cardinalles, quite simply, have not played by the rules despite many opportunities to correct their behavior, and it’s time to get them out of the alcohol business once and for all.”
Anthony Cardinalle pled guilty in 1995 to federal income tax evasion for not reporting cash payments from “gentleman’s clubs” in which he held undisclosed interests. During the Division’s investigation, evidence was uncovered that Anthony Cardinalle was still actively involved with running the clubs.
Anthony Cardinalle was subsequently indicted by the federal government in January 2013 for participating in a conspiracy by the Genovese crime family related to the waste-disposal industry in New Jersey and New York. He pled guilty in December 2013 to racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit extortion and was ordered to spend 30 days in jail and pay a fine and restitution.
As the 2015 Consent Order deadline approached, Loren Cardinalle asked the Division for permission to continue to hold the licenses. A series of extensions were granted, with the latest deadline set for September 28, 2017. After further investigation, the Division issued a Notice of Charges for criminal solicitation for prostitution and lewd activity on the licensed premises in May 2017. Those charges remain pending.
The Division continues to allege that Anthony Cardinalle is involved with the operation of the clubs, citing the following as evidence:
The Lodi Police Department advised the Division that Anthony Cardinalle has been the contact person for issues with the Satin Dolls license.
When police were called to the club because of a report of an attempted burglary, Anthony Cardinalle was the club representative dealing with the matter.
The Attorney General thanked the Division’s Investigation Unit for its work on this matter.
ALEX PFEIFFER
Journalists can’t seem to get their stories straight in the opening weeks of the Trump administration, whether in tweets or in articles where falsehoods have been spread almost daily.
The mistakes have not just been from newer liberal news outlets such The Huffington Post or BuzzFeed, but from legacy media like Reuters, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
What follows are several botched stories or conflicting reports since President Trump took office.
file photo by Boyd Loving
The NY Times will likely always exist in some form, but it is fading in relevance. It’s dying for a number of reasons, but mostly, it’s dying because the trend in how people consume news is rapidly changing. It’s no different to record companies and record stores managing the music business. The Times keeps trying to sell itself through online subscriptions but people simply won’t pay a cent for it. News is easily available elsewhere for free. Same deal with lesser outlets, like The Record. The other main reason is its content. The liberal bias might work on the Upper West Side, but not in Preoria. America is predominantly right-of-center, and The NYT, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and a whole host of what’s known as the mainstream media is losing market share and dying.
Here’s some fake “mainstream” news stories for you to consider:
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“The Zapruder film:” frames of video footage of JFK’s assassination were reversed, making it appear that Kennedy’s head lurched the opposite direction, spawning a million conspiracy theories about multiple gun men, the grassy knoll, etc.
“The October Surprise:” Reagan supposedly sent Bush 41 to Iran to prevent the hostages from being released until he was elected president. Bush never went to Iran, and his whereabouts on the supposed dates were very public.
“Bush 43 snorted Coke”… according to a Texas inmate whose only known encounter with Bush was when Bush refused to pardon him.
“Laura Bush had an abortion.”
“Proof Bush avoided the draft” was based on a letter publicized by Dan Rather on 60 minutes that was such an obvious forgery, TV viewers spotted fifteen proofs of forgery from their living room couches.
“Jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to destroy the Twin Towers” It doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel, but it burns plenty hot enough to weaken it. Ever take metal shop, anyone?
“Mad Max Beyond Superdome” No, after Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana stadium was not filled of desperate people resorting to cannibalism.
“Blame for Katrina” The Bush administration had attempted to use federal funds to rebuild the dykes and levees in Louisiana, but was blocked by local Democrat politicians.
“Tar balls in the Gulf coast” were an entirely natural phenomenon. If they were affected at all by the oil spill disaster it was because there were fewer oil rigs to collect natural seepage, which leak far more oil every year than the oil spillage.
Most contentiously, “Project Veritas” misled America by editing footage to make it appear that Planned Parenthood sold baby parts, PP also arranged to keep child prostitution secret, NPR negotiated with reporters undercover as Islamicists, Clinton staffers coaching on how to commit vote fraud, … except, oh, yeah… Project Veritas released the entire unedited footage with the footage that had been merely edited for time, just like every news story based on recorded footage since the dawn of man. This is contentious, because I suppose it’s partly subjective whether the fact that a PP employee went in the back room to discuss a proposal to smuggle child prostitutes with her manager for several minutes amounts to exculpatory evidence; “obviously” it demonstrates some hesitance.
And some less important, but outrageous ones:
Dateline NBC demonstrated that GM minivans were prone to burn when struck in a collision, but didn’t include “if you overfill them with gas, and you stick bottle rockets where the gas is flowing out of them.”
A Food Lion was busted with old meat in the meat fridge… moments after it was put there by the network reporter who busted them.
The Washington Post accuses dozens of “right-wing” news sites and aggregators of spreading anonymous Russian-sourced fake news stories they found on the web and failed to verify … based on some anonymous probably Ukrainian-sourced fake news stories they found on the web and failed to verify.
Liberals just can’t abide competing points of view
By Kelly Riddell – The Washington Times – Thursday, November 24, 2016
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
What worries me the most about fake news, isn’t that it’s fake, it’s that it’s being used by the left to try to silence opposing views.
Take for example a story reported by the Los Angeles Times that included a professor who put together a Google document of “false, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news sources’” to help people “cleanse their newsfeeds of misinformation.”
The only problem with the list, was it included real news sites of which the professor simply didn’t agree. Conservative blogs, including Red State and The Blaze, were on the list, as was more centrist, but GOP-leaning Independent Journal Review (IJR). None of those sites are fake — they often just peddle in the real news purposely not covered by the mainstream media.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/24/using-fake-news-against-opposing-views/
REVEALED: The Real Fake News List
11/19/2016
By Chris Rossini
We’ve seen the make-shift “fake news” list created by a leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed and this one holds a lot more water.
This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in a never-ending loop that “The economy is in great shape!”
https://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/revealed-the-real-fake-news-list
By Michael Goodwin
August 21, 2016 | 5:40am
Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, andHillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.
The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand-in-hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations.
The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.
The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.
Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang, suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.
https://nypost.com/2016/08/21/american-journalism-is-collapsing-before-our-eyes/
By Geoffrey Dickens | August 1, 2016 | 5:36 PM EDT
Two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention (RNC) a grieving mother blasted Hillary Clinton for the debacle of the 2012 Benghazi attack. Last Thursday, at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), grieving parents gave a speech criticizing Donald Trump for his statements against Muslims.
While all the grieving parents deserve sympathy, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening and morning shows seemed to only care about the parents that showed up at the Democratic Convention. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazla’s DNC appearance earned 55 minutes, 13 seconds of Big Three network coverage, nearly 50 times more than Pat Smith, whose RNC speech honoring her son earned just 70 seconds of airtime.
BY PAUL SPERRY
09/29/2015 05:06 PM ET
Did you know TV news networks pay former politicians for interviews? They do, and they pay them obscenely well. Even a few now running for the White House enjoyed secret deals, which raises a host of ethical questions.
Voters get most of their political news from cable or network TV. These outlets are supposed to keep politicians honest. Increasingly, however, they are paying officials huge sums to essentially produce news for them.
In effect, politicians have become quasi-journalists, and journalists have become quasi-campaign managers.
The latest example is GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson, whose lucrative contract with Fox News Channel was only recently disclosed as part of a Federal Election Commission filing.
According to a revised financial report filed by his campaign last month, Carson earned a whopping $492,115 in “nonemployee compensation” from Fox through November 2014, when the top-rated cable news network canceled his contract as a “contributor.”
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: https://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/092915-773260-carson-santorum-huckabee-media-contracts-raise-specter-of-checkbook-journalism.htm#ixzz3nE9MxN94
By Geoffrey Dickens | July 8, 2015 | 3:18 PM EDT
What’s it going to take for the networks to start seriously reporting on the IRS scandal again? On Tuesday, Judicial Watch announced the stunning revelation that newly discovered Department of Justice and IRS documents showed there was “an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.” This latest bombshell has yet to be reported on any of the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks.
The July 7 Judicial Watch press release added: “The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups – or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States – as part of its prosecution effort.”
By Emily Smith
May 18, 2015 | 9:47pm
ABC has plenty of reasons to be freaking out over the George Stephanopoulos scandal — 105 million, to be exact.
The “Good Morning America” and “This Week” anchor renewed his contract last year for $105 million, TV industry sources told The Post Monday.
The seven-year deal — which dwarfs the five-year, $50 million contract scored by since-suspended NBC rivalBrian Williams — was supposed to keep Stephanopoulos in front of ABC’s cameras through 2021.
But now his credibility, and future, have been called into question since he admitted Friday that he haddonated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation since 2011, just as the presidential race gears up with Hillary Rodham Clinton the leading Democrat.
In a mea culpa delivered Sunday on “This Week,” Stephanopoulos, who was also a top aide in President Bill Clinton’s White House, said the gifts “were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the foundation.”
It was his second on-air apology in less than a week.
Sources have said ABC News execs were blindsided by Stephanopoulos’ largesse, and one TV insider noted Monday that “ABC really has all their money on Stephanopoulos.”
https://pagesix.com/2015/05/18/george-stephanopoulos-future-and-105m-contract-in-danger/
Peter Schweizer10:36 a.m. EDT May 18, 2015
ABC’s anchor much closer to Hillary’s foundation than he told his viewers.
Fact-driven, fair, aggressive journalism animates American politics. As an investigative journalist, I am accustomed to asking tough questions. When I publish, I expect tough questions in turn,
That’s not what ABC News This Week host and chief anchor George Stephanopoulos delivered when he interviewed me about my new book on the Clinton Foundation last month. There’s a reason. Though Stephanopoulos belatedly disclosed$75,000 in donations to the foundation, he has yet to disclose his much deeper relationship with the Clinton Foundation.
When Stephanopoulos invited me on his Sunday program, I knew that he had worked as a top adviser and campaign manager to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, but I didn’t know about his donations or his other ties to the foundation founded and overseen by the former president and his wife, potential future president Hillary Clinton
ABC Revives Soros-Funded Attacks on Johns Hopkins and Coal Companies
By Sean Long | June 6, 2014 | 13:37
Building on a long week of anti-coal attacks by the media and the Environmental Protection Agency, ABC’s June 5 “World News” revived another attack on the coal industry. ABC hyped a 2013 investigation that it conducted in partnership with the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity (CPI). It alleged that the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions had essentially been bought off by coal companies to ignore cases of black lung disease in miners.
ABC’s David Muir declared a “victory a long time in the making,” Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Paul Wheeler for allegedly “working for the coal company.”
On October 30, 2013, ABCNews.com posted an extensive investigation by ABC’s Chief Investigative Correspondent, Brian Ross, ABC’s Investigative Producer Matthew Mosk and CPI’s Investigative Report Chris Hamby. This report alleged that Wheeler, the leader of a unit that analyzes potential black lung cases, was either incompetent or had ignored cases of black lung in coal miners.
Read more: https://newsbusters.org/blogs/sean-long/2014/06/06/abc-revives-soros-funded-attacks-john-hopkins-and-coal-companies#ixzz34E6Aq5mR
