Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco , Mayor of Jersey City,Steve Fulop!
A rival of Mayor Steve Fulop is asking state officials to audit Jersey City’s tax program, saying the city’s recent move to halt new assessments of renovated homes was outside of Fulop’s legal authority. Terrence T. McDonald, The Jersey Journal, Read more
by JOHN NOLTE21 Dec 20152,341
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has already exposed a 14 year-old DC Media cover up involving numerous Muslim-American celebrations of the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Now, according to a new report, in their never-ending quest to disqualify Trump and make serial-liar Hillary Clinton president, CBS News has apparently been caught red-handed cutting footage from a focus group mediated by Establishment Republican Frank Luntz that shows American Muslims criticizing the United States:
The Intercept:
[I]n interviews with The Intercept, two Muslim Americans who took part in the group complained that CBS edited out parts of the discussion where they raised their own concerns — including critiques of U.S. militarism, surveillance, and entrapment.
They also said that Frank Luntz, the right-wing pollster who led the focus group, silenced members of the group when they criticized discriminatory U.S. government policies.
One woman claimed that she brought up Luntz’s Jewishness:
For example, [Sarah] Harvard wrote that after Luntz asked the group whether they were Americans or Muslims first, she chose to demonstrate the offensive nature of the question by asking, “Well, are you an American or Jewish first?”
From the sound of it, Luntz was far from objective. One participant said:
He kept saying how he felt bad that no one listens to Muslims and how he wanted to give us an opportunity to talk to the general population. But how can that happen when we’re manipulatively edited to have us fit their own narrative and agenda?
According to Ms. Harvard’s own Facebook post, Luntz did not just edit out the inconvenient moments that didn’t fit his desired narrative, he went so far as to silence her when she tore into the American government as a racist institution that has “killed many Muslims.”
He also had silenced me and other participants who have routinely brought up the fact the government has enacted in state violence against the Muslim community — whether that may be through entrapment cases and surveillance programs — and our concerns about institutional racism. He shut me down when I said that President Obama and Hillary Clinton has killed many Muslims under the administration when we were discussing Trump, and ironically for a GOP strategist, he shut me down when I talked about how Democrats have enacted some of the most deadliest and discriminatory policies against Muslims. He also decided to stop letting me speak when I started talking about how Muslims should start focusing on combatting government policies rather than rushing to condemn terrorism or Islamophobia exclusively. They also cut out portions of where participants talked about media accountability when discussing Islam.
‘They are not going to sabotage our campaign,’ Sanders’ top aide Jeff Weaver said.
By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI
12/18/15 01:23 PM EST
Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Friday threatened to sue the Democratic Party for suspending its access to the national voter database, saying the move threatens to undermine the Vermont senator’s presidential run.
Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, held a press conference on Friday in which he described how the Democratic National Committee was unfairly choking off the “lifeblood” of the campaign.
The DNC suspended Sanders’ access following the revelation that Sanders staffers improperly reviewed Hillary Clinton campaign data made available as a result of a software error this week by political data technology company NGP VAN.
“Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign, one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history,” Weaver said.
“By their action, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign,” he said, calling on the DNC to release its freeze on the campaign’s data, a move that has effectively crippled Sanders’ field operation. “This is taking our campaign hostage.”
Weaver described campaign’s data as “stolen by the DNC” and said he saw a “pattern” of actions suggesting the committee has been helping Clinton. He said he planned to bring the issue to federal court this afternoon if the DNC continues to “hold our data hostage.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/sanders-campaign-threatens-to-sue-dnc-216942#ixzz3uhQH37n3
GOP Sells America Down the River
December 17, 2015
RUSH: The country was just sold down the river again by your very Republican Party.
I have a headline here from the Washington Times: “White House Declares Total Victory Over GOP in Budget Battle.” That headline’s a misnomer. There was never a battle. None of this was opposed. The Republican Party didn’t stand up to any of it, and the die has been cast for a long time on this. I know many of you are dispirited, depressed, angry, combination of all of that. But, folks, there was no other way this could go. Because two years ago when the Republican Party declared they would never do anything that would shut down the government and they would not impeach Obama, there were no obstacles in Obama’s way and there were no obstacles in the way of the Democrat Party.
When you surrender the power of the purse — and that’s the primary power the House of Representatives has. Not a penny of money can be spent in this country by this government without the House of Representatives authorizing it. Obama can spend all he wants, but if the House doesn’t give him the mechanism, he can’t spend any of it. But the Republicans squandered that. They gave up the power of the purse. The reason they did that is because for some inexplicable reason, they are literally paranoid and scared to death of even being accused of doing something that would shut down the government.
So to avoid even the accusation that they were going to or would ever even think of shutting down the government, they signaled that whatever Obama wanted to spend, he would get, because they figured that had less damage to them politically than the allegation that they were shutting down the government. So, very simply, ever since the Republican Party became the party of keeping the government open at all costs, we get bills like this. There’s simply no stopping the Democrats. There’s no mechanism. Every constitutional mechanism found in the power of the purse, Separation of Powers, the Republican Party years ago gave it away, in total fear of the media.
Now, there’s also a factor that needs to be mentioned, too, and that is that many Republican donors want every bit of this money spent, and they have donated voluminously to key Republicans in order to get the money spent. So it’s not all Republican fears. It’s not all Republican caving. A lot of it is Republican fealty and loyalty to some of their donors. Some people today looking at this, and this is 2,009 pages. It’s said to be a spending bill. Among the things that it does, it fully funds Obamacare.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/12/17/gop_sells_america_down_the_river
Warning that “pigs will be charging down State Street” in Trenton if voters elect a Democratic governor after he leaves office, Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday urged New Jersey’s business community to join his fight against public employee unions. Matt Arco, NJ.Com Read more
Sweeney pushes forcing bigger N.J. pension payments by changing constitution
State Sen. President Stephen Sweeney introduced legislation Monday that would cement state officials’ promises to fund government workers’ pensions in the New Jersey constitution. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
Obama’s Attorney General stands with advocates for terrorists in support of censoring criticism of Islam
December 4, 2015
Daniel Greenfield
While in San Bernardino children wept for fathers who would never come home after the latest Muslim terror attack, Attorney General Loretta Lynch put on some chic clothes to gab with Muslim Advocates, a Muslim group that had become notorious for its aggressive obstruction of Justice Department investigations into Muslim terrorism.
Muslim Advocates, headed by Farhana Khera, who peppered a smiling Lynch with questions about “anti-Muslim rhetoric”, had played a significant role in crippling DOJ investigations of Islamic terrorism by eliminating training materials about Islamic terrorism.
Khera had vocally opposed the sorts of sting operations that had succeeded in capturing a number of ISIS terror plotters before they were able to act. A similar sting might have stopped the San Bernardino massacre. She had opposed the FBI recruiting informants and supported Muslim leaders linked to terrorism. She had even defended terror charities like the Holy Land Foundation.
And she and another Muslim Advocates figure had urged Muslims not to provide information to the FBI. “Any information you provide to the FBI can be used as the basis for further surveillance and investigation of your community,” a Muslim Advocates lawyer had said. “So you really don’t want to be putting yourself in a situation where you’re providing anybody with information about people in your community that the FBI is now gonna follow up and start investigating those people.”
But instead of showing respect to the American victims of terrorism, Attorney General Lynch went to a pro-terror group and promised to crack down on the real threat. Anti-Muslim rhetoric.
“Obviously the incidents in Paris were a tragedy,” Lynch conceded, but her focus was on Islamophobia.
“Certainly in the wake of Paris, which as a part of Europe has been grappling with anti-Muslim rhetoric for some time now because of smaller incidents, this large one is really their equivalent of 9/11, and certainly as we saw here in the US, an incredibly disturbing rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric,” Lynch said.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Readers say Record Article Paints and Inaccurate Picture of Hudson Parking Garage Meeting
1. one sentence about public comment at the very end of the article, when the public spoke for hours.
2. indicates that most favor plan A, when many public members spoke about related issues and not about which plan they favor. No discussion of related concerns.
3. completely omitted that Mayor Aronsohn intends to disregard the STATE law and do an end-run around the requirement that FOUR council members must vote for a bond. In the event that two decide not to vote for the bond, Aronsohn will go directly to the county to get them to issue the bond. He has already met with them and already has this in place with them just waiting for his call. This is despicable. Gwenn and Albert are going right along with this. Even though it is LEGAL to do this, it is completely disrespectful to our local government and flies in the face of the spirit of good governance.
Local Bond Law N.J.S.A. 40A:2-1 et seq. November, 2009 Page 1 Local Bond Law N.J.S.A. 40A:2
A bond ordinance shall be finally adopted by the recorded affirmative votes of at least 2/3 of the full membership of the governing body. In a local unit in which the approval of any officer is required to make an ordinance or resolution effective, such bond ordinance shall be so approved, or passed over veto before it shall be published after final adoption.
This law, above, is a state law and requires 2/3 majority to issue a bond. Three out of five is only a 60% majority. Here goes out elected officials all set up to break the law.
The public comments were certainly not “binary”, and the council’s opinion wasn’t really the focus of the time.
Would Ridgewood be “legally on the hook” for any bond the county issued? I agree that seems like a major end-run around the law!
The actual council session is available here online: https://www.ustream.tv/channel/village-of-ridgewood-public-access
DECEMBER 4, 2015, 11:47 AM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2015, 6:16 PM
BY PETER J. SAMPSON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Sobbing as he pleaded for mercy and insisted he did nothing wrong, Joseph A. Ferriero, the once powerful leader of the Bergen County Democratic Party, was sentenced Friday to nearly three years in prison for using his political clout to profit from a kickback scheme involving government contracts.
“I understand the court has to accept the verdict,” Ferriero said, adding, “Not for a nanosecond did I think I was doing anything wrong.”
In retrospect, he said, he should have done things differently, but he insisted he never solicited bribes or accepted kickbacks.
U.S. District Judge Esther B. Salas imposed a 35-month prison term on the 58-year-old Hackensack lawyer during a two-hour hearing in federal court in Newark. She said he can self-surrender to prison authorities within 60 days.
Ferriero, who earlier this week lost a bid to set aside his conviction, is planning an appeal.
New Jersey voter turnout reaches a new low
The percentage of registered New Jersey voters who cast a ballot in this year’s general election tumbled to the lowest level in more than nine decades. Associated Press Read more
ELEC: PAC Dollars Spurred Elections Spending to Over $30 Million
Independent special interest spending drove the cost of this year’s legislative general election above $30 million, according to this morning’s new 2015 elections analysis of disclosure reports by the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC). The spending, which still is considered preliminary, already has established a record high for a year with just Assembly members running. Politicker Staff, PolitickerNJ Read more
Where did the money go in N.J. Assembly races?
Independent committees spent more than $2 million in the three districts where Democrats picked up four seats in last month’s state Assembly election that awarded the party its largest majority in the lower chamber since 1979. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
Paterson looks to hold emergency meeting to make Friday’s payroll
NOVEMBER 30, 2015, 10:16 AM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2015, 10:16 AM
BY JOE MALINCONICO
PATERSON – Officials were scrambling Monday morning to schedule an emergency City Council meeting later in the day in an effort to issue Friday’s paychecks to Paterson’s 1,800 municipal workers.
The mayor has said the council must approve temporary budgets for December and January on November 30 in order for the employees’ next checks to be issued on time.
The employee checks were placed in jeopardy last week when the council objected to the administration’s lack of spending cuts and voted 4-4-1 to reject its proposed temporary budget.
The state on November 25 sent the city council a letter criticizing its action. “The City Council’s failure to act on a temporary budget jeopardizes the fiscal well-being of the City,” wrote Timothy Cunnnigham, director of the New Jersey Division of Local Government Services.
Cunningham said the council should “work with the administration to identify specific budget cuts” and approve the temporary budget in the meantime so that Paterson could meet its financial obligation to employees, vendors and bondholders.
It’s not clear whether the council would budge at an emergency meeting. Under laws government fiscal decisions, the administration needs six votes to get the temporary budget passed. That means at least two council members among the five who abstained or voted against it would have to change their minds.
“investment ” = tax increases and taxpayer giveaways
NOVEMBER 26, 2015, 10:21 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2015, 10:27 PM
BY DUSTIN RACIOPPI
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
For nearly six years, Governor Christie has presented himself as the last line of defense between Democrats and taxpayers’ wallets, resisting spending increases and vetoing “more tax increases than any governor in American history,” as he often tells voters.
With two years left in Christie’s final term, and with the state facing a host of costly and pressing issues, two of the most visible and most likely Democrats to run for governor have been offering clues into the fiscal policy of a post-Christie New Jersey.
Central to each of their plans for reviving the economy, upgrading the state’s aging network of roads and bridges and growing the middle class is what they call “investing.” The word they don’t use is “spending,” and spending tends to mean an increase in taxes.
Both likely gubernatorial candidates, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Phil Murphy, a former ambassador to Germany, say that not all investment amounts to tax increases, but they also agree that some sort of future tax hike is inevitable. Specifically what kind of tax increases, and how many, is not being discussed. (A third likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City, has been more circumspect about his plans, but he came out forcefully this week against the Christie administration’s effort to bring development — possibly including a hotel and an amusement park — to Liberty State Park.)
Sweeney, O’Toole Discuss Bipartisanship in Newark
It seems that South Jersey-based Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) is continuing his charm offensive in the northern part of the state as he continues to angle for a likely 2017 gubernatorial run. Today, Sweeney joined Republican Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) for an event at Newark’s North Ward Center to honor O’Toole for his dedication to the mission of the center: to help underserved populations. Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ Read more
file photo by Boyd Loving
Booker Named in Newark Watershed Corruption Lawsuit
Trustees of the bankrupt Newark Watershed Conservation & Development Corp. have filed suit against Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), formerly the mayor of Newark, in a case targeting the senator and a range of other and public and private officials for mismanagement and corruption at the NWCDC. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
file photo by Boyd Loving
As Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) continues to face the fallout from a corruption indictment, a new Quinnipac University poll indicates that much of the public is against him. The indictment was based on the senator’s allegedly accepting bribes and gifts from Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJRead more
