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, on April 8th the Ridgewood published findings from a new Stockton University Poll of New Jersey adults showing that key Democratic constituencies – Black, multiracial and Hispanic voters – are more moderate on a host of issues than the overall party.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, some things never change, Representative Tulsi Gabbard confirmed via Twitter on Thursday that she was not invited to participate in the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Of the seven Democratic candidates who earned delegates during the presidential primaries, Gabbard was the only one not offered a speaking slot during the four-night event.
October 26,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Washington DC, looks like we are finally getting to the real Russian collusion scandal and Republicans on Capitol Hill have launched several investigations Tuesday into an Obama-era deal with Russia, during which the U.S. sold uranium, a key component to developing nuclear weapons, to its on-and-off adversary, despite a discovery by the FBI into a Russian bribery plot.The sale in 2010 allowed for the transfer of the Canadian mining company Uranium One to Russia’s Rosatom nuclear company, giving the Russians control of part of the uranium supply in the U.S.
The Uranium One deal was featured in the movie ,Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.
These revelations come just as key congressional panels open new probes into the still-smoking debris of last year’s election, the revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid as much as $9 million for the discredited Russian dossier on Donald Trump flips the collusion script on its head.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the dossier. The news has created a problem for Democrats, as the report shows the Democratic presidential campaign funded a foreign spy’s opposition research — an accusation similar to complaints that Democrats have brought against Trump’s campaign.
The hoax dossier compiled for the opposition research firm Fusion by GPS British spy Christopher Steele.The dossier contains a series of lewd and fallacious allegations about the president’s personal life and detailed deep financial ties between Trump and high-ranking Russian officials.
The finding also raises the possibility that the dossier is what led the Obama White House to unmask and snoop on members of Trump’s team, and leak the names to the anti-Trump media in a bid to help Clinton win election.
October 11,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood Nj, according to the New York Post page 6 , Robert De Niro and Harvey Weinstein had a top-secret meeting on Thursday, sources said, with Democrat front runner Phil Murphy ,yes that Phil Murphy (Corzine 2.0), the Democratic favorite to succeed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.The trio was said to be meeting in Tribeca at the Greenwich Street offices that house De Niro and Weinstein’s film companies. It appears Democrats still love that Weinstein money .
October 9,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
River Vale NJ, Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi comments on the Weinstein sexual harassment controversy and the Hollywood as well as Democrat double standard:
“I’ve found hypocrisy in politics fascinating as well as disgusting as it oftentimes involves women. Several months ago, in a room filled with more than 60 people, a local NJ democratic chairman made repugnant sexual based comments about a dear female professional friend of mine and yet not one person who was present said a word or spoke up. The press refused to cover the story after cowards who were present all claimed to be in the bathroom at the same time and therefore co…uldn’t confirm what had transpired.
Two years ago, another woman I know was sexually assaulted by a total piece of garbage who is prominent in NJ democratic state politics but she was convinced to remain silent by people in power as the perpetrator continues to receive promotions.
Where is the outrage one would expect against these examples? Why did people remain silent on Harvey Weinstein while accepting millions in campaign contributions? I worked in entertainment 20 years ago and stories about him were rampant back then. Why hasn’t the NJ state Democratic Party returned the monies he’s donated to them? Today, I challenge the three Democratic females running for office in my district to end their hypocrisy.
Time after time, you have launched baseless negative attacks, undertaken
hashtag politics, and fought on identity-based politics at the smallest
perceived slight or anytime you believe you can score cheap points yet you have remained silent on real issues within your own party.
Today, it is time for your games to end. The money you receive from
your Democrat Party, and from groups like Emily’s List and Emerge (which received donations of Weinstein’s money from the national Democratic Party) must be returned immediately. If it is not, and
you do not, it is clear that your words are meaningless.
The money you have taken is tainted by the very things you say you
oppose. Money from Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein, who we now know
is an accused serial sexual assaulter has flowed into the coffers of your state
party. Millions of dollars were also raised at a state party fundraiser arm in arm with Alec Baldwin, who is well-known for calling a NY Daily News photographer a ‘nutty bi#*h,’ deriding a Starbucks barista an ‘uptight queen,’ an airline stewardess who asked him to stop playing a video game and attacking his own daughter by calling her a ‘pig’ who ‘doesn’t have brains.
When candidates stand silent because it helps them financially but then
play politics on the same issue to help their ambitions, it’s clear they only care about one things: themselves.”
AUGUST 07, 2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The mainstream media is conspicuously ignoring a newsworthy class-action lawsuit accusing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Florida congresswoman—Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who chaired it of fraud for skewing the party’s primaries to benefit Hillary Clinton. The drama is playing out in a south Florida federal court where 150 Democratic voters and donors are also accusing their party and Wasserman Schultz of breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, unjust enrichment, and negligent misrepresentation for secretly helping Clinton get the presidential nomination over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
“Despite the requirements in the Charter, and in spite of the multiple public declarations of neutrality and impartiality with respect to the Democratic primary process, the DNC was not neutral,” a 35-page complaint states. “To the contrary, the DNC was biased in favor of one candidate – Hillary Clinton (“Clinton”) – from the beginning and throughout the process. The DNC devoted its considerable resources to supporting Clinton above any of the other Democratic candidates. Through its public claims to being neutral and impartial, the DNC actively concealed its bias from its own donors as well as donors to the campaigns of Clinton’s rivals, including Bernie Sanders (“Sanders”).
The scandal broke when leaked DNC electronic mail showed that the committee favored and backed Clinton instead of Sanders during the primary. Wasserman Schultz resigned in disgrace as DNC chair, was publicly blasted by Sanders supporters and didn’t gavel in the party convention last summer in Philadelphia. Her hometown newspaper wrote that it was a hurricane-force controversy over leaked emails that showed the DNC under Wasserman Schultz was helping Clinton while Sanders was still a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. In the article, the veteran congresswoman from Broward County, Florida indicated that she stepped down as DNC chair to focus on “making sure that everyone knows that Hillary Clinton would make the best president.”
Democrats suing her insist that the congresswoman violated DNC’s charter and bylaws that say party chair “shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness” and “shall be responsible for ensuring that the officers and staff of the DNC maintain impartiality and evenhandedness.” Wasserman Schultz also made public declarations vowing to run a neutral primary, according to the lawsuit, while she and the DNC pushed for Clinton from the start of the 2016 presidential election cycle. The complaint cites a leaked internal DNC document dated May 26, 2015 listing a plan to provide a contrast between “GOP field and HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton]” as well the use of “specific hits to muddy the waters around ethics, transparency and campaign finance attacks on HRC.” The DNC and Wasserman Schultz had actual knowledge of the wrongfulness of the conduct, the lawsuit says, adding that the conduct was so reckless it constituted a conscious disregard to the rights of the plaintiffs.
In the absence of media interest, the attorneys representing the class, a husband-and-wife team from Miami that supported Sanders, created a website where all documents related to the case are posted as well as courtroom illustrations and information on hearings. The docket is extensive and dates back to June 2016 when the complaint was filed. This is a valuable tool because, unlike state cases, federal court records are not available to the public for free and must be purchased through the government’s online system known as Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER). The database is most commonly used by attorneys and journalists (though not in this case) to research federal criminal, civil and bankruptcy cases. Having access to dozens of documents related to this case is a true bonus, especially since there’s been no local or national media coverage.
The most recent activity in this ongoing political legal drama occurred just weeks ago when plaintiffs and their lawyers filed a motion seeking court-ordered security guards after being harassed and intimidated. Weird emails and phone calls as well as a break-in at a plaintiff’s Dassel, Minnesota home were cited in the motion. The Ft. Lauderdale-based judge, a Reagan appointee, denied the request because plaintiffs live in dozens of different states and it would require the entire United States Marshals Service to direct all of its efforts and attention to this specific case. “For their part, defendants deny any role in the incidents described in plaintiff’s motion,” the judge, William Zloch, wrote in his order. The saga continues and Judicial Watch will monitor it and report pertinent developments.
In the meantime, Wasserman Schultz is embroiled in another major scandal involving her top information technology aide, Imran Awan, who was recently arrested on bank-fraud charges at the airport while trying to flee to his native Pakistan. Awan had just wired $283,000 from the Congressional Federal Credit Union to Pakistan, according to a news report, and he had been fired by other members of Congress after getting busted stealing computers and data systems months earlier. For unknown reasons, Wasserman Schultz kept Awan, whose entire family is embroiled in a major scam, and he had access to her emails and files as well as the password to the electronic device the congresswoman used for DNC business before she was booted out last summer. Wasserman Schultz’s gatekeepers are shielding the notoriously media savvy politician from the media and a Florida newspaper points out that “the Weston Democrat has not explained why she continued to employ Awan,” until his arrest. Judicial Watch has launched an investigation and is pursuing public records.
by Byron York | May 19, 2017, 3:21 PM
How negative was press coverage of President Trump’s first 100 days in office? Far more than that of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, according to a new report from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
The Harvard scholars analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the main newscasts (not talk shows) of CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC during Trump’s initial time in office. They found, to no one’s surprise, that Trump absolutely dominated news coverage in the first 100 days. And then they found that news coverage was solidly negative — 80 percent negative among those outlets studied, versus 20 percent positive.
The numbers for previous presidents: Barack Obama, 41 percent negative, 59 percent positive; George W. Bush, 57 percent negative, 43 percent positive; and Bill Clinton, 60 percent negative, 40 percent positive.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-harvard-study-cnn-nbc-trump-coverage-93-percent-negative/article/262364
By Post Editorial Board
May 17, 2017 | 12:59am
For all the outrage over what President Trump might have told the Russian ambassador last week, aggressive journalism — and ambitious leaks — may have done the worst harm on Tuesday.
Monday’s stories on what Trump told his Russian guests noted that he’d given details that might help them figure out how Washington had gotten the intel.
Trump’s intel disclosure to Russia put spy in danger: report
But the New York Times reported Tuesday that Israel was the source.
And then ABC disclosed even more sensitive specifics: An Israeli spy inside ISIS had uncovered the active plot to bring down a US-bound jet with a laptop bomb able to evade airport security.
This info is said to have been provided on condition that Washington not reveal who came up with the goods. And we’d like to hope that the leaks to the Times and ABC are disinformation to obscure the true source.
https://nypost.com/2017/05/17/the-media-might-have-revealed-more-intel-than-trump/
This is straight out of the DNCC playbook. When they could not get Scott Garrett any other way, they painted him as a homophobe and won.
Likewise, they are trying to get at this Village Council through the homophobe route, given that their other attempts have failed. It is a tried and tested strategy. The village is increasingly populated by ‘progressives’ who are ready to ignore all other issues as long as you somehow accuse one side of ‘homophobia’ – not matter how absurd the premise.
This entire move is very well choreographed by Hackensack. Expect accusations of homophobia and bigotry (with reference to the referenced article) to feature prominently in the next council election.
And expect the unthinking sheep to fall in line. Council robbing the taxpayers blind and selling the village to developers – who cares? They will fly the rainbow flag!!!!
WASHINGTON — A group of top Democratic Party strategists have used new data about last year’s presidential election to reach a startling conclusion about why Hillary Clinton lost. Now they just need to persuade the rest of the party they’re right.
Many Democrats have a shorthand explanation for Clinton’s defeat: Her base didn’t turn out, Donald Trump’s did and the difference was too much to overcome.
But new information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later.
Those Obama-Trump voters effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost, according to Matt Canter, a senior vice president of the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group. In his group’s analysis, about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.
by ALEX SEITZ-WALD
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has launched a major overhaul of the party’s organization, which has been stung by recent crises — and the DNC has requested resignation letters from all current staffers.
Party staff routinely see major turnover with a new boss and they had been alerted to expect such a move. However, the mass resignation letters will give Perez a chance to completely remake the DNC’s headquarters from scratch. Staffing had already reached unusual lows following a round of post-election layoffs in December.
Immediately after Perez’s selection as party chairman in late February, an adviser to outgoing DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation dated April 15, according to multiple sources familiar with the party’s internal workings.
A committee advising Perez on his transition is now interviewing staff and others as part of a top-to-bottom review process to decide not only who will stay and who will go, but how the party should be structured in the future.
file photo by Boyd Loving
By Herman Cain —— Bio and Archives March 20, 2017
As Republicans in Congress continue to craft a legislative solution to the disastrous Unaffordable Care Act, the Democrats continue to mislead its defenders with more and more dishonest and deceptive rhetoric. The latest installment comes from Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), and is deserving of a complete deception diagnosis.
By the way, Booker is considered by Democrats to be a future Democrat presidential candidate, and he won the un-coveted “Liberal Lunacy of the Week” last week on the Herman Cain Radio Show with the following litany of false statements:
“The Republicans cannot just force this down our throats. It’s going to knock a lot of folks off, hurt long-term care, hurt good working class folks. I don’t understand this almost, I don’t understand their political strategy because this is bad politics. Deeper than that it is bad policy and bad process.”
Let’s break this down, shall we?
The Republicans cannot just force this down our throats.
Most of us will recall then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that the Democrats had to pass the UCA and then tell us what was in it. They did just that in 2010 with no Republican votes in Congress, because it was that bad and they wanted no Republican input. They forced it down our throats.
In 2017, the Republicans’ American Health Care Act (AHCA) is working its way through Congress and we know what’s in it, and sensible people like most of it. Some of the favorite features are no mandates, no penalties, repeal of taxes hidden in the UCA, and allowing the states to manage Medicaid. These features are the exact opposite of what’s in the UCA, which has failed miserably.
Glenn Greenwald
March 16 2017, 11:41 a.m.
FROM MSNBC POLITICS shows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.
The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.
Why do my fellow journalists praise that anti-media prosecutor Donald Trump fired? | Mulshine
Posted on March 14, 2017 at 6:26 AM
BY PAUL MULSHINE
There is one phenomenon that I have never understood in the many years I have been in the news racket: the adulation many of my colleagues have for crusading prosecutors.
Am I the only one who’s noticed that these guys rarely return the favor?
A case in point is outgoing U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara. When his name appeared on the list of U.S. Attorneys who were asked to resign by President Trump last week, a great wave of keening and wailing went up from the press.
Typical was the New York Times, which ran this headline on a supposedly objective news article: “With Bharara’s Dismissal, Storied New York Office Loses Its Top Fighter.”
Storied?
March 5,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, yesterday, President Donald Trump claimed on twitter that former President Obama had his phones tapped during the 2016 presidential election. This revelation released a firestorm of accusations including the claim that if the wire tapping is true this will be a bigger scandal than Watergate.
After months of Democrat run media attacks on the President claiming Russian involvement in the 2016 election, no hard evidence has as of yet come to light to prove the accusations.
But the Obama wire taps on Trump are a totally different matter and this is what we know so far :
1, The Intelligence Community -at the direction of President Obama- made a request to a FISA court for the NSA to spy on Donald Trump in June 2016. It was denied.
2, In October the Intelligence Community (NSA) -at the direction of President Obama- made a second request to the FISA court for the NSA to spy on Donald Trump. It was approved.
3. At around the same time (October), as the second request to FISA, (Def Sec) Ash Carter and (DNI) James Clapper tell President Obama to dump NSA Director Mike Rogers.
4. A week after the election, Mike Rogers makes a trip to Trump Tower without telling his superior, James Clapper; which brings about new calls (November media leaks to WaPo) for President Obama to dump Mike Rogers.
5, According to the Executive Order rule changes DNI James Clapper signed off on December 15th.
6. General Michael Flynn spoke to the Russian Ambassador on December 29th
Dec 29th 2016 – Obama announces sanctions on Russia
7, VERY IMPORTANT January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.
8. Jan 3rd 2017 – Loretta Lynch signs off on rule changes for phone taps.
9. Jan 12th 2017 – WaPo reports On Phone Calls Anonymous Intel Sources
10. Jan 15th 2017 – VP Pence appears on Face the nation.
11. Jan 20th 2017 – Inauguration
12. Jan 23rd 2017 – FBI reports nothing unlawful in content of Flynn call
13. Jan 26th 2017 – Sally Yates (acting DOJ) informs President Trump there might be a conflict between VP Pence’s stated TV version (was told by Flynn), and what Intel community communicate to Yates that Flynn actually expressed to Russia.
14, Jan 27th 2017 – White House counsel begins investigation to discrepancy.
15 January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties.
Occam’s Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers didn’t want to participate in the spying scheme (Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for President Obama’s post presidency efforts to undermine Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into the Obama labyrinth underlying his remaining loyalists. After the October spying operation went into effect, Rogers unknown loyalty was a risk to the Obama objective. 10 Days after the election Rogers travels to President-Elect Trump without notifying those who were involved in the intel scheme.
Did NSA Director Mike Rogers wait for a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) to be set up in Trump Tower, and then notify the President-elect he was being monitored by President Obama?
Here is my personal favorite, President Obama found his private moment of political candor caught by a live microphone on Monday as he told President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on the delicate issue of missile defense after the November election. So what is really going on with the Democrats?
