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Once again, New Jersey had the highest property taxes in the nation last year.
Of the nine counties in the country where the average bill exceeded $10,000,
four are in New Jersey: Essex, Union, Morris and Bergen.
Essex County property owners were saddled with the highest taxes, at an
average of $11,550.
Man, I remember the days when my property taxes were only eleven grand a year.
Good times.
Seven years ago a fellow named Chris Christie came along and said if I voted
for him he'd tame the property tax monster. I wonder what ever happened to that
guy? I heard he tried to run for president, and then something about him feeling
sorry for drug addicts.
Maybe the tax relief thing slipped his mind.
All I know is this kind of "winning" isn't what I signed up for.
The Democrats, and their media allies, would have you believe this was a
defeat for "repeal" and a victory for Obamacare.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Hoe Freedom Cauc torpedoed the bill, and I assure you, they are no
fans of Obamacare.
They killed it becae it did not do the one thing we elected a GOP Hoe, a
GOP Senate, and a GOP president to do — repeal Obamacare, all
of Obamacare.
They know how to do that, of course,
They did it last year. The GOP Hoe and the GOP Senate passed a clean
Obamacare repeal bill, which was promptly vetoed by then-president Obama.
One has to wonder where their courage went.
Or was the clean repeal bill jt for show?
Becae the easiest way to fulfill Donald Trump's campaign promise is to
simply pass
that bill again.
In addition to repealing Obamacare the Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom
Act of 2015 defunded the charnal hoes of Planned Parenthood. That's what I
call a win-win piece of legislation.
But with a Republican in the White Hoe the Hoe GOP got cold feet.
Slacker millenials can keep their parents' insurance? Why? Don't mandate it;
don't ban it either. That way mom and dad can keep little Poindexter on their
insurance until he's 65 if they want, and they're willing to pay for it. But
the rest of who actually understand responsibility aren't subsidizing his
social disease lab tests.
Pre-existing conditions? Listen up, that's called "pay my bills." Look, I get
it, sick people don't want to go broke. But sorry if I sound harsh, that's
not my problem. Sure the truly sick need a safety net, and why not
model it on the national flood insurance program instead of sticking you and
me with the bill?
In fact, deregulate all health insurance. Set it up on the catastrophic care
model — you pay for the routine stuff and the insurance kicks in when
the bills get out of hand. That's how car insurance works; the insurance
company doesn't pay for your gas and oil changes. So why should your health
insurance pay when your kid has a cold?
A health care system where people pay their own damned bills is a health care
system that will constrain costs. Doctors and hospitals and labs that charge
"too much" will go out of biness. We shop around for food and phone service
and clothing and entertainment, but we don't even stop to consider the cost
when we visit a doctor or pick up a prescription. Why?
Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper I've heard Republican politicians
tout the need for Association Health Plans and selling insurance across state
lines. Then there's tort reform, so the next John Edwards can't get rich
exploiting vulnerable women. Why didn't RyanCare incorporate those features?
Beats me. But my guess is his donors didn't like the sound of Freedom.
Fox News posted that Donald Trump is "open" to a new health care bill. Here's
my advice.
Repeal Obamacare. All of Obamacare.
Then craft a replacement that emphasizes Freedom.
Freedom to choose our doctors.
Freedom to choose the coverages we want. No mandates.
Freedom to pay cash if we desire to forego health insurance.
Freedom to determine our own destiny.
Freedom to fail, if that's what we chose to do. Becae the
Constitution wasn't designed to save from ourselves.
Remember, the Constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness;
not actual happiness. That's up to you.
And I mt say, a health care system that is built upon the idea of personal
responsibility is a health care system that is stainable, affordable, and
inherently fair.
Has anyone seen free market health care reform? I seem to recall a certain
political party promising free market health care reform if Donald Trump
won the presidency.
There are plenty of posts out there
summarizing the new GOP American Health
Care Act, so I won't rehash them here.
This one by Kemberlee Kaye is pretty good.
So let's get right into the objections.
Refundable tax credits are jt subsidies by another name. Replacing one
entitlement with another is not my definition of "reform."
Paul Ryan is touting his Medicaid cuts, but what he isn't telling you is that
he's replacing them with a $100 Billion dollar slh fund for "high risk"
state by state insurance pools. Meh. That's a lot of cash that'll be easy
pickings for sticky-fingered bureaucrats. And it's not "saving" anything.
But I could probably live with this plan if that's all it does in
"repealing" Obamacare. Alas, the GOP definition of "repeal" mt be different
from mine, becae they're retaining 3 of Obamacare's core provisions.
Lazy slackers will still get to sponge off their parents' insurance up through
age 26. Sheesh, by age 26 I owned my first hoe and wouldn't have dreamed of
saddling my parents with my bills. Why are today's twenty-somethings different?
And speaking of saddling someone else with your bills, the ridiculo
pre-existing condition mandate remains in force. Look, for the 127,415th time,
"insurance" for pre-existing conditions is merely a way for forcing me into
paying your bills. When you have a pre-existing condition your costs are
known, but Obamacare lite refes to price your plan accordingly.
Now Paul Ryan et al do make one sop to reality here, if you have a pre-existing
condition they require you to maintain continuo coverage or pay a 30%
penalty. Which is good as far as it goes, but it still means you're rated
as if you're not already sick when you're up for renewal. No actuary in his
right mind would sign off on that.
Lastly, and most worrisome, Obamacare Lite preserves the ten
minimum essential benefits mandate at the heart of Obamacare's escalating
cost structure. So no, we can't choose the plan that's right for ,
becae every plan will still be required to cover "free" mammograms
and birth control, pediatric dental (essential for a 59 year old guy
like me!), and a laundry list of feel-good "preventative" services
like diet counseling and anti-smoking incentives.
So much for being able to once again purchase a catastrophic care plan
and self-insure for the routine stuff.
For that matter Obamacare Lite leaves out all the free-market reforms
Republicans have said they wanted. Insurance still won't be sold across
state lines, preserving 51 petty fiefdoms and forcing insurers to create
a multitude of similar yet distinct plans. There are no association health
plans either, which is yet another way for individuals to band together and
reduce costs. And nowhere in this bill is any mention of tort reform.
I've already shared my skepticism that the bill, which doesn't actually start
repealing the major spending provisions of Obamacare until the 2020 presidential
election, would actually end up repealing much in practice. But for the sake of
argument, let's jt assume the plan gets implemented exactly as written.
Supporters of the bill could argue that it does make changes to Obamacare —
repealing taxes, reducing spending, and scaling back some mandates and regulations.
There are even a few areas in which one could argue the bill moves health
policy in a more conservative direction relative to the pre-Obamacare stat
quo. It provides for expanded health savings accounts and, though it would
spend more money than otherwise would have been the case before Obamacare, it
would overhaul Medicaid into a program in which states are given a per capita
grant and provided the flexibility to run their own programs.
But at the same time, the GOP bill preserves much of the regulatory structure
of Obamacare; leaves the bias in favor of employer healthcare largely intact;
replaces Obamacare's subsidies with a different subsidy scheme; and still
supports higher spending for Medicaid relative to what was the case before
Obamacare.
Big Government Republicans are jt as execrable as Big Government Democrats.
And what we have here is a product of Big Government Republicans.
We can do better.
We mt do better.
Repeal Obamacare, in its entirety.
Then, open health care to the free market. Stop treating health insurance
as if it's health care. Trt people to decide what services and
benefits they want to pay for. Free doctors from reams of regulations and
let them practice medicine. It's easy if you try.
Following President Donald Trump's executive order instructing agencies to
provide relief from the health law, the Internal Revenue Service appears to
be taking a more lax approach to the coverage requirement.
The health law's individual mandate requires everyone to either maintain
qualifying health coverage or pay a tax penalty, known as a "shared
responsibility payment." The IRS was set to require filers to indicate
whether they had maintained coverage in 2016 or paid the penalty by filling
out line 61 on their form 1040s. Alternatively, they could claim exemption
from the mandate by filing a form 8965.
For most filers, filling out line 61 would be mandatory. The IRS would not
accept 1040s unless the coverage box was checked, or the shared responsibility
payment noted, or the exemption form included. Otherwise they would be labeled
"silent returns" and rejected.
Instead, however, filling out that line will be optional.
Yowza! The individual mandate is dead! And with it, the funding "glue" that
John Roberts decided was necessary to hold Obamacare together is gone, perhaps
for good.
And if this news isn't enough to bury Obamacare, how about one of the nation's
largest insurers
pulling the plug on the exchanges?
While Republicans continue to grapple with plans to repeal and replace
Obamacare and stabilize health insurance rates, Humana is the first major
insurer to say it is dropping out of the individual market for 2018.
"Based on our initial analysis of data associated with the company's
health-care exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period,
we continue to see further signs of an unbalanced risk pool," said Humana
CEO Bruce Brosard, on a conference call with analysts Tuesday. "Therefore,
the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for
2018."
Translation — we're losing too much money on old, sick people. Which
is what everyone with a brain said would happen when Harry Reid and Nancy
Pelosi foisted this debacle onto .
Did they listen? No. And so here we are, in the final stages of Obamacare's
death spiral.
All we need to do now is wait, and get ready for
the GOP replacement, coming soon to a congressional committee hearing room
near you.
Three New Jersey Democrats think they've found a sure-fire way to sidestep
President Trump's plan to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities —
have NJ taxpayers make up the difference.
New Jersey lawmakers from immigrant-rich Hudson County on Tuesday announced a
bill that would provide state aid to sanctuary cities denied federal funds for
failing to comply with immigration rules.
The bill was introduced in both hoes of the legislature on Tuesday by State
Sen. Brian Stack, Assemblyman Raj Mukherji and Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro,
all Democrats from the 33rd District.
The legislation, S-3007 in the Senate and A-4590 in the Assembly, would allow
municipalities or counties denied federal funds to apply to the state Commissioner
of Community Affairs for a "dollar-for-dollar" match to compensate for the
withheld federal money.
Let me put this in words you three turkeys can understand.
No. Way. Jose.
The people of Union City and the 33rd District may have voted for you, and you
might think your loyalties lie more with illegal aliens and less with your
taxpaying constituents, but that's not my problem, it's theirs. And I stand
with President Trump in wanting to see equal enforcement of our immigration
laws. Which means if anyone should be on the hook for your virtue signalling,
it's the people in your District, and not the rest of .
Then let's see how they feel about your activism when you're raiding their
pockets. Becae I'm thinking they're not gonna be too pleased.
Fortunately Governor Christie would be insane to sign this bill into law.
So it's all jt grandstanding on the part of Hudson County progressives, for
now. But if NJ's voters are dumb enough to put Phil Murphy into the governor's
office next year then throwing tax dollars at illegal aliens will be the
least of our problems.
Prospect Park Mayor, Mohamed T. Khairullah, signed an executive order to
reassure residents that they will be protected from President Donald J. Trump's
executive order to ban green card and visa holders, along with refugees,
regardless of any resident's immigration stat.
Break the law, we won't care!
His name's Mohamed, so I'm guessing if someone breaks Sharia law, he'll
care, a lot. Immigration law, not so much.
In his executive order, he made it clear that all citizens, regardless if
immigrant, refugee, green or visa card holder, are safe in Prospect Park and
will not turn anyone to the federal government unless they have committed
unlawful actions.
Yo, Chief, "citizens" implies "valid American." Ergo, no issue re immigration,
green cards, visas, or refugee stat. On the other hand, overstaying a visa,
or sneaking into the , they're "unlawful actions." Really, you could look it
up. Then there's jihad; it's pretty "unlawful" too, not that you'd rat out your
friends, right?
So it looks like Prospect Parkistan is now a safe haven for anyone looking to
hide out from DHS, no matter why. What could go wrong?
Barack Obama's open borders are closed until further notice.
Don't expect them to re-open any time soon either.
First there was The Wall, then President Trump signed an Executive Order today
spending visa entry into the U.S. from seven countries known to harbor
radical Islamic terrorists: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.
Naturally the ual spects are aghast.
American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero blasted
Trump's plan as unconstitutional.
"'Extreme vetting' is jt a euphemism for discriminating against Mlims,"
Romero said in a statement issued moments after the signing. "Identifying
specific countries with Mlim majorities and carving out exceptions for
minority religions flies in the face of the constitutional principle that
bans the government from either favoring or discriminating against particular
religions."
The "minority religion" of which he speaks is, of course, Christianity. Lefties
hate Christians. And Barack Obama's government prevented persecuted
Christians living in majority Mlim countries from entering the U.S.
President Trump vows to reverse that punitive and ill-conceived policy.
Becae "extreme vetting" should apply to the populations that breed
terrorists, not to the folks who are victims of Islamic terrorism.
In an interview with CBN, Trump said persecuted Christians from Syria would
get priority.
"They've been horribly treated. Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria
it was impossible, at least very tough to get into the United States? If you
were a Mlim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost
impossible."
And right on cue, a slowdown on Mlim immigration is labeled as a "ban."
"These actions taken by Donald Trump are tantamount to a Mlim ban," Abed A.
Ayoub, the legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee. "This is the Mlim ban that was promised by him on the campaign
trail."
Yo Abed, quick, who's the policy director for the Saudi-Christian
Anti-Discrimination Committee?
I'll give you a hint. If he existed, he'd already be dead.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees that you, your gutter religion, and your
pedophile prophet's ramblings are free to associate anywhere, anytime,
anyhow. No one is "banning" Mlims. No one is shutting down your mosques
or taxing your congregants. There are no "Christianity police" forcing
hijab-wearing women to don bikinis.
And if you report a crime, you don't need to find 4 Christian witnesses
before the police will take a report.
So tell me again how persecuted you are.
The plight of Christians in Mlim lands is real, and heart-breaking.
The "plight" of Mlims in the U.S. is known as the American Dream.
Pardon me if I don't feel bad for you.
And I won't apologize for wanting President Trump to help the thoands of
Christians your co-religionists are persecuting day and night. You wanna
help Mlim refugees? Call the Saudi embassy. Or call the Iranians, I hear
they're flh with cash thanks to your buddy the former president. But don't
expect to take in any more Mlims; we've already done are part. If you
don't like that, well, you're free to go back to Mecca.
The thing that struck me most about today is how President Trump kept saying
"we" and "." Not "I." And not in the context of "this is not who we
are" either.
He's genuinely proud to be an American. He's ready to work for .
As one of his first 3 official acts he signed an Executive Order proclaiming
a National Day of Patriotism. Pride in America is something we haven't seen
in at least 8 years. It's a nice feeling to have it back. Becae America
is the greatest country on earth. America is special.
America is that shining city on a hill.
To borrow a phrase, it's morning in America again.
Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Becae today we are not
merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party
to another — but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and
giving it back to you, the American People.
This presidency isn't about him. It's about .
He made it clear that he sees power in The People, not in Washington, DC,
and certainly not in himself.
January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers
of this nation again.
The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
He spoke with conviction. And sincerity.
A nation exists to serve its citizens.
Such a simple, and yet immensely powerful truth. Has our nation served her
citizens? Or special interests? I think you know the answer.
And he issued a new decree, "to be heard in every city, in every foreign
capital, and in every hall of power" — America First.
Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be
made to benefit American workers and American families.
America First. Write it down. Remember it.
Then he let know that we're all in this together. That he will be the
president for all Americans.
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.
The Bible tells , "how good and pleasant it is when God's people live
together in unity."
We mt speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always
pursue solidarity.
When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.
Again, simple words. Yet immensely powerful words too. America will be
unstoppable. America will be great again. Becae The People will be united.
Donald Trump is the captain of our ship. And once a long time ago during my
childhood I watched a TV show where a different ship's captain captured the
essense of We The People.
It is called Kirk's greatest speech, even if the episode itself is corny and
contrived. It's a speech that I believe Donald Trump would heartily endorse,
becae I heard echoes of James T. Kirk from him today.
This was not written for chiefs. (general consternation) Hear me! Hear this!
Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds.
Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no
words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three
words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before
or since. Tall words proudly saying We The People.
There's what this administration will proudly be all about. We. The. People.
Donald Trump is determined to slash government spending. A lot.
A preview of what's to come reads like a conservative activist's greatest
fantasies. And why not? Most of it comes directly from our friends at the
Heritage Foundation.
Every federal department will soon see its budget slashed and major programs
eliminated. And get this, the first step will be to privatize the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting and completely abolish the National Endowment for
the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities!
Yes my friends, no more taxpayer-subsidized lefty propaganda masquerading as
"news" on NPR. No more cowboy poetry or homoerotic line drawings. "Artists"
and "journalists" who want to produce that kind of crap will have to find a
sympathetic liberal billionaire to subdisize their sophistry.
The goal is to reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
To get there the State Department will say goodbye to the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation and funding for the Paris Climate Change Agreement and
the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Jtice
Department will shed the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
Violence Against Women Grants, and the Legal Services Corporation. They'll
also see huge reductions in funding for their Civil Rights, Environment,
and Natural Resources divisions. And the Energy Department will roll back
most funding to 2008 levels while dropping the Office of Electricity,
the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and the misleadingly
named Office of Fossil Energy which is actually dedicated to phasing out
fossil fuels. Frack, Baby, Frack!
Four corporate welfare boondoggles are also on the chopping block: the Minority
Biness Development Agency, the Economic Development Administration, the
International Trade Administration, and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
That there is what those of in the Drain The Swamp section call A Great Start.
But wait, it gets better! Becae Trump has also pledged to reduce the entire
federal workforce through attrition by implementing a
hiring freeze. The unionistas are apopleptic of course. They consider every
single federal job to be critical for government to function. Guess
what? They're wrong.
There's a new sheriff in town and his two favorite words are "you're fired."
When it comes to our bloated federal bureaucracy that's mic to my ears.
Reality took a back seat to social engineering today when the New Jersey state
Supreme Court again
unanimoly ruled that every town in our fair state is required
to provide "affordable hoing." And after consulting their abac they set
forth a number to be built forthwith — 200,000 units, paid for,
of course, by you and me.
New Jersey has to build thoands more units for its low-income residents to
make up for the 16 years that the state didn't address those needs, the state
Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
In a decision addressing New Jersey's long-stalled regulations governing
affordable hoing, the state's highest court said towns mt take into
consideration the need for hoing that existed within their borders between
1999 and 2015. That's the so-called gap period when the Council on Affordable
Hoing failed to adopt new rules.
The 6-0 decision, the latest in decades of Mount Laurel rulings governing
affordable hoing in New Jersey, rejects the assertion that only 37,000 units
are needed and that the gap period calculations are not necessary becae that
need no longer exists.
Remember when Chris Christie was going to rein in our activist judiciary?
Yeah, me neither.
The premise of "affordable hoing" itself is blatantly absurd. The social
jtice warrior crowd unilaterally decided poor people "deserved" to live
in whatever town they wanted, regardless of whether or not that town's
real estate market was priced out of their reach. Becae "fairness."
Apparently working for what you want takes too long, and equality of
outcome is better than equality of opportunity anyway. So, free hoes
for everybody! Ain't socialism grand?
Is everyone entitled to a nice car and fancy clothes too? How about golf club
memberships and Disney vacations? Where does all this "fairness" end?
Time was people bought starter hoes. Or they rented apartments and saved
their pennies. And if you couldn't afford to live in Maplewood or Montclair
you settled for Newark or East Orange until you got a better job. That's
how my grandparents did it.
But nowadays folks want handouts, not a leg up. And why shouldn't they get
to live in Short Hills without paying what everyone else who lives there paid?
Our black-robed poobahs agreed, and decided to put a slum in every neighborhood.
Except theirs, of course.
So COAH is reincarnated, and high-density, low-quality, traffic-inducing,
school-overcrowding tenements will be foisted on all. And not to put
too fine a point on it, but the inhabitants of these hoing projects are
not always the most stellar of citizens, and they're not known for taking
pride in their surroundings. Pl they expect certain "services" to be readily
available, and I'm not jt talking about check-cashing outlets and
cash-for-gold storefronts. Think exotic pharmaceuticals and short-term
female companionship, IYKWIMAITYD.
All of which slaughters property values and quality of life for those of
who were here first.
But the affordable hoing activists don't care about that. They don't even
actually care about "affordable hoing." What they do care about are votes,
and even in this deeply blue state there are pockets of Republicans to be
infiltrated and subverted. Hence the imposition of affordable hoing,
and the Democrats who inhabit it. Import enough new voters and even the
most conservative towns will flip to the Free Stuff side. And then the
tax gouging can really begin becae hey, this is where the rich guys
live.
One of my Facebook friends is a former NJ resident who relocated to North
Carolina. Every time he sees another story about how NJ is screwing the
middle class he immediately adds the #GetOutNow hashtag. He has a point.
Once the slums arrive it'll be too late.
Here we go again. Liberal fascists scored another "victory" when the B Street
Band, a Bruce Springsteen cover group,
reneged on their contract to play at the New Jersey State Society's
inaugural ball. Why? President Trump, that's why.
The band announced the decision on Monday, after it said the planned appearance
"generated a storm of national news, from New York to Los Angeles, particularly
given Bruce Springsteen's clearly articulated feelings about President-elect
Trump."
"Our decision is based SOLELY on the respect and gratitude we have for Bruce
and the E Street Band," founder Will Forte, said in a statement.\
Naturally they're being applauded by All The Right People for their bravery.
Even as the organizers of the inaugural ball have to scramble to find a
replacement. But that's no biggie, right? Trump's illegitimate!
So riddle me this Batman. Why couldn't
Memories Pizza decline to cater a same-sex "wedding?" Why couldn't the
owners of
Sweet Cakes by Melissa show respect for their religio beliefs by politely
referring a homosexual couple to another bakery? Why can't a Christian wedding
venue freely choose which weddings they'll host without fear of lynch-mob
reprisals?
Becae, Tolerance!
You know, the same tolerance that
ran Milo Yiannopoulos off the camp of UC Davis last week. And the same
tolerance that forced Memories Pizza and Sweet Cakes by Melissa to
close their doors for good.
To the fascist Left, tolerance means death threats. Tolerance
means enforcing GroupThink. Tolerance means never having to associate
with someone whose views are different from their own.
The rank hypocrisy is pathetic. When progressives stand up for their principles,
it's bravery, jt ask Meryl Streep, one of the Bravest Of The Brave,
to hear her tell it.
But when Christians and conservatives stand up for their principles,
it's Hate Speech.
Which of course is jt one more reason why Trump won.
When your two Senators are Democrats you're bound to be repeatedly
embarrassed by their antics. But sheesh, Cory Booker and Bob Menendez
really outdid themselves today.
Booker broke with 228 years of tradition and became the first sitting
Senator to publicly speak out against the confirmation of his colleague
Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Why?
Becae he's running for president in 2020, and he's a horse's ass.
As Democrats look to regroup after their unexpected loss to Trump, Booker's
name has been floated as a potential front-runner to lead the Democratic Party's
presidential bid in 2020. Publicity is likely a big motivator behind Booker's
commitment to thrt his own views of Sessions into the spotlight.
He's gotta appear to be more radical than Lizzie "Fauxcahontas" Warren. And
face it, the libtard wing of the Democratic party eats this shit up. Too bad
he's an empty suit, with little appeal outside of New Jersey and other
coastal enclaves. And then there's the small matter of his entanglement with
the rampant corruption in the Newark Watershed Commission, where his protege
Linda Watkins-Brashear
pleaded guilty to multiple felonies involving bribery and official
misconduct. Not to mention his
sweetheat deal with his old law firm of Trenk, DiPasquale wherein they
continued to pay him a salary when he was mayor of Newark while he steered
lucrative no-bid city contracts their way.
It's like the Clinton Foundation, only without the foreign "investments."
(Ah, give him time, I'm sure he can rtle up a few checks from the United
Arab Emirates. -- Ed.)
Cory Booker won't be president. Of that I can assure you.
Meanwhile, his partner in mendacity, Bob Menendez, was by
making a fool of himself questioning Secretary of State nominee Rex
Tillerson. Bob wanted to know why Tillerson supported Trump's border wall with
Mexico.
I also want to point out that the last time a country tried to wall itself
completely from its neighbor was in Berlin in 1961, and that wall was
constructed by communist East Germany.
Wow.
Jt wow.
Yo Bob. The Berlin wall was created to keep East Germans in. Trump's
wall is gonna keep illegal aliens out. But other than that, the two
walls are like totally the same.
Try reading a book Bob. You might learn something.
Hey New Jersey. You elected this bozo? Shame on you.
Oh BTW,
he's under indictment. It's gotta take a boatload of corruption for a
Democratic administration to indict a Senator of their own party. Heck,
the case mt be ironclad, or political hack Paul Fishman wouldn't have put
his John Hancock on it, becae Fishman didn't touch Jon Corzine and you'd
have to be blinder than Stevie Wonder not to see his guilt.
Sorry Bob, but your credibility is shot. Anything you say can and will be ed
against you in a court of law.
Cory and Bob, your ineffective and unsuccessful attempts at character
assassination are noted, and rejected. Sit down. Shut up. Jeff Sessions
and Rex Tillerson will both be confirmed. And then the Real Fun will begin!
Today is my lucky day! The daily $5 lunch special at Lakeside Deli cost me a
whole penny less, becae
Chris Christie's sales tax cut kicked in!
Yup, 'tis true. NJ's 7% sales tax is now, drum roll please!, 6.875%.
A whopping 1/8 of a percent less!
Which means last week's $5.35 lunch bill is now $5.34.
Of course my euphoria is short-lived, becae we only got this massive
sales tax cut in exchange for a 23 cent per gallon hike in the gas tax. And I've
already been paying that new tax for a few months now.
See how that works? Raise one tax by 23 cents. Cut another tax by 1/184th of
that much. Becae, fairness, or something.
So I guess I should save this penny for posterity. Or until the next time I need
to buy gas, whichever comes first.
Last month when you voted to dedicate the newly raised gas tax to the
Transportation Trt Fund I'll bet you thought that meant the gas tax
revenue would be going into the Transportation Trt Fund.
Suckers!
State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants to divert it to, drum roll please,
bailing out the public employee pension fund!
Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Thursday announced a plan to allow the
state's pension fund to buy bonds directly from the Transportation Trt Fund
as it embarks on a borrowing spree to finance up to $16 billion worth of new
infrastructure projects over the next eight years.
The proposed legislation would allow the pension fund to accrue annual interest
on the state's debt rather than having the state pay that interest to Wall
Street, Sweeney said. The state would also avoid paying bond underwriting fees.
Nice obfcation there Steve. The interest doesn't go to "Wall Street." It
goes to mom and pop investors like me who buy government bonds. "Wall Street"
is jt the middle man, becae New Jersey doesn't have a system like Treasury
Direct that would allow individual investors to buy those bonds from the state,
and "avoid paying bond underwriting fees."
Why not?, you might ask. Becae then guys like Jon Corzine and Phil Murphy
wouldn't get their cut, except it turns out, when the vig goes to the public
employee unions instead. Then cutting off "Wall Street" is A-OK.
So there you have it. When they sold on the gas tax they told it was
for important stuff like roads and bridges. But when they spend the gas tax
it'll be going to some guy sitting on a beach.
Jill Stein's proxy war to propel Hillary Clinton into the White Hoe is over.
She's abandoning her Pennsylvania recount, and with it any hope to reverse
Donald Trump's Electoral College advantage.
Green Party-backed voters dropped a court case Saturday night that had sought
to force a statewide recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election,
won by Republican Donald Trump, in what Green Party presidential candidate Jill
Stein had framed as an effort to explore whether voting machines and systems
had been hacked and the election result manipulated.
The decision came two days before a court hearing was scheduled in the case.
Saturday's court filing to withdraw the case said the Green Party-backed voters
who filed the case "are regular citizens of ordinary means" and cannot afford
the $1 million bond.
Looks like her fund-raising fell short.
And so, without an opportunity to revert Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes to
the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua, Stein's recount efforts in Wisconsin and
Michigan won't matter. Trump will officially win the presidency on December
19th.
So why is she soldiering on?
In a word, to deny Trump legitimacy.
With 306 electoral votes Donald Trump's victory is a veritable landslide.
But suppose that her recounts drag out, and Wisconsin and Michigan fail to
complete them by the December 13th deadline? Well then those states won't
be able to certify their results, in which case their electors
will not be bound to Trump.
Suddenly 306 electoral votes become 280. And a ten vote margin is hardly
a mandate.
Still don't think Hillary's campaign is colluding with Stein on the recounts?
Becae if you don't, George Soros has a bridge in Brooklyn he can let you
have, cheap.
There's no way that a nobody candidate who barely raised $3 million dollars
in more than 2 years suddenly finds herself awash in more than twice that
much cash in 2 weeks. Not unless a whole lot of prominent Democrats are
writing her checks. And not unless she, overtly or not, promised them she'd
help Hillary steal the election.
But wait, there's more proof that Hillary's harridan hordes are playing dirty.
PA is doxing electors,
leading to incessant harassment. Democrat Governor Tom Wolf, doing his
best to one-up his convicted felon attorney general Kathleen Kane, released
the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Trump's PA electors.
He didn't do this becae he's for open government.
He did it to promote thuggery.
Remember all the holier than thou preening when Donald Trump said he "might
not" accept the results of the election? Yeah, me neither. Becae the preeners
are now engaged in an all-out assault on our nation's electoral integrity.
Fortunately their machinations will amount to nought. But it goes to show
jt how low they'll sink, how they'll leave no stone unturned in their quest
for power. And th they remind of why we mt remain eternally vigilant.
Today the uber-liberal Star-Ledger Editorial Board
posted an opinion piece chastising Donald Trump for wanting to imprison
flag burners.
In another pre-dawn Twitter purge, Donald Trump said our allegedly great
democracy should throw flag-burners in jail or strip them of their citizenship.
One might dismiss this as visceral nonsense or jt a shiny object for someone
with the attention span of a compulsive 8-year-old, or maybe a distraction to
keep his list of conflicts out of the news for few hours.
Actually, that tweet should be taken very serioly, not only becae he needs
to learn about the First and Fourteenth amendments, but becae it captures how
our next president feels about something as fundamental as freedom of expression.
OK, cool. It's their right. And they've got an endless supply of pixels.
Except, that "freedom of expression" thing doesn't apply to their comments
section.
Here's what I posted:
How does the SLEB feel about Koran burning?
And Editor in Chief Tommy The Commie Moran deleted it faster than Hillary
Clinton erased her email server.
Becae liberals love flag burners. But they hate being called out
for their hypocrisy. And nothing emphasizes their hypocrisy more than burning
a Koran, which as we all know is a Hate Crime of epic proportions, and requires
denunciation of Islamophobia as a matter of principle.
Except their Islamophobia is another man's anti-Americanism. And you can't get
more anti-American than burning Old Glory.
Alas we don't blow shit up when our flag gets torched.
Yet.
But wait, it's time for the pot to meet the kettle.
These are all attempts to delegitimize - and even criminalize - political
opinion he doesn't share.
Becae it's not like the SLEB and their lefty friends have spent decades
deligitimizing, and the past 8 years criminalizing, opinions they
don't share.
Oh, wait, yes it is. They're the real fascists.
In New York City it is illegal,
punishable by massive fines, to refer to a "transgender" person by anything
other than its preferred pronoun. You know, becae government needs
to enshrine a constitutional right to mental illness.
Throughout the Old South monuments to Confederate heroes are being torn down
in the name of "tolerance." It's a Hate Crime to fly the Stars and Bars. But
I suppose burning one is A-OK, right SLEB?
Across the length and breadth of this great nation it is illegal to
refe to bake a gay "wedding" cake.
And coincidentally today, the homofascist mafia has set their sights on
Chip and Joanna Gaines, for the unforgivable crime of attending a church
which condemns same-sex "marriage." A more wholesome couple you won't find,
anywhere. There could be no better role models for our children, or their
parents. They are the very embodiment of loving, caring, goodness.
But, gack!, they're "anti-gay!"
Chip and Joanna (and in fact all Christians) are the enemy, they
cannot be allowed to earn a living or star in a widely popular TV show. Their
thoughtcrimes are repulsive. The death penalty mt be the only option.
That's the mentality the Star-Ledger defends whilst vilifying Donald Trump
and erasing comments which do not conform to their progressive worldview.
And they wonder why no one, including me, subscribes to their rag anymore.
More than 200,000 residents left New Jersey last year, new Cens data shows.
The state lost 17,000 more people than it gained back, as residents left for
other states and overseas, according to the
2015 American Community Survey. The loss could signal potential future
issues with its population and economy.
New Jersey residents — 227,000 of them — abandoned the state
ranked dead last in income growth last year, and with the highest property
taxes.
Most of what the state gained back came from foreign immigration, which netted
the state 62,000 new residents last year. Earlier data suggests that many of
those immigrants come from Asia, as the region accounted for 45 percent of new
foreign migrants in 2014.
Most of our refugees ended up in Pennsylvania, Florida, California, North
Carolina, and Texas. Which says to me, if you're leaving NJ for Kookyfornia,
well, things here mt be pretty bad. Those nuts jt banned plastic grocery
bags, and they don't have any water. Yet almost 13,000 people thought it was
a better place to live than our not so fair state.
But those other states, they have vibrant economies. ? We've got Chris
Christie back, seeing as how his audition for Donald Trump's cabinet didn't
go exactly as planned. Color me underwhelmed. He doesn't want to be here,
and frankly, we don't want him to be here either.
Except, the only thing worse than a Governor Chris Christie is limoine
liberal Phil Murphy, or God forbid John Wisniewski. Yet they're the
front-runners to succeed Governor Gas Tax, who is inexplicably doing
everything he can to torpedo the candidacy of Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno.
Once upon a time our state slogan was "New Jersey and You, Perfect
Together." Now it's "Get Out While The Getting Is Good."
Taking some time off from his rapidly diminishing role on Donald Trump's
presidential transition team, NJ Governor Chris Christie returned to Trenton
today to whack some common sense into our state's legislative Democrats.
He vetoed a bill that would have granted unemployment insurance benefits to
striking Verizon and casino workers.
The bill
emerged during a six-week strike involving Verizon workers who walked off
the job in protest of the telecommunications giant's contract demands. About
4,600 of the 40,000 East Coast employees on strike work in New Jersey. They
returned to work in June.
Good. The Democrats think we're stupid and we'll gladly pay their unionista
buddies to go on strike. Except that's what their precio union's strike
fund is for. And in the Real World, if you can't afford to go on strike,
don't go on strike.
Alas our reprieve might be short-lived. The Democrats have cleared the decks
for limoine liberal Phil Murphy (aka Jon Corzine 2.0) to run for governor
next year. And since the NJ GOP bench is, shall we say, weak thanks
to Chris Christie's "troubles," it's likely he'll win, handing the reins of
NJ government over to the Tax-And-Spend crowd.
But a lot can happen in a year. And a win's a win. So thanks governor. We're
glad you remembered where your office was. Don't be a stranger, OK?
"The White Hoe Correspondents' Association is deeply concerned by
President-elect Donald Trump's decision to reject the practice of traveling
with a "protective pool" of reporters for his first visit to Washington since
the election," White Hoe Correspondents Association President Jeff Mason said
in a statement. "In addition to breaking with decades of historical precedent
and First Amendment principles, this decision could leave Americans blind about
his whereabouts and well-being in the event of a national crisis. A pool of
reporters is in place and ready to cover President-elect Trump. The WHCA urges
President-elect Trump to allow it to do its job, including being present for
motorcade movements, meetings, and other interactions. Not allowing a pool of
journalists to travel with and cover the next president of the United States
is unacceptable."
Listen up you sanctimonio stenographer for the DNC, President-elect Trump
knows where your loyalties lie, becae they most certainly do not lie with
"First Amendment principles." You hacks have no principles. You
exposed yourselves as whoring cheerleaders for progressive Democrats and
now you demand that the object of your derision bow before your preening
self-importance?
Let's get something straight sport. You need Trump. Trump doesn't need you.
There's plenty of alternative media. And a good portion of that media isn't
permeated by left-wing bias. Which is how Trump became President-elect in
spite of your best efforts to coronate Hillary Clinton.
White Hoe press secretary Josh Earnest said on Thursday that he would tell
the Trump transition team that it has "a responsibility to communicate with
the White Hoe press corps."
Got a Constitutional citation for that "responsibility" Josh?
Didn't think so.
I have a feeling that President Trump will find a way to get his message out
jt fine, without filtering it through the
JournoList clown show.
"Having a pool of reporters follow you around everywhere you go is inconvenient,
occasionally annoying and takes a long time to get ed to, but it serves an
important purpose," Earnest said during the daily briefing. "And this White
Hoe has gone to great lengths to coordinate with all of you as you organize
that effort and I would recommend that the incoming administration do the same."
The operative word there being "coordinate." We know all about the MSM / DNC
coordination that's been going on. So tell me Mr. Journalist, will
Glenn Thrh send his stories to President Trump for pre-approval? Will
CNN secretly share their interview questions with him in advance? Will
the LA Times bury an unflattering tape of his remarks?
I spect not.
Becae in the end
your credibility is shot, beyond repair. Your elitist disdain for Trump and
his voters cannot be denied. Like I said, he doesn't need you. And
there really is no good reason he should even throw you a bone. I hope he
banishes each and every one of you pressitutes to the wilderness where you
can flounder in a pool of lost subscribers and diminishing revenue.
Yup, we stayed up until 3:30 AM to watch the victory speech. Sophie zonked
out at around 1, but I woke up at 2:30 to tell her the good news.
God bless her, she made it to the school b on time this morning!
Anyway, it's a good day to be an American. And since I'm basically running
on coffee I'll jt post some celebratory mic to congratulate President-Elect
Donald J. Trump.