By Lee Enochs
When Joe Biden was elected President last year he promised to bring unity to a country that was highly divided during the Trump presidency.
However, he and the Democrats quickly forgot that campaign pledge to bring unity and healing to our divided nation as evidenced by Biden and the Democrats’ massive $3.5 trillion dollar spending bill called the “Build Better Act.”
The 2,465-page bill which promises to significantly expand America’s social safety net, is Joe Biden’s chief legislative priority, and if passed will fund everything from expanded Medicare funding, free community college and the fight against climate change.
By Lee Enochs
History now shows that Rumsfeld and the second Bush administration were gravely mistaken about WMD's being in Iraq at that time and the consequences of this blunder of unfathomable proportions, was the loss of over 5 000 American soldiers and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi lives.
Because Rumsfeld was considered the "chief architect" of the second Bush administration's Iraq war policy, any objective discussion over his legacy must include this monumental and historic foreign policy mistake. This was left out of your comments on Rumsfeld.
If we want freedom and privacy, we must persuade others that these are worth having.
by Lee Enochs
Anyone that has been paying attention to what is transpiring in current affairs throughout the United States should acknowledge that political progressives and socialists have been emboldened and are increasingly influencing public policy decisions in America. With this increased influence of leftism has come a proportional erosion in our civil and constitutional liberties.
Case in point, the massive social media popularity and “Green New Deal” agenda of Democratic socialists Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other leftist environmentalists, have already influenced new President Joe Biden to kill the economically prosperous Keystone Pipeline contract and with it, thousands of American jobs.
By Ryan McMaken
On Wednesday, a mob apparently composed of Trump supporters forced its way past US Capitol security guards and briefly moved unrestrained through much of the Capitol building. They displayed virtually no organization and no clear goals.
The only deaths were on the side of the mob, with one woman—apparently unarmed—shot dead by panicky and trigger-happy Capitol police, with three others suffering nonspecific “medical emergencies.”
Yet, the media response has been to act as if the event constituted a coup d’etat. This was “A Very American Coup” according to a headline at the New Republic. “This Is a Coup” insists a writer at Foreign Policy. The Atlantic presented photos purported to be “Scenes from an American Coup.”
While progressives blame social crises on the free market, Republicans and conservatives are unwilling to admit the problems were caused by prior government interventions. Thus the passage of Dodd-Frank was aided by claims that the housing bubble was created by deregulation, while Obamacare’s passage benefited from widespread misconception that America had a free-market health care system prior to 2010.
By Patrick McKnight
New Jersey cannabis reform advocates began 2018 with high hopes. Newly elected Governor
Murphy pledged to legalize the recreational use of cannabis within his first 100 days. Several
pieces of legislation were introduced in the State House but stalled over the summer due to
debates over the budget. The Murphy administration was able to loosen restrictions on medical
cannabis and order a temporary halt to cannabis-related prosecutions, but the 100 day window
came and went without legislative action.
Now legislators have resumed work on comprehensive reform bills and want a vote by the end of September. While many of the details still need to be ironed out, several provisions of the new proposal are being discussed publicly. These include the possibility of delivery for both medical and recreational cannabis, expungement of prior convictions, removing a previously proposed cap on the number of licenses, the creation of a cannabis policy advisory commission, micro-licenses for small businesses, and allocating an unknown percentage of licenses for minorities, women, and communities with high unemployment.
One of the major unknowns remains the tax rate on recreational cannabis sales. Previous proposals ranged between 15% and 25% and the possibility of local municipalities levying and additional 2%. The latest bills would likely remove sales tax from medical cannabis.
“Everything is a guessing game because leadership still has to get the votes,” said Assemblyman Joseph Danielsen, D-Somerset, who has helped draft this latest bill. “There are a lot of moving parts. It’s like an erector set.”
State lawmakers say they want to finalize two separate cannabis bills, one for medical and one for adult recreational use. They plan to submit these to the Murphy administration for feedback before introducing them for a vote in the State House. After months of setbacks a vote could now be coming within a few weeks. Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, previously indicated he wants to take action by the end of September.
A shocking new poll shows Libertarian Murray Sabrin in first place with 18-29 year olds at 32%. Sabrin is in a statistical tie for second place with 30-49s at nearly 20%.
The scientific poll conducted by Gravis Marketing, a non-partisan research firm, shows that 16% of voters in New Jersey who know of Murray Sabrin will vote for him. The results of the poll showed that once voters were informed of Sabrin's positions, he quickly rose to be within striking distance of incumbent, scandal-ridden Democrat Bob Menendez and Republican challenger Bob Hugin.
The poll asked voters about the current candidates for Senate in New Jersey and included questions about specific issues as well as run-offs between the candidates.
The poll shows that once voters learn of Sabrin's positions they quickly abandon Menendez. It indicates that after learning about Sabrin, just 31% of voters support Menendez, 30% support Hugin, and a shocking 16% support Libertarian Murray Sabrin, including a first place showing with 18-29s at 32% and a statistical tie for second place with 30-49s at nearly 20%. When voters know that Sabrin is a college professor, support rises to 18% overall and 40% among young Millennials. Sabrin has no gender gap and his strongest support comes from Asians (21%) and Hispanics (16%). The poll shows reveals awareness of Sabrin is only 26%, showing great room for growth in his support as more New Jerseyans get to know him.
By Patrick McKnight
The former head of the DNC, presidential candidate, and Governor of Vermont made headlines recently when he said:
"These young kids are very liberal on social issues, they are libertarians economically at heart."
On a certain level this would make sense, considering young people are inheriting $21 trillion in debt from the federal government. However it flies in the face of the media portrayal of all young people as card-carrying socialists.
"If look at the results in Virginia, which were just shocking, Ralph Northam, who by anybody's description is a moderate centrist, got 69 percent of the under-30 vote," Dean said of the gubernatorial race there last year.
Looking forward to the 2018 mid-term elections Dean says, "I think most of the people who will win the new seats are probably under 40. Some will be under 35."
