I visited 11 states in 13 days and lived to tell the tale

In Chancellor Phil Murphy’s dystopian dictatorship otherwise known as the People’s Republic of New Jersey his official policy is that Covid-19 is lurking behind every bush and inside every small business just waiting to send you to a slow and ghastly death.

Out in the Real World it’s different. A whole lot different.

On Thursday August 6th Sophie and I set out on a 2500 mile cross country drive, destination Tempe, AZ, more specifically Arizona State University. We needed to arrive by the 12th so she could move into her dorm on the morning of the 13th. We took a northeast to southwest route, I-80 through Pennsylvania into Ohio, I-70 through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, an interminable, boring stretch of US-54 through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, before hooking up with I-40 in New Mexico to Arizona, and then taking I-11 south for the home stretch into Tempe.

Along the way we stopped, frequently, to eat, shop, sight see, and of course use the rest rooms. Everything was open. No lines. No capacity restrictions. We ate in restaurants! Inside! We stayed in hotels, where they had coffee and breakfast available every morning, just for the taking!  We met a lot of nice people and ate some great food. We sat at bars and talked to the folks around us. We walked around outside without masks, even in parks! I got to stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and it was such a fine sight to see. And you know what, the Covid-19 bogeyman didn’t catch us. Imagine that.

Afterward I flew on Southwest from Phoenix to Las Vegas. I gotta say, they make flying fun. Yes everyone had to wear a mask, but they weren’t jerks about it, gently cajoling the passengers to go with the flow. It was an easy, one hour flight. McCarran airport was mostly open, and people were playing the slot machines, eating, and drinking. I got my bags and checked into the Aria hotel for some much needed R&R.

MGM requires masks everywhere, even at the pool, unless you’re actually in the water, walking to/from the water, or actively eating or drinking. They have roving Mask Patrols, gently asking people in chairs to mask up. And as I soon learned, “actively drinking” means “holding a water bottle.” Yup. You could sit maskless for hours, so long as that bottle doesn’t leave your hand. Most of the security dudes carried a supply of water bottles which they slyly passed out with a good natured laugh. The rules are stupid. And everyone knows it.

Nevada has a nitwit Democrat governor, Steve Sisolak, who’s almost as much of pompous jerk as Phil Murphy. So even though restaurants and casinos are open, bars are closed. Which is dumb because that meant none of the drink windows along the strip were available and I couldn’t sit for hours at a bar playing video poker like I usually do. But that didn’t stop people from being out and about! In fact I’d say the crowds on Saturday night were almost at pre-pandemic levels and everyone was having a good time.

I flew home through Houston on Tuesday the 18th. United requires masks too, and they’re a lot more authoritarian about it. Also you could tell that every single person who works for them hates their job. But I landed in Newark safely, took an Uber home, and since almost every state I visited is on our esteemed dictator’s quarantine list, I (mostly) stayed in my house for the past 2 weeks.

Guess what? I’m still not sick. Neither is Sophie, who’s enjoying college life and making friends.

Open the damn state Murphy. The rest of the country is rolling along just fine.

Comrade Mayor Kelley confirms he will raise our taxes

I hate it when I’m right.

I said Caldwell’s new Democratic Socialist Council Politburo would gleefully raise our taxes to fund their utopian schemes, and Comrade Mayor General Secretary Kelley has now confirmed that fact in an interview with The Tap.

This year, we will have to increase taxes to do the work we have to do.

And what “work” is that Comrade?

For starters, he’s gonna merge our police department with West Caldwell’s. He claims that’ll save us a million dollars a year. And yet, he still needs to raise our taxes?

He wants to create a Sewer Authority so that tax-exempt entities pay sewer fees, which he says will save us money. But he still needs to raise our taxes.

He’s gung-ho to establish a Stormwater Authority to, you guessed it!, raise our taxes. Caldwell will be among the first municipalities in the state to impose Phil Murphy’s Rain Tax. I think that’s known as being “Progressive,” or something.

Where’s all this tax money going? Affordable Housing!

Kelley also noted that the borough council recently voted to authorize a contract with Topology to work toward an area-wide rehabilitation designation.

“An area-wide rehabilitation designation” is the first step in declaring our town “blighted,” paving the way for redevelopment and the construction of high-density housing. Goodbye charming downtown Caldwell, hello East German Bauhaus brutalism circa 1962. Or East Orange as it looks today. Whatever works so long as it brings in busloads of new Democratic party voters.

For eight years former Mayor Ann Dassing and a Republican council majority kept the municipal tax levy essentially flat. And yet the garbage got collected, snow got plowed, streets got paved, and water mains got replaced. The cops came when you called. The fire department bought a new truck. In other words, Caldwell’s government worked and the taxpayers didn’t get hosed.

After a mere six months in power the Democrats are already upending the status quo and salivating at the prospect of all that new revenue. And John Kelley has another 3 1/2 years to go. Yippee Kai Ay.

Zuckerberg’s minions put me in jail again, so bye-bye Facebook

After my last run-in with butthurt liberal snowflakes I sat out my Facebook suspension and figured they’d let it go. Nope. I got banned again, no posting for 30 days this time.

Well screw that. I deleted the app. I blocked Facebook notifications in Chrome and Brave. Erased the browser bookmark. Take your 30 days and stick it where the sun don’t shine Zuckerberg. I’m done with you and your fascist speech police.

Apparently I’m not the only one.

Then there’s the Feds, who have their eyes on Zuckerberg’s rampant privacy violations and seemingly targeted suppression of conservative viewpoints. There’s an old saying, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. General Barr, unleash the FTC!

Some butthurt liberal told Facebook my “Cardboard Police” blog post is Hate Speech

So it seems that General Secretary John Kelley and the Caldwell Politburo don’t like it when I mock them. Someone reported my last blog post — Attack Of The Eco-Stasi Cardboard Police — to Facebook for, get this, “hate speech.”

El Oh El comrades.

If you don’t like the mockery, don’t do mockable stuff. Like, you know, wasting tax dollars on garbage snooping. And while you’re at it, lighten up. Take the rod out of your ass. Or I shall taunt you a second time.

Attack of the Eco-Stasi Cardboard Police

Caldwell’s new Politburo isn’t wasting any time imposing their nanny state ideology on us Kulaks. This past Sunday night, like every other Sunday night in the 22 years I’ve lived in this town, I put my garbage cans out by the curb before hitting the hay. And when I arrived home from work on Monday night I fully expected to see 3 empty garbage cans ready to be brought back up the driveway.

Not this time. Only one can was empty, the other 2 stood there, full of trash, ignored by the garbage men.

OK, maybe they were in a hurry, and forgot to grab the other 2, I said. So I left them there, and refilled the 3rd can on Wednesday night for Thursday’s pickup.

As it turns out I happened to be upstairs near a window when the garbage truck came around the bend. And I watched as the garbage man walked over to my 3 cans, rummaged through each one, opening the trash bags and peering inside them one by one, before leaving all 3 of them sitting, un-emptied, by the curb.

“What fresh Hell is this?”, I exclaimed.

My wife was on her way out to run an errand. She said she’d catch up to them and ask what the problem was.

And they told her. In no uncertain terms. “There’s cardboard in your garbage. We aren’t allowed to take cardboard.”

The garbage men are now the Cardboard Police. They search the trash for errant shoe boxes. Yes, we had disposed of empty shoe boxes, which is apparently now a crime in Mayor John Kelley’s Peoples Republic of Caldwell. Put shoe boxes in the trash? Your garbage won’t get picked up.

I’m living in a Kurt Schlichter novel.

My wife told them she’d fish out the shoe boxes. The guys said they’d swing on back and take the rest of our, for the moment, approved garbage.

And to think for this I pay $16,000 a year in property taxes.

Does anybody here need some empty shoe boxes? I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with them now. Maybe I’ll burn them in the fireplace, a sacrifice to Mother Gaia, to appease the Eco Stasi. Cardboard, it’s Public Enemy Number One in the new Woke Caldwell Borough.

Sigh.

Caldwell voted to go Full Commie, here’s what to expect

Yesterday Comrade Lace and his sanctimonious sycophants succeeded in scrapping 9 years of successful local government by convincing a majority of our citizens to embrace higher taxes, less freedom, and a return to iron fisted Democratic Party rule. Republicans Dassing, Hauser, and Fiore are out; three more Democratic Socialists Kelley, Rodgers, and Schmidt are in.

So what can we expect come January 1st? Well, in the immortal words of the late Ed Koch, “The people have spoken and now they must be punished.”

Borough Administrator Paul Carelli is out, to be replaced by a Maureen Ruane clone. That is they’ll appoint someone who’s willing to overlook the niceties of Council resolutions when disbursing taxpayer funds to Party apparatchiks. CFO/Borough Clerk Lisa O’Neill is out too. In her place they’ll dig up a half-dead retired CPA who’ll pretend to provide “oversight” from his vacation home while “misplacing” $120,000, or more. And of course Borough Attorney Greg Mascera’s services will be terminated and a reliable Democrat installed in his place.

In fact no one’s job at Borough Hall or the Community Center is safe. Dick Codey needs to plant his pension-padding party loyalists in positions of power so anyone in his way is gonna get kicked to the curb. Think of it this way, Mayor Dassing’s philosophy of government run like a business will transform overnight into new Mayor Kelley’s vision of government run like the DMV, only worse.

And then the Real Fun can begin. Because Comrade Zampolit Lace needs us to Get Woke. So no more curbside leaf collection. And I’ll wager that he’ll make us compost our Christmas trees in our yards too. Because the econuts have oodles of time on their hands to shove yard waste into those silly paper bags and they figure the rest of us do too. And if you’ve got bum knees like me and can’t handle all that bending and fetching, tough. They’re on a Mission and we’re just collateral damage.

Speaking of bags, your new Politburo will ban them. Plastic, paper, it doesn’t matter. You will cart around those germ-infested cloth bags while you shop and you’ll like it. Everybody has to pitch in to Save The Planet. And if you forgot to bring one, or just stopped off at Jacks for a few things on your way home from the bus, you’ll have to purchase another “reusable” bag. Think of it as the first of the many new taxes they’ll impose while curtailing our freedom.

After they ban plastic grocery bags they’ll ban plastic straws, plastic cutlery, plastic takeout containers, and styrofoam too. Your convenience is no match for their activism. Remember, it’s time to Get Woke, peasant!

Next on the Progressive Socialist hit parade? Making Caldwell a Sanctuary City, and setting up “needle exchange” for our opioid addicts. Plus a mandatory $15 minimum wage for all businesses in town and quotas for minority hiring. All of which will, of course, ensure that Bloomfield Avenue soon resembles the wastelands of formerly prosperous towns like East Orange and Irvington as merchants move away to preserve what little profits Democrat Governor Phil Murphy allows them to keep.

Ah but then they can declare the Avenue “blighted” and impose a Redevelopment Plan featuring the urban socialists’ dream of “mixed use” architecture. Imagine high-density high-rises in the East German style lining Bloomfield Avenue, concrete monstrosities with street level retail spaces featuring the usual urban hipster blend of overpriced coffee shops, marijuana dispensaries, used clothing boutiques, and vegan juice bars. Above that they’ll put unibox apartments designed by brutalists according to UN approved “green building” specs. Does that mean every flat gets exactly one composting toilet? Of course it does. It means the whole ugly thing will be wrapped in solar panels too.

And what’s a $15 minimum wage if they can’t enact it for public employees as well? You might have heard them promise to keep our taxes in check but deep down in your hearts you know they were lying. (The first clue being their enthusiastic support for the Full Day Babysitting Boondoggle tax hike.) They’re gonna raise taxes on everything that’s not standing still. And then they’re gonna pass out the goodies to their favored constituencies — public employees, welfare queens, and illegal aliens. You think our taxes are high now? Just wait until their need to virtue-signal “compassion” intersects with your wallet.

Then they’ll administer the coup de grâce. A local income tax. It’s the only way to get around the 2% property tax cap. Governor Murphy set up the framework for Jersey City but left the door open for any town to impose one for “good cause.” And what’s a better cause than Progressive Socialism? BOHICA!

Do I have to go on? Because I’m getting depressed. This is what you geniuses voted for Caldwell. So don’t come crying to me when you get it, good and hard.

Vote like your country depends on it

Today is election day. This is it. We must repudiate the Democrats’ insanity. Because if the words “Speaker Pelosi” don’t scare you, nothing will.

Take it from Sarah Hoyt:

Nobody knows anything, but dear LORD.  Even if you hate your local GOP knucklehead, even if he is a RINO loser…. do you want Nancy “Grey Goose” Pelosi in charge of the House again?  Do you want those idiots on the left to think — as they have since they successfully demonized the squishy GWB — that they need to keep turning up the insanity and drama and lies? They’re already too crazy. Worse, do you want them to enact their contract on America, from higher taxes to throttling our energy production? Are you NOSTALGIC for the Obama years?

I for one would like a chance to dig myself out of the financial hole those years left me in.

Vote for your local Republican knucklehead. Even if you’d like someone better.  You go to war with the underwear you got on.  Vote against the democrat lunatics. It’s important.

Vote RED. The alternative is more Alexandria Occasional-Cortex.

Civility? Don’t count on it if Kelley, Rodgers, and Schmidt take over Borough Hall

The Caldwell Democrats are riding their sanctimonious high horses this election season, preaching “civility” while snobbishly refusing to engage in dialog with anyone who disagrees with them. So what can we expect if they succeed in ousting Mayor Ann Dassing and Council President Rich Hauser?

Well for starters we can envision a Loyalty Test for citizens petitioning their government for a redress of grievances.

Citizen stands up to speak at a council meeting: “John Doe, 123 Main Street, I’d like to discuss…”

Mayor Kelley: “Just a sec there peasant, let me check your Facebook and Twitter first.”

The Democrats consult their phones, and whisper to each other.

Mayor Kelley: “We’re not going to listen to you Mr. Doe, your political positions do not seem receptive to our progressive munificence. Next!”

Only Democrats in good standing get an audience with the Politburo.

Then there’s this little gem in John Kelley’s fluff interview with TAPinto West Essex.

Another cost reduction will occur with a reorganization of the community center, which I intend on doing the first day in office.

Uh oh. “Reorganization of the community center.” You know what that means. Fire Gordon Lawshe! And everyone else whose dedicated service to our town stands in the way of Comrade Kelley giving those jobs to Loyal Party Members. The Democrats need to repay their political patron and Dick Codey has a long list of party hacks who need jobs to pad their pensions. Too bad if good people get kicked to the curb.

That’s “civility” all right. Civility, the Nancy Pelosi way. And if there’s any, uh, collateral damage, hey, it’s not like they’re going to make us build our own camps. Yet.

Remember the last time Democrats were in charge in Caldwell?

I do.

So here’s a little history lesson for the newbies.

When Democrats ran the town, those monstrous townhouses on Lane Avenue by 7-11 suddenly appeared, although no one wanted to admit how they got approved. I guess it helped that the builder was best friends with the then-current Mayor, Democrat Paul Jemas. Vote Democrat if you want more townhouses like that. Goodbye butterfly garden, hello high-density housing!

It’s interesting that the current Democratic candidates for mayor and council are making such a big deal about the parking situation at the Community Center. Do you know who was mayor when that parking structure was designed and built? Democrat Susan Gartland. Maybe they should complain to her instead of wandering around town whining about it.

By the way, did you know that Paul Jemas and Susan Gartland are both key advisers to the Kelley, Rodgers, and Schmidt campaign? ‘Tis true. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

But wait, there’s more.

The last time the Democrats had a majority in Borough Hall their hand-picked Borough Administrator specialized in writing checks without council authorization. And the accountant they hired to supposedly get the town’s finances in order “lost” $120,000 of our money. The professional team that’s in place now thanks to Mayor Dassing has created controls to prevent those sort of shenanigans. Vote Democrat and those controls go away.

Remember last year when the Democrats made a big deal about the Sewer Commission stipends? What they didn’t tell you is that when they ran the Sewer Authority it was more than $1,000,000 dollars in the red, because they didn’t bother to collect years of arrears owed to Caldwell by neighboring towns. Who got those arrears cleaned up and ensured that going forward sewer bills are remitted to us on time? Ann Dassing and Rich Hauser.

Did you happen to read one of John Kelley’s fluff interviews where he casually mentioned he wants to “reorganize” the staff at the Community Center “day one?” The thing is, there’s an ordinance which says he can’t do that. Not unilaterally, anyway. And he ought to know better, since he was on the council when it was enacted. But alas, this is the same old song the Caldwell Democrats have been singing since they got voted out of power. They hide behind this fake civility persona when in reality they’re on a quest for raw power, the power to sack our town’s professional civil servants and hire their political cronies instead. Mayor Dassing has our town running like a business; John Kelley will have it operating like the DMV.

In that same puff piece John Kelley said he wants to keep municipal taxes “low.” Here’s the sad truth. When Democrats last held a council majority our municipal taxes regularly increased by 2, 3, even 5 percent a year. And during the infamous first reval they larded up the budget with so much cruft the actual increase was close to ten percent, which they then pretended was caused by the reval and not by their duplicity. In the 8 years that Ann Dassing has been our mayor the municipal tax hit has gone up by one percent, in total. One percent over 8 years is vastly different from ten percent in one year.

It’s said that those who do not study the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. Don’t doom Caldwell. Reject the empty promises of the Kelley, Rodgers, and Schmidt campaign. Re-elect Mayor Ann Dassing and Council President Rich Hauser. Elect Jason Fiore. Caldwell’s future depends on it.