Context: Outgoing Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop hid an extra $150M budget shortfall, while running for Governor. But maybe worse, his response to the new Mayor calling it out is to double down saying if he was still Mayor he would have refused to raise taxes for the 5th straight budget.

A large factor in municipal finance woes is that Mayors & Councils remain laser focused on attracting business & development via tax gimmicks rather than investment. Municipal housing wouldn't pay taxes, sure, but it would capture rents directly, without the profit motive.

Municipal land sales fix this year's budget, but public ownership allows for ongoing revenue and more control over how land is used. This is highlighted by ICE concentration camps now having to be fought against.

Municipal/County ownership requires investment, which is why Gov Murphy's failure to follow through on his campaign promise of creating a public bank will continue to haunt our state as interest flows out to corporations at higher rates to tax payers and not back into other projects and lower taxes.

Fulop has long been known for 2 things. Catering to real estate/business & being a poster. This episode perfectly captures both as he has a new job shilling for businesses against Mamdani's extremely popular policies in NYC & saying "and I'd do the stupid thing again" is peak posting through it.

Folks on the Partnership for NYC Board should probably keep a close eye on their financials. And Mayors and Councils need to accept that they can't provide for their residents while also continuing to starve themselves of tax revenue and income by catering to business and the ultra wealthy.

Kudos to @traceytully.bsky.social for covering this

Context: So does this mean he's planning to bring just the apartheid to NJ or the genocide too? A rare tag b/c it's life & death: @mikiesherrill.bsky.social please don't do this. Your Jewish constituents don't support this man, this government, nor racial superiority plans & genocide.

This nails it. 10/10. No notes.

Context: 1st, the quick 1. The bombs the US violated international law to drop on Iran, w/o justification or provocation, are 30k lbs. That means it weighs about the same as the US supplied/funded F35 that is used for genocide in Gaza daily. The F35 could carry half a bunker buster while taking off.

So, sure Josh, give them as many bombs they can't drop as you want. Only giving Israel weapons they can't use to murder Palestinians? Welcome to the resistance. 2nd: It's obviously bananas to find new, additional weapons to give to Israel during decades of ongoing crimes against humanity & genocide.

3rd: Iran hates America more than Israel? Does that mean more than Jewish people too? But we've been told their anti-Semitic blood lust could never be satiated & their only reason for hating Israel was it being a Jewish state? We can't believe you'd say something so anti-Semitic, & self-hating Josh.

4th: Anything anyone one does with this asshat is stupid. He's cosplaying IDF in the Capitol, a military already known for crimes against humanity when he chose to volunteer with it, while trying to justify an ongoing genocide with Rashida Tlaib's Palestinian flag celebration her heritage.

West vs. East

Context: If I had a dollar for every time a centrist Dem told me to vote Blue No Matter Who to elect some shitty nepobaby with no platform & no plan to help voters I could have bought out Venice to block Bezos' wedding plans. But when a left candidate overwhelmingly wins, in a deep blue electorate:

We may have never had such a strong contrast across the Hudson River than Sherrill vs Mamdani. Cuomo got Sherrill level support, conceded within hours, & yet he's running in the general, b/c his voters buy the Islamophobic propaganda his PAC was running, which Fox News gleefully picked up.

Progressives got slightly less support in NY than in NYC, but it was also split across 3 candidates, whereas in NYC, ranked choice allowed for cross-endorsement & a campaign to not rank Cuomo, regardless of who else you supported. In NJ it would be don't rank Gotthiemer (for policy not sex creep)

Centrist Dems vs. the Hudson River West: If we lose its the left 40%+ who voted progressive's fault for not getting on board East: *running past ,hair on fire, screaming* Anti-Semitic Communist Sharia Law is here! Daddy Cuomo running against the Dem candidate in the General is all that can save us!

Context: Congress saw no evidence that Iran was turning toward a bomb. Any vote to approve this strike would have just implicated those who supported it in violation of international law. The problem is the strike, not the authorization. The problem is replaying the Iraq playbook instead of thinking

We have decades of evidence of just Netanyahu lying about If a being months or years away from a bomb. Factor in other folks lies and you can make a whole video. This is just another lie.

Satirical Context:

Context: State Senator Beach makes it seem like the challenging slate wanted this ballot set up. Actually it was the County Machine who refused for years to have a ballot that would be recognizable to anyone else in NJ. This year they pushed for this exact ballot design, then lost the ballot draw.

We know that candidates listed first get a vote bump. When only County Machine candidates could get the first slot because of convoluted slate rules, Senator Beach and others dismissed the idea that those ballots are not fair. Now that it works against them they want the court to save them.

Beyond the ballot design, what other "vote for one" race assigns seats to candidates who lost? Which of the 71 seats did they "win?" Who would determine such a thing? Those questions are unanswerable because it's a complete nonsense argument that won't sway voters & should be thrown out of court.

Kudos to Alfred Lubrano and @inquirer.com for covering for the last gasps of a dying political machine.

West vs. East

Context: Camden County is the only one in NJ where the municipal committees are elected using a single bubble. Every other county breaks out committee candidates by the districts they represent & you vote for up to 2. The county claims there's no other way b/c the software can't support 71 bubbles.

Some might argue that the approach easily & successfully used in 20 other counties would represent a viable alternative, given that they use voting software too, & requires only a few bubbles per district. But maybe that's too democratic for George Norcross and his handpicked crony slates.

Now to Ballot Siberia. Eliminating the unconstitutional County Line undercut a lot of the power of Ballot Siberia, as candidates are now grouped by office, making it far more obvious who is running in a given race. Looking at the ballot, it's pretty hard to claim there wasn't 2 choices in this race.

But even if you wanted to argue all that whitespace might have confused a voter or 2, the Camden County Dems have only themselves to blame. B/c in losing The Line the judge knew the Machines would still be on their bullshit, w/ bigger font or different sized boxes. "Make us stop punching ourselves"

🧵. We have a long tradition of sign crimes in NJ politics. One theme has been "a family with a long tradition of political service" aka neopbabies.

"No, no last name, just "ROB." No let's not talk about my legal name. Nor that my dad who I'm named after & gave me my perch in politics is awaiting felony sentencing during my election." "That's me, DONALD M. PAYNE, ..... jr, definitely not courting voters who haven't heard the news about my dad"

🧵

Context: Despite what this sign might tell you, a candidate seemingly with the first name 1 and the last name A, is not who you should vote for in the Guabanatorial Primary.

The machines lost the Line, w/ Gotthiemer funding the legal defense of the unconstitutional ballots. So now the machines are pushing paint by number ballots to again remove focus on who you're actually voting for and instead encourage mindless Lemming behavior.

You need to remember 3 names to vote in the Dem Primary

🧵. We have a long tradition of sign crimes in NJ politics. One theme has been "a family with a long tradition of political service" aka neopbabies.