News
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project
Like many New Jersey municipalities, Cinnaminson Township (Burlington County) has a juvenile curfew ordinance that prohibits juveniles under the age of seventeen from being in public after 10:30 p.m. on week nights and midnight on weekends. The ordinance is on-line here.
Unlike most curfew ordinances, Cinnaminson's contains an exception for juveniles who are out after hours "exercising First Amendment rights protected by the United States Constitution, such as the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and the right of assembly. "
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: Selected Blogs
Rahm Emmanuel commented that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. He’s absolutely right. Success demands decisive action when opportunities arise..
This is exactly what the Left does after every tragic public shooting incident and what they are doing in the wake of Sandy Hook.
But the programs that gun control advocates advance do not make us safer; they just make us more vulnerable and more dependent upon government. However, that is exactly what these programs are really intended to accomplish - to make us ever more dependent upon government.
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: Latest News
The recent IRS scandal reminds us that the income tax was, is and will always be an immoral thing. When it is progressive, it is even worse.
When you go to the grocery store, the movies, or anywhere else, no one asks how much money you make and then adjusts the price accordingly. You pay whatever you believe that the fair price should be whatever your earning power. Why should it be different when it comes to government services?
Let’s agree as reasonable people that, if government provides essential services, we, as its recipients, should pay for them. Why then should those who are smarter, harder working or more productive pay more? Many of America’s high earners achieved their success by astutely paying the most advantageous price for the goods and services that they acquire. That is behavior that should be rewarded, not punished.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Open Government Advocacy Project
Published in 1992, the Department of State's "Guidelines on the Open Public Meetings Law" still contains relevant information that can be used to persuade and educate public bodies. For example, page 15 confirms that public meeting minutes must be disclosed when they are prepared, not withheld until after they are approved by the public body.
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- Written by: Mark Lagerkvist
- Category: Police Accountability Project
O
riginally published at newjersey.watchdog.org - republished under agreement. Investigative reporting by Mark Lagerkvist.
On television, Joseph Derrico pursues a monster truck on foot, pulls the driver out of the vehicle and tosses him to the ground. He is on truTV’s “Bear Swamp Recovery,” a reality show on vehicle repos by the “baddest towing team in Jersey.”
Yet Derrico collects a police disability pension of nearly $70,000 a year. In the eyes of the State of New Jersey, the retired Hamilton Township cop is “totally and permanently disabled” by a leg injury.
No stranger to trouble, Derrico was a criminal defendant when he retired in 2010. A Mercer County grand jury indicted Derrico on a felony charge of theft by receiving stolen property.
The patrolman escaped with his pension intact – thanks to a secretive deal with Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini, who dropped the case when Derrico retired.
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- Written by: Webmaster
- Category: Latest News
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) died in the Senate yesterday, according to a statement from a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The bill, which had already passed the House, would have allowed the government to snoop on private emails by granting companies the right to disseminate individuals’ sensitive, private information — like medical records — without their knowledge or consent.
Although CISPA likely won't be passed in its current form, Republicans and Democrats have a bad habit of resurrecting terrible Big Government legislation like this. This is the second year in a row that CISPA has been considered by Congress, and lawmakers have already said they're working on drafting new cybersecurity bills.
The Libertarian Party issued a release condemning CISPA earlier this week, which included this statement from Chairman Geoffrey J. Neale: "The provisions of CISPA are abhorrent and unacceptable in a free society. We must not only trash CISPA; we must repeal the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and every other law that violates our Fourth Amendment rights."
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- Written by: Gary Johnson
- Category: Latest News
Why is it not surprising that in the wake of the horrific attacks in Boston, some in and elsewhere are clamoring to put the brakes on the first real attempt at much-needed immigration reform in years? Some are even going so far as to call for a “suspension” of student visas, which have absolutely nothing to do with the chain of events that resulted in two crazy guys killing four people and injuring hundreds more.
When something bad happens, blame immigration. It is just too easy politically to conjure up images of foreigners coming here — legally or illegally — as the cause of our problems. Make no mistake, our current immigration system is broken. If it wasn’t, we would not today be wrestling with the very real and very difficult question of how to deal with the 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the country today. If it wasn’t broken, the arbitrary annual ceiling on visas for highly-skilled workers would not have been hit in only five days. If legal immigration levels were allowed to be set by the marketplace, rather than by artificial limits negotiated by politicians and labor unions, maybe we wouldn’t need as much of that border “enforcement” everyone seems to love so much.
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- Written by: Webmaster
- Category: Latest News
The Political Book Club monthly meeting will occur at the Lawrence Branch of the Mercer County Library on May 7th at 7:00 PM.
A member of the Libertarian Party will be on hand to discuss Libertarian philosophy.
Books to be discussed are For a New Liberty - The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray Rothbard, and The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure by John Allison.
All are welcome.
A free audiobook version of a For a New Liberty is available at mises.org.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Police Accountability Project
April 17, 2013
Lt. Antonio M. Domingues, Internal Affairs Unit
Newark Police Department
247 16th Avenue
Newark, NJ 07103
(via e-mail to
Dear Lt. Domingues:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and ask that you accept this e-mail as our Internal Affairs complaint. We would like your agency to investigate whether Officer Vernon Bradbury and other personnel employed by your agency acted in accordance with department policy and the law regarding a motor vehicle stop and arrest on May 13, 2011.
According to the Appellate Division's decision in State v. Long, Docket No. A-1857-12T3 (on-line here), Bradbury testified that when he pulled over Nelson Long for speeding, drugs "fell to the ground" when Long exited the vehicle. Bradbury said that an ensuing pat-down turned up more drugs in Long's sweatpants pocket.
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- Written by: Smiling Dave
- Category: Selected Blogs
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Keynes and Hayek portrayed in the Fight of the Century. |
I was wondering. Should I refer to Ludwig von Mises as “von Mises”, instead of “Mises”? Should I change my name to Smiling von Dave?
We know that Keynes popularized an old blunder [one picked up by the Money Dis. crowd], one that was around for ages, the so called lack of Aggregate Demand. Say wrote his famous law to refute it, and I’m sure a little research will find it mentioned in the Stone Age cave drawings.
We’ve written many times about how wrong it is, in theory and reality. Now it’s time to see how Mises took care of it. Genius that he was, all he needed was one line to expose the key flaw in Keynes’s theory.
Unfortunately, when he wrote the one liner, he didn’t mention Keynes by name. He also wrote it in technical language, because he wasn’t addressing a lay crowd, but experienced economists. This may be why Mises’ argument is not well known. Luckily for our generation, and for mankind in general, Smiling von Dave is here to spell it all out.
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- Written by: Jay Edgar
- Category: Police Accountability Project
On March 10th, the NJ Libertarian Party Police Accountability Project filed an Internal Affairs Complaint with the Stafford Township police department over an officer illegally reaching into the pockets of a suspect without a warrant or due cause.
On Tuesday we received a response from Chief Joseph Giberson, III in response to our complaint. Our complaint was "Not Sustained" because of the retirement of the offending officer his refusal to participate in developing facts in our complaint. However, as a result of our complaint, Chief Giberson has agreed to increase training of his officers in regards to the rules for terry frisks using the basis of our complaint as an example. See the response from Chief Giberson here.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Police Accountability Project
According to his Financial Disclosure Statement, Oaklyn Borough (Camden County) Councilman Ronald C. Aron also serves as a Police Sergeant in nearby Haddon Township. A lawsuit and settlement agreement that I received by way of an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request shows that a March 23, 2010 administrative hearing found that Aron had violated police department regulations. Aron challenged the discipline in an April 5, 2010 lawsuit (Aron v. Township of Haddon, Docket No. CAM-L-1759-10) and then appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court (Aron v. Township of Haddon, Docket No. A-4407-10T4).
In November 2012, Aron settled his lawsuit and appeal with the Township and agreed to: a) plead guilty to "conduct detrimental to the good order of the police department," b) accept a 10 day unpaid, disciplinary suspension, c) forfeit 80 hours of accrued sick time and d) accept a "one year demotion from the rank of sergeant to patrol officer" which had already been served.
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: Selected Blogs
Although a great number of libertarians are also secularists, there is still a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned for our cause in the pages of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Beyond religious content, the Bible provides a timeless perspective on human nature and the human condition, which is unchanging.
Therefore, it seems fitting that, during this Easter and Passover season, we take a fresh look at what the ancient texts have to offer to us friends of limited government and private property.
The first lesson, which is often tough for libertarians to swallow, is that liberty is not necessarily a popular idea. From time immemorial, a great many people have been willing to trade essential liberty for the illusion of a strong ruler who is both a powerful protector and a benevolent caretaker.
Subcategories
NJ Libertarian Blog
Imported from NJ Libertarian News from the published feed
Videos
This is a page of various videos that we have either created or found interesting. Be sure to check out and follow our YouTube page.
Open Government Advocacy Project
The Open Government Advocacy Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to ensure transparency and accountability at all levels of government. Articles posted here are a subset of the work of the committee. For more information visit the Open Government Advocacy Project blog.
If you would like to demand accountability and ensure that your local governing body or school board adheres to the Open Public Records Act we can help you request information from them. Contact John Paff, the project chair here.
Insight New Jersey
NJ government is huge and complex. Private industry is shrinking while the size and cost of government bureacracy continues to grow. The articles posted here provide a guide of the NJ State Government and can be used by citizens and candidates for office to evaluate what departments can be reduced drastically in size.
We'll start with just some of the departments and provide a breakdown on what they do (or purport to do), how many employees they have and how big their budget is.
Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project
The New Jersey Libertarian Party's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project (“the Project”) seeks to get New Jersey municipalities to repeal loitering ordinances that should have been -- but were not -- repealed when the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice was enacted in 1979. The Project has successfully had loitering ordinances repealed in over 30 towns. For a summary listing of all the towns see Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project page.
Police Accountability Project
The Police Accountability Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to search out cases of police misconduct, file former Internal Affairs (IA) complaints when appropriate, and to publicize violations of rules and laws by the police. There may be other stories posted on the NJLP Police Internal Affairs Complaint Blog page.
If you would like to help or know of a case we should be looking at, contact the committee at
Legislative Affairs Committee
The Legislative Affairs Committee was created to allow a select core of Volunteers to take action on legislation and policies which directly affects the people of New Jersey.
[INTRO VIDEO - HOSTED ON NJLP STATE YOUTUBE AND EMBEDED HERE]
Staff
Legislative Director and Committee Chair
Volunteers: