WolfeNotes.com

Will NJ Governor Murphy Defend The Fist Amendment and Free Speech?

Or Will He Continue To Support A Genocide In Gaza?

The National Police Crackdown Is Well Underway

As University campuses explode across the country in support of Palestinians and in opposition to Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the official crackdown has begun.

Almost exactly like the national crackdown that crushed the Occupy Wall Street movement – coordinated by the Obama administration – a series of heavily armed and sometimes violent police crackdowns is underway at Universities across the country, where police are arresting students and violently dismantling tents in occupied college squares.

I would not be surprised if the Biden Administration put out the word, like Obama did to crush Occupy.

Thus far, students are standing their ground and the movement appears to be expanding to additional universities. Let’s hope the courage continues and the movement expands! Chicago ’24!

The protests follow closely on a McCarthyite spectacle in Washington last week, where House Republicans were seeking the scalp of another elite University President of Columbia University. They’ve already driven out Presidents at Harvard and Penn, with the MIT President still hanging in there.

Academic freedom has been virtually terminated, and the Israeli lobby, billionaire bullies withdraw funding, and now even Netanyahu himself is calling student protesters Nazi’s and seeking to kill their political freedoms, like free speech, assembly, and protest rights.

So, I was not surprised to learn that Princeton University has just written to students to threaten to expel protesters there.

Which poses a political challenge to “liberal” NJ Governor Phil Murphy.

Will he speak out to defend the First Amendment and push back against Princeton’s threats?

Or will he continue the cowardly complicity of silence, as not only US rights and academic integrity are destroyed, but the US funded and supplied Israeli genocide continues?

Hey Phil – I even Googled mapped the route for you – why don’t you and Tammy wife take a stroll from the Governor’s Mansion at Drumthwacket – a 1 mile, 23 minute walk – to Princeton and have a chat with the University President about so called liberal values?

Then issue a Press Release statement?

The whole world is watching. Silence is complicity.

Real Estate Interests And NJ Builders Assc. Praise Private “Regulation”

This is all brought to you by a “liberal” Democratic Governor and Legislature

My email brought me another stellar report from Gov. Murphy’s Business Action Center (BAC):

New Rules Adopted for Private Construction Inspections

Qualified developers now have access to streamlined inspection processes with the option for supplemental on-site private inspection agencies if local inspection officials are delayed. The Uniform Construction Code (UCC) Subchapter 4 defines the parameters of private inspection agencies to ensure compliance with the law.

The new rules were effective April 1 – a real April Fools Day message!

Not one public interest organization, environmental group, or private citizen participated in the regulatory process (no comments submitted). But the rules were strongly praised by business groups, including the NJ [Fossil] Fuel Merchants Assc. So, that ought to tell you something.

8. COMMENT: The New Jersey Builders Association (NJBA) strongly supports the Department’s proposed amendments to the Uniform Construction Code and are appreciative for the significant work and support on this initiative from Governor Phil Murphy, the late Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, legislative leadership, and Department staff.

RESPONSE: The Department thanks the commenter for their appreciation.

The Murphy BAC is a secret corporate lobbying group inside State government and by its own words works on behalf of private interests to undermine protective regulation:

We can connect you with government agencies, direct you to appropriate officials, facilitate meetings and follow-ups with regulatory agencies and so much more, all at no cost and strictly confidential.

Did you get that?

For example, the BAC provides secret meetings at DEP to pressure DEP regulators to relax rules, and all that is done in secret and is not subject to OPRA.

This is government promotion of corporate interests that goes well beyond Gov. Whitman’s Business Ombudsman and Gov. Christie’s Red Tape Commission. 

Privatization, deregulation, subsidies, and secrecy – all in one bundle.

Gee, what could go wrong?

NJ’s construction industry has a long history of corruption and dangerous practices – from shoddy construction, to sinkholes caused by burying construction debris on site, to illegal disposal of toxic fill (AKA “dirty dirt”), to building schools on hazardous waste sites – to name just a notorious few off the top of my head.

Now, builders and developers can hire their own private inspection crews to cover all that up.

We are now witnessing the effects of decades of privatization and deregulation, as Boeing planes crash, toxic bomb trains derail and burn, oil and gas wells blowout, and cargo ships take out bridges.

The coming years are likely to add various building failures to that list.

And this is all brought to you by a “liberal” Democratic Governor and Legislature.

Jail And Concentration Camps For People Who Can’t Afford The Rent

I Know Obscene Deliberations When I See Them

JUSTICE KAGAN: [sleeping] is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct too, but, presumably, you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public.

And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public. ~~~ Oral argument, transcript at page 20)

[Update below – check out the Biden administration’s “enlightened” legal position.]

I felt a deep sense of shame and disgust in just now reading the transcript of the oral argument before the US Supreme Court in a case that involves a local ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon that bans camping by homeless people. Scores of homeless people have been harassed by police, heavily fined, and/or jailed for violating the ordinance by sleeping in public places.

I’ve recently been in Grants Pass and was disgusted by the enforcement mentality there. Watch this superb documentary video to get an understanding of the local situation:

• Illegal to Sleep: Grants Pass’ Cruel War on Homelessness

Last year, I wrote about my personal experience with police enforcement of a similar local ordinance in Port Townsend, Washington. Based on the existing US 9th Circuit judicial precedent, I convinced city officials to back off and cease their enforcement crackdown, see:

• A Labor Day Weekend In America

But let’s get back to the current case before the US Supreme Court.

The context of this case is extremely troubling – not only is the homeless problem huge and growing, there is a massive crackdown by State and local governments to criminalize poverty and homelessness.

And that disgraceful crackdown is about to get much, much worse. Watch this Trump statement to see what’s on the horizon: concentration camps:

We will ban urban camping…. Violators of these bans will be arrested….

We will open up large parcels of inexpensive land …. and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated.

(Chief Justice Roberts’ line of questions and hypothetical about “accessibility” to homeless shelters actually explored the concept of relocation to “tent cities” (see p. 80).

We’ve actually come to a point where lack of money is now a crime. Next stop: the poor house.

Where politicians openly attack the least among us and even propose jail and concentration camps for the poor and homeless.

It was sickening to read that transcript and follow the demented legal gymnastics of the radical right wing judges, as they attempted to uphold this local ordinance and authorize the criminalization of homelessness.

To hide behind absurd legal distinctions about whether homelessness was a “status” or a “conduct”, or whether a blanket or a tent defined “camping” is a cruel, perverse and twisted form of “thought”.

To find it a “very difficult policy problem” to determine if it is cruel and unusual punishment to jail desperate homeless people is shameful.

To question whether there’re is a “deeply entrenched liberty interest” in sleeping is absurd.

To posit the existence of a “necessity defense” – which seemed to satisfy Justice Gorsuch – is sickening. Period.

For a Justice of the US Supreme Court [Jackson] to have to make these kinds of observations is degrading to even have to read.

Justice Jackson had to say that sleeping is a “basic human need” and then posed a hypothetical about whether eating in public could be banned or criminalized. (see the transcript at page 22 and 29)

You know, it seems both cruel and unusual to punish people for acts that constitute basic human needs. […]

So is it your argument that the Eighth Amendment has nothing to say about how the City responds to such problems? I mean, suppose the City decided that it was going to execute homeless people.

But Justice Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts had no shame. They pressed on.

Barrett wanted to explore the blanket – “bedding materials” – camping – fires – tents – sleeping issues.

Justice Sotomayor had to squash that bullshit: (page 32):

… you’re not precluded from prohibiting fires. You’re not precluded from prohibiting tents. What’s at issue is are you prohibited from keeping — having someone wear a blanket anywhere in the city.

Your intent was to remove — stated by your mayor, intent is to remove every homeless person and give them no public space to sit down with a blanket or lay down with a blanket and fall asleep. …

Where do we put them [the homeless] if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?

Still, they would not back down.

Chief Justice Roberts intervened and just changed the subject with this disgusting quip:

Is being a bank robber a status?

(Roberts later posed a hypothetical about a hungry person breaking into a food store. There were multiple comparisons to drug addicts. WTF is the matter with these people?)

I had to stop reading at this point, just 35 pages into a 168 page transcript.

So, let me reframe the issue:

Is being a twisted, heartless, right wing black robed fascist a death penalty eligible offense?

My sense is that the Court will uphold this ordinance which will precipitate a massive mad rush by State and local governments to further attack and criminalize the homeless.

In the increasingly likely event that Trump is elected in November – heckofajob Joe Biden! – we will see concentration camps for the homeless, migrants, drug addicts, mentally ill, and other “socialists” and ANTIFA and protesters Trump and his fascist followers hate.

Don’t say you didn’t know and you weren’t warned.

[End notes: There is no doubt that the intent of this law is the same as the US immigration policy of “deterrence”:, i.e. to make conditions so intolerable that people just leave town (disappear).

In terms of criminalization: I met men who were facing felony sexual misconduct charges for peeing outdoors.

Finally, again stating the obvious, the Justices are trying to make homelessness an individual failure, not a social problem.

Do we actually need to amend the Constitution to clarify that human beings have a fundamental right to dignity and that humiliation and punishment for social failures is cruel?

[Update – check out the Biden administration’s “enlightened” legal position: local solutions, poor laws, and charity. (p. 83-84)

And the — the problem of eating is addressed at the local level as the, you know, history and the poor law shows is that the community takes care of its own residents. And it’s common now as it was at the founding for churches and individuals and whatnot to offer their help, to charity in the community. And that’s what happens in Grants Pass. Various organizations feed — feed the — the homeless people. And there are social services to help the homeless people.

OMG and they don’t recognize the relationship with a dog: fuck these people:

JUSTICE ALITO: What if the person says I — I — yeah, I know there’s a bed available at the Gospel Rescue Mission but they won’t take my dog.

MR. KNEEDLER: I don’t think –– I don’t think the inability to take your dog to a shelter is — is a sufficient reason. There are shelters in some larger cities that may well
take pets, but —

Republican Rollbacks Never Restored 

Over Time, The Policy Of Continuity Goes In One Deregulatory Direction

On this Earth Day, instead of issuing the standard warning to get the hip boots on because the bullshit will be deep, I thought I’d reflect on a disturbing trend in the historical direction of environmental policy.

Let’s call it the “deregulatory ratchet” (TM).

In politics and media, there is a similar dynamic called the Overton Window. Over time, the corporate right have shifted the Overton Window sharply to the right, such that what was unthinkable just a few years ago is now considered a viable and reasonable policy agenda (which we have called fascism, see:

• The Right Wing’s New Long Game Plan – “Project 2025″

The deregulatory ratchet operates in a similar fashion, to wit: Republican administrations roll back regulatory protections and the succeeding Democratic administrations never restore them and just move on to other issues.

The deregulatory ratchet has multiple policy features: deregulation, privatization, budget cuts, revolving doors, corporate capture, and co-optation of environmental groups are the primary mechanisms.

Some call this “Neoliberalism”, but we prefer our term “deregulatory ratchet” because that term is historical, dynamic, and provides a framework to drill down on the concrete substantive policy and program agenda that constitutes the “deregulatory ratchet”.

This term can promote transparency, media coverage, and accountability. In contrast, the term “Neoliberalism” is far too theoretical, abstract, and inaccessible. To some, the term even sounds good, i.e. a form of “liberalism”.

There are several factors that promote or enable the deregulatory ratchet to operate with impunity and without accountability.

These factors include a depleted media that lacks institutional memory, co-opted environmental groups led by mediocrities or incompetents (that’s you Doug O’Malley, Ed Potosnak, and Anjuli Ramos), and public officials who have corporate backgrounds and are increasingly willing to gaslight, manipulate, and even lie to the press and public (that’s you, Shawn LaTourette).

The Murphy administration and DEP Commissioner LaTourette provide a case study that perfectly illustrates the deregulatory ratchet. They have yet to restore Republican rollbacks going back 30 years to the Whitman administration and more recently 8 years of the Christie administration.

As a result, regulatory protections continue to erode; DEP budget, staff and science are increasingly inadequate to respond effectively; environmental groups are totally co-opted sycophants and cheerleaders; and as a result environmental quality and public health protections worsen across the board while corporate power increases.

So, with those thoughts in mind, here is my letter to DEP Commissioner LaTourette that provides the evidence to support my “deregulatory ratchet” theory. I think the current term for this letter is “the receipts”:

———- Original Message ———-

From: Bill WOLFE <b>

To: “shawn.latourette@dep.nj.gov” <shawn.latourette@dep.nj.gov>, “Sean.Moriarty@dep.nj.gov” <Sean.Moriarty@dep.nj.gov>

Cc: “keith.cooper@rutgers.edu” <keith.cooper@rutgers.edu>, “O’Neill, James” <ONeillJ@northjersey.com>, “tmoran@starledger.com” <tmoran@starledger.com>, “fkummer@inquirer.com” <fkummer@inquirer.com>, “wparry@ap.org” <wparry@ap.org>, “ferencem@njspotlightnews.org” <ferencem@njspotlightnews.org>, “jonhurdle@gmail.com” <jonhurdle@gmail.com>, Robert Hennelly <rhennelly55@gmail.com>, “david@njglobe.com” <david@njglobe.com>, domalley <domalley@environmentnewjersey.org>, Anjuli Ramos <anjuli.ramos@sierraclub.org>, “Taylor McFarland, NJ Sierra Club” <taylor.mcfarland@sierraclub.org>, “zoe.kelman@gmail.com” <zoe.kelman@gmail.com>

Date: 04/20/2024 6:36 AM EDT

Subject: NJ Leadership & Voluntary compliance – chromium in drinking water

Dear Commissioner LaTourette:

California and NJ have long been national leaders in the adoption of science based stringent standards to protect public health and the environment for air, water, toxic site cleanup, chemical safety, energy, and climate.

In the nation’s most densely populated State with a legacy of industrial pollution, under federal and New Jersey State laws, NJ DEP has long adopted environmental standards that were broader in scope and more stringent than federal minimums. This reflects the federalism framework under federal environmental law, which allows States to adopt more stringent standards, based on local conditions and policy priorities.

However, NJ’s national leadership and policy of adoption of more stringent State standards were reversed by Governor Whitman’s 1994 Executive Order #27, as part of her “Open For Business” policy initiative.That Executive Order was never revoked.

Making things worse, on his first day in Office in 2010, Gov. Christie issued a package of “regulatory relief” Executive Orders: Executive Orders #1 (regulatory moratorium) Executive Order # 2 (regulatory relief), Executive Order #3 (Red Tape review), and Executive Order #4 (abdication of State role to local government).

As you know, those Christie Orders were revoked by Gov. Murphy’s EO #63, but that Order did not restore the policy of State leadership and more stringent State DEP standards that existed prior to the Whitman Order #27.

While there have been exceptions, since the Whitman administration, DEP has relied primarily on federal EPA standards. Whitman and Christie era regulations have been readopted without change. In fact, the Murphy DEP has readopted 51 regulations without change (see the DEP Rule Re-adoption Without Change page.)

With this context in mind, I am writing to followup on my recent email that requested the status of the DEP’s consideration of a State drinking water MCL for hexavalent chromium.

The State of California just adopted the first drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium.

The NJ DEP does not have a drinking water standards for hexavalent chromium.

As you know, in September 2010, DEP scientists assigned to the NJ Drinking Water Quality Institute recommended a health based MCL for hexavalent chromium of 0.07 parts per billion: (see the Drinking Water Quality Institute’s meeting minutes for September 10, 2010:

3. Subcommittee Summaries—Subcommittee Chairpersons Health Effects—L. McGeorge: She noted first that the Subcommittee had adjusted its workplan, delaying action on radium and tertiary butyl alcohol to the first quarter of 2011; they would consider adding nitrates to their workload at a future meeting. Second, after A. Stern’s presentation at the previous Health Effects Subcommittee (HE) meeting on the slope factor developed by the NJDEP Chromium Workgroup for oral exposure to hexavalent chromium, the HE had accepted this slope factor as the basis for a Health-based MCL recommendation for hexavalent chromium at its September meeting. L. McGeorge distributed copies of a memorandum to the Testing and Treatment Subcommittees, recommending a health-based maximum contaminant level (HBMCL) of 0.07 μg/L for hexavalent chromium based on this slope factor.

Thus, hexavalent chromium is an unregulated chemical similar to the regulatory status  of the family of “forever chemicals PFAS prior to recent DEP regulation.

Upon adoption of drinking water standards for PFAS in 2020, the DEP issued a press release that touted national leadership – and also made a statement that even without that State regulatory standard, that there was “voluntary” compliance upon “detection” (DEP Press Release):

“Safe drinking water is a top priority for the Murphy Administration,” said Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe. “With the adoption of these standards, New Jersey continues to lead the nation in protecting public health and the environment from these chemicals, which have been detected at varying levels across the state. New Jersey’s water systems have worked voluntarily and productively with us over the years, taking steps to protect the public when these chemicals have been detected. By adopting formal standards, we are putting in place a clear regulatory framework that will ensure consistency in monitoring, public notification and treatment across the state.”

https://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2020/20_0025.htm

Has there been similar voluntary protections for hexavalent chromium, i.e.”New Jersey’s water systems have worked voluntarily and productively with us over the years, taking steps to protect the public when these chemicals have been detected.”

Have NJ water systems sampled for, detected, and treated hexavalent chromium to at least 0.07 ppb?

Accordingly, I strongly urge you to adopt the drinking water standards of 0.07 ppb recommended by DEP scientists back in 2010.

Thank you:

Bill Wolfe

Incredible History – Smoking Gun Memo

Corzine DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson Put That In Writing

California’s adoption of a drinking water standard for toxic hexavalent chromium triggered thoughts of a series of NJ DEP scandals we exposed 15 years ago.

In now re-reading some of those documents, I came across a smoking gun memo leaked to us that provides important historical information, particularly in light of the recent long delayed DEP regulatory action on “forever chemicals”.

People wonder why it takes so long for DEP to act to protect public health and the environment.

The DEP memos we released shed light on that question.

At the time, I viewed those memos through the lens of scientific suppression of DEP toxicological research on “forever chemical” PFOA, and issued this press release:

• Teflon Coats Public Agency Environmental Science – Jackson Sought to Have New Jersey PFOA Study Pulled from Publication

In October 2008, a PFOA risk assessment paper prepared by New Jersey Department of Environmental protection scientists was “pulled from submission for publication” under orders from then DEP Commissioner Jackson. Her rationale was the need for additional peer review, even though the paper had already been peer reviewed and was undergoing vetting before publication in the prestigious peer review journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Several months after Jackson left DEP, the study, entitled “Occurrence and Potential Significance of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) Detected in New Jersey Public Drinking Water Systems”, was eventually published in the journal’s May 8, 2009 edition. Despite this risk assessment evidencing the need for stricter standards, New Jersey has yet to incorporate it into drinking water limits. Neither has EPA, which is grappling with the issue now under Jackson.

With respect to suppression of that science, which long delayed DEP regulatory action, we can now see exactly how that was justified and the suppression justified.

The suppression of science was not limited to the single chemical PFOA – it was institutionalized at DEP via formation of a Science Advisory Board, whose express function was to block DEP science under the guise of “peer review” (by private sector industry scientists).

Check these extraordinary smoking gun memos out (boldface mine):

The Corzine DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson ordered Eileen Murphy, PhD., the DEP’s Director Of Science and Research, to block the release of a DEP scientific paper on the public health risks of “forever chemical” PFOA. Jackson wrote (boldface mine):

>>> Lisa P. Jackson 10/23/2008 1:29 PM >>>
Eileen,
I believe this paper should be pulled from submission for publication pending the results of a peer review by a panel of scientists. I believe the same requirement
should be applied to all scientific papers by memebers (sic) of this department that are
based on work they do for this department or data that they have access to
because of their work for this department. I thought that was the SOP now? If
not, it should be.
Lisa

Taken aback by that Order, Director Murphy responded to Commissioner Jackson, Murphy wrote:

For my own clarification – you are asking us to halt the external peer review being conducted by the journal and initiate our own DEP peer review of the paper?

Eileen A. Murphy, Ph.D.

Commissioner Jackson replied to confirm that order:

From:
Lisa P. Jackson
To:
Murphy, Eileen, Tormey, Catherine, Sondermeyer, Gary, Godoski, Jennifer,
Herb, Jeanne
Date:
Wed, Oct 29, 2008 2:50 AM
Subject:
Re: Fwd: Draft PFOA technical paper
I would like you and Jeanne to agree on a course of action. I do not believe we
will have this problem again since the new SAB will need to review any scientific
paper that is related to DEP work or data before it is published.

Did you get that?

“I do not believe we will have this problem again”. Just what was the “problem” Jackson referred to?

The “problem” was that DEP publicly released a scientific paper with data and a risk assessment that showed alarming risks to NJ’s drinking water and highlighted the need for DEP to take regulatory action.

The DEP scientists released this paper based on science and traditional scientific journal pre-publication peer review. They did not seek DEP “management” political review.

Note also how Jackson stated that this “problem” was solved: “the new SAB will need to review any scientific paper that is related to DEP work or data before it is published”.

So the SAB was designed to suppress controversial science and control DEP scientists.

The SAB was later populated with industry scientists, including a representative of Dupont.

See how that works?

You can read the complete chain of the original emails here.

So, the next time you hear the current DEP Commissioner – a former corporate polluters’ lawyer – talk about science and regulation and DEP’s so called stellar and aggressive policy and program, consider this history.

BTW, following this suppression at DEP, Ms. Jackson went on to serve a controversial one term as the Obama EPA Administrator.

She is now vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, and a member of Apple’s executive team.