Northeast

The great drone scare will flip New Jersey red in 2025

Published

1 year ago

December 19, 2024

Press Room

The great drone scare will flip New Jersey red in 2025

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Look, up in the sky! It’s a drone! It’s a plane! It’s a red wave!

Elections are often won by little things, and from my vantage point in New Jersey, there are lots of big things over the skies of the Garden State terrorizing families and communities. Caller after caller on my radio show wants to talk about one thing: drones. Well, two things. Drones and the absolute distrust in the Democratic-controlled government on the state and federal level.

This has become a major issue in the 2025 race for New Jersey governor. Democrats in power are gaslighting us, and the Republican candidates are seizing the moment to offer the kind of message that propelled President-elect Trump to victory. Make New Jersey’s skies safe again!

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and President Biden (Getty Images)

As a former New Jersey Republican county chairman and elected official, I have seen firsthand how Jersey tends to vote blue in even years but red in odd years. Along with Virginia, New Jersey is one of two states that will have a gubernatorial race in 2025. President Biden and Gov. Phil Murphy’s lack of action on the mysterious flying objects, combined with Trump’s performance this past November, may propel a Republican into the governor’s office once again.

DRONE DEBACLE PERFECT END TO BIDEN’S ‘YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW’ PRESIDENCY

Several Republicans are vying for the nomination, and they are putting out statements that vary from declaring a state of emergency to banning personal drone use to calling up the New Jersey National Guard to blow them out of the sky. These candidates demonstrate a strong contrast with the feckless, term-limited incumbent.

The Democrats vying for their party’s nomination are in a political catch-22. Criticize their own party’s incompetence or keep their head down. Democrat Congressman Frank Pallone said he attended a classified briefing but can’t tell us anything. Democratic Sen. Andy Kim went out with a news crew to observe them firsthand. What do you know? It turns out we aren’t crazy after all.

Murphy first said these drones pose no threat; then he said he’s powerless to do anything. Let’s face it: he’s more interested in the skies over Iowa than the skies over Jersey, as he plans to run for president in 2028.

AMERICA HAS A DRONE PROBLEM, AND NO ONE IS IN CHARGE

Contrast that with the statement made by New Jersey’s most famous summer resident, Donald Trump, who saw images of them flying over Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, “Let the public know, and now, otherwise shoot them down!!!” That is precisely the definitive leadership Jerseyans crave at this incredibly unsettling moment.

Trump’s statement was as Jersey as it gets, and it’s what I have been hearing on my radio show four hours a day, five days a week. Tell us the truth, or shoot them out of the sky!

Even for this administration, the level of gaslighting is remarkable. We are told they haven’t gone over any sensitive areas. Officials at two highly sensitive areas, Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, say the opposite. We are told they pose no threat… but call in a hazmat team if one crashes in your backyard! We are told not to believe our own eyes just like we were told not to believe our own eyes when we witnessed Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

We Jerseyans are cynical by nature, but we have reached our breaking point. We know that they know. So give us a break and stop being so condescending.

WE ARE VULNERABLE TO DRONE ATTACK AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country, with a large constituency of union workers, Latinos and Black voters. The same demographic that helped deliver Pennsylvania for Trump. He won Passaic County, once a Democratic stronghold.

Trump also over-performed with suburban White women. Their frustration is years in the making. They were told they could be domestic violent extremists for speaking up at school board meetings. Now, they are told to relax as their kids ask about those massive flashing objects moving in pattern formation that disappear when approached by State Police helicopters.

Before the 2021 gubernatorial race, I talked with a friend who said he wasn’t voting because Murphy had a 99% chance of winning re-election. I told him it would be close and the polls were wrong. The Republican, Jack Ciattarelli, came within a few points of defeating Murphy because a couple hundred thousand Republicans had the same mindset as my friend and stayed home.

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On election night in 2024, that same friend waited in line to vote for several hours after Jersey was called for Vice President Kamala Harris. I asked him why. “I want to make sure Trump wins the popular vote,” he proudly replied.

Republicans have learned their lesson and won’t be repeating past mistakes. They feel the momentum, even in blue New Jersey. The drones have now become a symbol of Democratic gaslighting, inaction and arrogance. In the words of a great New Jerseyan, come November, we won’t fuggetabaoutit.

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New York

Four Epstein Victims Ask N.Y. Lawmakers to Open His Estate to Lawsuits

Published

3 hours ago

May 4, 2026

Press Room

Four Epstein Victims Ask N.Y. Lawmakers to Open His Estate to Lawsuits

Seated before an array of New York State senators on Monday, Lara Blume McGee was asked by one lawmaker why it had taken her so long to go public with the details of how Jeffrey Epstein had abused her.

She paused for a moment, another victim of Mr. Epstein’s by her side, and leaned forward to speak into the microphone in the State Capitol.

“Fear,” said Ms. Blume McGee, who had been 17 and an aspiring model when Mr. Epstein abused her. It took her about 20 years to come forward.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a great manipulator,” she added, explaining that she feared being sued and having her life ruined by his capacity for retribution.

Ms. Blume McGee was among four women who testified in the State Capitol about the trauma Mr. Epstein inflicted upon them and the lasting damage he did to their lives. The appearance of two of the women — Ms. Blume McGee and Carine Silva De Deus — had been expected, but two other women — Glendys Espinal and Alexandra Golematis — also came forward. Both said they were speaking publicly for the first time about their experiences with Mr. Epstein.

Their testimony comes as State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat from Brooklyn, seeks support for legislation intended to update state sex-trafficking laws. The goal, Mr. Myrie said, was to better equip the state to handle the kinds of crimes that Mr. Epstein was accused of committing by criminalizing the actions of people who helped perpetuate his behavior.

If passed, the laws would also allow Mr. Epstein’s victims to sue his associates and his estate in state court for punitive damages. State law prevents people from seeking punitive damages from the estate of someone who has died.

“Trafficking is not sustained by one single actor. It is not just Jeffrey Epstein,” said Kathryn Robb, a lawyer who has been pushing for these sorts of legislative changes across the country.

“It is a network that includes financial backers, businesses and other intermediaries, who often escape accountability,” she added. “This bill will disrupt that.”

Ms. Espinal, a Bronx native, said she first met Mr. Epstein during her sophomore year of high school, when she was brought in to give him massages. The demands from the financier quickly escalated, and she said she still has post-traumatic stress disorder from these interactions, which occurred between 2005 and 2008.

“What was going through my head at the time was just pure shame and intimidation,” she said.

Mr. Myrie’s bill, which has no companion legislation in the Assembly as of yet, is not state lawmakers’ only effort to reckon with Mr. Epstein’s legacy and the pain he caused hundreds of women.

Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter, a Democrat from the Syracuse area, and Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat representing parts of Manhattan, have introduced a bill that would close what they call the “Epstein loophole.” In the state’s laws relating to prostitution, the buyers of a sex worker’s services, or those facilitating them, are excluded from punishment under the statute relating to people being punished for “advancing prostitution.”

“New York should act quickly and close the Epstein loophole, which would have prevented men like Jeffrey Epstein and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs from being charged with trafficking at the state level,” Ms. Hunter said in a statement last month.

“This bill is necessary to ensure that traffickers and sex buyers are held accountable, while survivors of sexual exploitation are given the care and support they need,” she added, explaining that the law would also reduce punishments for those who perform sex work.

Mr. Epstein and his estate have settled several lawsuits with victims in recent years. The New York Times reported in February that a recent court filing showed that his estate was valued at $120 million, though the estimate might be an undercount.

Nathan Werksman, a lawyer for the women who testified on Monday, said that time was of the essence to change the law and give Ms. Blume McGee and others the chance to seek financial damages from Mr. Epstein’s estate.

Mr. Myrie’s bill, which the Senate Codes Committee passed on Monday, creates a one-year look-back period so that people can sue for actions that fall outside the statute of limitations. In this manner, it resembles the Adult Survivors Act, which in 2022 opened a one-time window in New York permitting people to file sex-abuse lawsuits after the statute of limitations had expired.

“The Epstein Estate is a finite amount of money that is dwindling every day, every week, and every month,” Mr. Werksman said.

“Jeffrey Epstein was able to escape criminal accountability, and his estate can escape civil liability if the estate dwindles down to nothing,” he added.

Lawyers for Mr. Epstein’s estate did not respond to emails seeking comment.