Posts Tagged jonathan judge
Letting the Revolution Take Its Toll
Posted by Roy Antoun in Culture, Democrats, Economics, Libertarian, Media, Politics on July 6, 2010
Celebrating the Fourth of July with the Brooklyn Young Republicans was revolutionary. Reminded of the great sacrifice that generations before us have made to ensure a free Republic, we were joined by Mark Hay of Capital New York who covered our event. His story is below:
Source: Capital New York
By Mark Hay
On a rooftop just south of Park Slope, just after the last major salvo of July 4 fireworks over Manhattan petered out, a lightly buzzed Jonathan Judge, president of the Brooklyn Young Republicans, stepped in front of the view of the skyline.
“We are gathered to celebrate our independence from foreign domination,” said Judge, a compact young man with bright orange hair and, like most of the men in attendance, a thick goatee. “And our independence from corruption and for reform.”
Judge and 15 club members and guests had gathered atop the roof of former congressional candidate and vice chair of the King’s County Republican Party Susan Cleary, simply to celebrate, they all said. Also in attendance were Lucretia Regina-Potter, the B.Y.R.-backed candidate running for State Assembly against Peter Abbate in the 49th district, and Joseph Hayon, a N.Y.-9 Congressional candidate running on religious values. (Hayon claims no affiliation with the B.Y.R. He said he got an e-mail about the event and just decided to make a prolonged appearance.) Read the rest of this entry »
Activism Across Brooklyn
Posted by Roy Antoun in Culture, Democrats, Libertarian, Politics, Republicans on June 25, 2010
Brooklyn has been receiving a heavy dose of Liberty and Reform these past few weeks. Brooklyn YR President and Republican activist Jonathan Judge and I have battled vigorously to promote small, limited government. About a week ago, we hit Bensonhurst with petitioning for State Assembly Candidate Lucretia Regina-Potter, meeting neighbors and disgruntled citizens who simply wanted their tax dollars back in their own wallets.
While the Brooklyn GOP establishment continues to undermine true tenets of reform and liberty, the activists have stormed the field. After one week of activist door-to-door visits, I distributed over 120 copies of Young American Revolution and spoke to dozens of neighbors about the need for Republican reform back to its Constitutional roots. We’re fighting for small government and that began here at home.
“Politicians” have stolen the fruits of our labor and distributed it amongst themselves and their friends on Wall Street. Distributing tax according to what an economic czar or Congressman deems “important” is nothing more than glorified corporatism. Why hasn’t Albany given our tax dollars back if they truly wanted to stimulate economic growth? After all, it is spending and saving in the private sector that moves an economy.
We need to be careful as to who is running our government, who we allow to run in politics, who runs the party. If the establishment is ok with endorsing liberal Mayors like Michael Bloomberg then we, the people, must keep them in check. That is how a Republic works.
Reformers on the Offensive: Brooklyn GOP on the Run
Posted by Roy Antoun in Libertarian, Lifestyle, Politics, Republicans on June 17, 2010
The Brooklyn GOP isn’t as “Grand” as many may think. In fact, the party leadership kind of takes the “Grand” out of “Grand Old Party.” So the split between the establishment and the reformers continues to grow, but who’s leading in this battle for local hegemony?
I believe it’s quite evident that the Brooklyn GOP establishment is lagging behind significantly in any headway they think they’re making. Playing an extremely poor job at defense, the Establishment can’t seem to be crafty enough to compete with the younger, more vibrant Reformers.
There are two premises: 1) The Brooklyn GOP Establishment is playing pure defense; every move they make is only reactionary to the headway the Reformers are making. 2) The Establishment has made it’s sole priority to exterminate the Reformers rather than concentrating on running principled candidates.
1) So, first came the infamous “Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn” blog a little under a year ago. Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn has since received, on average, roughly 1,000 unique hits per day. Being a WordPress site, Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn can track this information via a free plugin. Clearly the site is popular and trendy. It has a keen urban feel to it while still captivating a technosavvy environment. After the County Convention, the Brooklyn GOP Establishment realized that there was a legitimate Reformist opposition thanks to dissenting blogs like Atlas Shrugs.
To combat an extremely competitive and attractive political culture, the GOP Establishment decided to run its own shoddy blog called, “The Jig Is Up Atlas.” There are lots of funny things about this blog. The first and most interesting thing to point out is that the blog was released as a reaction to “Atlas Shrugged.” The title alone gives it away. Reread it: “The Jig Is Up, Atlas.” It is as if the Establishment has something to defend that they needed to name their own blog after the other.
“The Jig” blog is laughable at best. They call all five of their fans “jiggers” and have, at one point, self professed themselves as the “Brooklyn GOP Hate Blog,” which alone tells us that the blog serves no political purpose and instead treads on individuals based on ethnicity and sexual orientation, something they have already done. Whenever a hack of the Establishment writes on this “blog,” they like to begin by stating, “to the millions of fans.” That’s pretty funny considering that BlogSpot has no counter system/ plugin that allows you to track how many visitors go to the site. The comments on each post are clearly written by the writers and the diction is comparable to a retarded panda on drugs.
After the Establishment decided to run their counter blog, they found a new threat to their unearthly existence. The Brooklyn Young Republican ActionCast! aired on May 19th, 2010. With over a hundred viewers, the ActionCast! was a demonstration of sheer transparency in club actions and healthy debate on a variety of issues ranging from Puerto Rican statehood to Lucretia Regina-Potter’s race for State Assembly in the 49th Assembly District.
So, again, what was the Establishment’s reaction? An online radio. Yep, an online radio. They knew they couldn’t carbon copy the Brooklyn YR webcam & chat; that would look too weak (they probably didn’t know how to operate a webcam). So rather than looking “too weak,” they decided to look just plain “weak.” You really have to be desperate and out of ideas to start stealing communications concepts from a bunch of 20 year olds.
Which leads me to my last example. Realizing that their competition has been “a bunch of 20 year olds,” the Establishment understood that their old, neoconservative, narrow minded mentalities on everything were getting them essentially nowhere. To undermine Lucretia Regina-Potter’s campaign, they ran Peter Cipriano, a 20 year old who’s still in college, for State Assembly. I really admire the boy’s feel for politics and I’m glad he’s getting involved. But for State Assembly? Really? He has no political experience (and don’t tell me he worked with Bloomberg; that Mayor is anything but a Republican or a politician), has never been in County Committee, and isn’t even done with school. Again, he’s running as a reaction to Lucretia’s campaign, not as a winnable candidate, let alone against Peter Abbate, a 24-year incumbent.
2) In playing defense, the Brooklyn GOP Establishment has positioned itself in a corner. It realizes that it’s losing grasp of reality and has resorted to personal attacks on its own party members rather than principled debate on issues and Party headway. It’s kind of sad. You’d think that a Party Establishment would welcome new ideas, negotiate improved policies, fund winnable candidates, or actually act Republican. But this one doesn’t. And that’s precisely why the Reformers exist. But the establishment doesn’t like that and cannot seem to engage in open debate… because they lack principle? have egos the size of whales (Gerry O’Brien)? the intelligence of squirrels? I’m not entirely sure but whatever the case may be, the Establishment has a severe case of Jealousy and they need to get that checked. So what’s the new “strategy” (if you’d even call it that)? Undermine and destroy all opposition.
You see, the party runs like a socialist regime. Dissent is quickly squashed and Party Leaders (I like to call them, Kommissars) are Stalinists who engage in the weird demagoguery of State Senator Marty Golden… not entirely sure why. And it’s no coincidence that the Establishment’s median age is 60 while the average Reformer’s median age is 21. It’s also pretty funny that a bunch of 21 year olds are giving the GOP Establishment a nice run for their money (or whatever Craig Eaton didn’t squander away on “political consultants”).
Their really unpopular “Hate Blog” has publicly defamed individuals like myself on accounts of race, religion, sexual orientation, and lifestyle (most of which is clearly untrue, but done anyway to undermine the person but not the principle). I mean, let’s face it, the blog and the establishment are hardly worth talking about, but I find it pretty hilarious that people are capable of being this nuts. And plus, I think this is a pretty neat analysis of human psychology and why people think the way they think or do the things they do.
I say let the GOP Establishment play defense all they want. The Reformers will continue in their steadfast ways to change Republican politics back to where it should be: a party that upholds that thing called The Constitution and truly believes in small government and wide transparency. The Establishment has done absolutely nothing to promote Liberty. We Reformers have found a home in it.


