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In this radio segment from January 10, 2026, Seth Grossman of Liberty and Prosperity discusses local New Jersey politics, upcoming elections, and critiques of state and federal policies.
Liberty and Prosperity Events & News
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Annual Fundraiser: A brunch fundraiser is scheduled for Sunday, February 15, featuring guest speaker Senator Michael Testa. Tickets are $75.
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Top 10 Issues: The organization is currently finalizing its “top 10 issues” for the year and is seeking public input via email.
Political Critiques & Policy Stances
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Immigration and ICE: Grossman argues that ICE primarily targets criminals already in custody and that “sanctuary” policies deliberately create neighborhood confrontations by refusing to transfer these individuals directly from jails to federal authorities.
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Recycling: He characterizes recycling as a “hidden tax” that is expensive and ineffective, claiming that much of the sorted waste ultimately ends up in overseas landfills or the ocean.
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Climate Change: Noting that December 2025 was roughly six degrees colder than the previous year, Grossman expresses skepticism toward policies aimed at further cooling the earth.
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Gas Tax and Infrastructure: He critiques the recent 4.2-cent gas tax hike, claiming the revenue is used to bail out old “junk bonds” from the NJ Transportation Trust Fund rather than funding new road repairs.
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Diner Tax Relief: Grossman criticizes the “Saving our Diners and Protecting our Past Act” (introduced by Senators Moriarty and Greenwald) as a “corrupt” special-interest tax break that discourages broader demands for honest government.
2026 Election Strategy
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Preparation: Grossman emphasizes that those wishing to run for office must start preparing immediately, stating, “He who fails to prepare is preparing to fail”.
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Key Deadlines:
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March 23, 2026: Deadline to file petitions for primary elections.
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April 8, 2026: Deadline to switch political parties to vote in a primary.
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June 2, 2026: Primary Election day.
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July 28, 2026: Deadline to file petitions for school board positions.
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November 3, 2026: Midterm Election day.
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National Context: He highlights the importance of re-electing Jeff Van Drew and securing a Republican majority in Congress to prevent potential future impeachments of Donald Trump.
EXCERPTS OF ON-AIR CONVERSATION BETWEEN SETH GROSSMAN AND JOHN DEMASI:
Democrats and the Left Deliberately Set Up That Tragedy in Minneapolis.
SETH GROSSMAN: The Democrats and the Left set up that horrible tragedy in Minneapolis, because they benefit from it. The Left is making three arguments about ICE, and of course ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s their job to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted pursuant to our Constitution. It’s their job to find out and detain people who are illegally in this country. Most of the people they are looking for are criminals., and most of those criminals are already in jail. They are already separated from their families because they already committed crimes besides being in this country illegally.
Immigration laws federal laws made pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. Article VI makes the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land. All state and local officials take an oath to support federal laws made pursuant to the Constitution. One of those laws is that when an illegal alien is in a state prison or county jail, state and local officials have a duty to turn those illegals over to Federal Immigration or Ice.
But in these Sanctuary or Confederate Democrat states like New Jersey and Minnesota, those criminals are released back to residential neighborhoods. Now ICE Immigration agents have to chase and arrest those criminals there. And this always creates opportunities for violence, injury, and death to the federal agents and to everybody around. This is absolutely despicable. These confrontations out in the streets in residential neighborhoods are totally unnecessary. So first, the Democrats are creating these confrontations.
Second, Federal agents are not separating families when they go after these criminals. In fact, these Democrat politicians are causing more families to be separated. That is because if the ICE agents arrest an illegal immigrant in a prison, jail or courthouse, only the criminal gets arrested and deported. However, if you force ICE to arrest these criminals at their homes, schools or anywhere else in the neighborhood, ICE has to arrest and detain all other illegals who are around them. So this is all deliberate, and it’s all orchestrated. And I think people should know that.
Finally, the Democrats are saying, this woman wasn’t trying to run over the officer. They say that she was just trying to drive away. However, she was directly instructed to get out of the car. She was told to do that because she was deliberately interfering with a lawful arrest by blocking traffic. And they immigration agents can’t deal with that when they are in the middle of arresting criminals who kill people.
But the woman doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, she suddenly backs up, with her partners outside of the car taking a video of the whole thing. Then the woman suddenly drives forward with the officer in front of her. The officer was looking at the woman. He wasn’t looking down at the front tires of the car. The whole thing happened in seconds.
But no matter how you look at it, the Democrats are completely responsible for that tragedy.
Why Are We Still Doing Fake “Recycling”?
SETH GROSSMAN: Every year, Liberty and Prosperity, we make a list of the ten most important issues that we promote during the course of the year. That’s another reason to attend our Saturday breakfasts. But if you can’t come to our breakfast, please email us at info@libertyandprosperity.com or, go to one of the posts on our website and make a comment. That way, we can take your views into consideration. And I hope we keep the fake “recycling” of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority on that list.
Few people talk about recycling. However, everybody talks about how everything is too expensive and nothing is affordable anymore. And that taxes are too high. But hardly anybody talks about the things that make everything too expensive. And the things that make everything too expensive are not just the income taxes and sales taxes and property taxes we see. We also pay all these other taxes and costs that are buried in the higher prices we pay for everything. And one of them is recycling.
Think of how expensive it is when we have to wash some of our garbage before we dump it. We waste time, and energy for hot water to wash out bottles and cans and containers. And for what? We then put them in a separate container. We have to pay for two sets of garbage trucks to pick up two separate containers along the same route, wasting gas and salaries and pensions and benefits to pay for twice the work. And then a truck takes the so-called recycling to a filthy building in Egg Harbor Township where we pay a whole lot of people to separate that garbage again. Some for plastic, some for paper and some for cans.
And then the ACUA prints up fake newspapers four times a year to tell us how important it is to do this. And of course we pay more salaries, benefits and pensions for people to do this. But one thing they never tell you is what happens to the stuff. Have you ever seen in those four free fake newspapers that you get from the ACUA every year? Did they ever tell you what they do with this stuff? Did you ever see a single article saying, this is what we’re doing with this stuff? No. And this is how much money we’re making, and these are the new products that are recycled, and this is how much energy we are saving?
JOHN DEMASI: No.
Do They Ever Tell You What They Do With The Garbage They Pick Up As “Recycling”?
SETH GROSSMAN: That’s or this is how much energy we’re saving. But they don’t tell you because we all know what happens. They take it. They put it on trucks to some Bayonne or Elizabeth or some port somewhere. Then it goes on a cargo ship, and then it goes to some Third World country where they dump it in a field. Then it washes into a river and then into the ocean. That is why we have this plastic mess polluting the ocean. And causing God knows what health problems with the microplastics.
Think of the massive amounts of money we spend doing this. But New Jersey has a state law that forces us to do that. And nobody talks about it. That’s because people get high paid government jobs to do this. No politician wants to fight with them. And so this goes on and on. Just like many things the government does. And we pay and pay. This is added to the price of every thing we buy and every service we get.
But that’s just my pet issue. Every year, we decide the ten most important issues we want to talk about. So if anyone wants to put an issue on that list, please let us know.
JOHN DEMASI: I really had a laugh when you said you wash your garbage.
SETH GROSSMAN: Only in New Jersey do we have laws that force us to wash out our garbage so it can be picked up separately and then dumped thousands of miles away. And then these same people tell us, you’re wasting too much natural gas for your hot water. Your wasting water. You’re putting too much carbon into the air. That was the only country in the world where you wash your garbage and you wouldn’t put the trash in. I mean and and you wait and they tell you, oh, you’re using too much hot water. You’re wasting too much energy. And then we have two sets of garbage trucks driving the same routes, stopping at the same housing, burning all that gasoline. The whole thing is nuts!
Climate Change: South Jersey Was 6 Degrees Colder Last Month!
I just got my monthly bill from South Jersey Gas. It tells you the average temperature for last month, and it compares it with what it was the year before. And yes, there is climate change. The average temperature for last month was 32.77 degrees. That’s a full six degrees colder than what it was the year before. So, Climate Change is real. It’s getting colder!
So the Climate Change crowd keeps telling us. We need to cut back in our carbon so we can make the earth cooler. Well how much colder do they want it to get. Do they want to bring December temperatures down to 28 degrees?
Gasoline Tax, Toll Hikes Are Bailing Out Junk Bonds On Wall Street. They Are Not Paying To Build or Fix Roads or Bridges.
Last week, the New Jersey gasoline tax went up 4.2¢ a gallon. So, Trump is giving out permits so the oil companies can dig more wells and give us more eneergy. He’s bringing the price of gasoline down. And, of course, we have the Democrats in New Jersey bringing the price of gasoline up again, it’s important to know that these all these gas tax hikes and the toll hikes, they’re not paying for roads, they’re not paying for bridges, they’re not paying for repairs. They’re bailing out the junk bonds issued by the, corrupt, and political New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority that were issued fifteen years ago. So it’s just a a Wall Street bailout, you know, disguised as as doing something for roads and bridges. So everybody ought to know that, when you pay you know, even though gas prices are down, they would be down even more if we didn’t get that gas tax hike ten days ago. And they also raised the tolls.
And remember, when they raise the gas tax and the tolls, you are paying a lot more than just what you pay when you fill up your tank or drive on the Parkway or Expressway. You also pay higher prices for your groceries, for all your clothing, for everything you buy. Because everything you buy gets to you on trucks that are now paying more for gas and tolls. That gets added to the prices.
Tax Breaks for A Few Corrupt Voters. Nobody Complains About Waste and High Taxes As Long As Somebody Else Pays!
So what are the Democrats doing? w do the Democrats, you know, compensate for what they’re doing? You might be happy to know that two weeks ago, Democratic state senators Paul Moriarty and Lou Greenwald introduced a bill called Saving Our Diners and Protecting Our Past Act. And that would exempt qualified diners from the New Jersey sales tax and create new tax credits, to preserve historic diners and other restaurants. So you you see what they do. They try to, you know, when they raise taxes for everybody and make life more difficult for everybody, they pick out a handful of favorite people and give them tax breaks. And and that’s really, bad and corrupt for another reason. Because see, when everybody has to pay the higher taxes of bad government, then everybody wants to vote for officials who will do a better job. But whenever you give a tax break for seniors, a tax break for diners, tax break for farmers, tax break for redevelopment zones, whenever you give special deals to special people, what you’re doing is you’re taking the most, active and political people, and you’re telling them we don’t need honest government. You could vote for as much spending and waste as possible because somebody else is gonna pay the tax, not you. And and that’s that’s the problem. And that’s why historically, we had constitutions that said everybody has to pay the same tax at the same rate, and it’s unconstitutional to give some people a break. Because if you do that, instead of fighting for better government for everybody, people just say I want better go. Actually, I don’t care if I have better government. I just want a good deal for me and heck with everybody else. And, you know, you just can’t run a country like that. Eventually, you run out of other people’s money and everything falls apart. And that’s that’s basically why we have $38 trillion debt in the federal level. Everybody wants stuff paid for by somebody else. So we borrow by printing dollars. Then everybody pays through higher prices that we blame on everybody but the politicians who do this.
The only way to fix the problem is to elect better people. And, here it is. It’s it’s January 10, and the midterm elections are less than ten months away. They’ll be on November 3. But if you don’t like the Democrats or Republicans, you have the power to change both of them.
Every June, we have Primary Elections. They will be on June 2, five months away. If you want to change your party, you can get involved in that election. In other words, the Democratic Party is just another private organization, just like Liberty and Prosperity. So is the Republican Party is a club.
Who runs these clubs? They are run by a committee in each county called the County Committee. We have elections for that committee every four years. And those elections will be on June 2. If you want to be a candidate, you need to file your petition to get on the ballot by March 23.
If you want to vote in either the Democratic or Republican Primary election you have to choose one party or another. If you want to switch parties, you need to fill out a form by April 8.
So, you have these deadlines coming up. And I know what I’m saying is just a lot of noise to most people. But if you really care about making a real change, you don’t wait until November to vote between, lesser of two evils. You need to get involved in how, how candidates are picked in the first place. So that’s something to think about.
JOHN DEMASI: Do you encourage people to, to run?
SETH GROSSMAN: I do encourage people to run, but only if you take the time to know what you’re doing. And that’s why you just don’t wait to the last deadline and then say I’m going to run for this. I’m going to run for that.You need to talk to other people because politics is a team sport.
You can’t just run by yourself without knowing, you who is going to be on your team, and who you are running against. So if you are thinking about being a candidate come to a Liberty and Prosperity breakfast on as Saturday morning now.
A lot of times, people will show up at one of our meetings a month or two before the election and ask for our support. And they get their feelings hurt when we tell them, sorry, you’re too late. You are running as an independent. You did not choose a party. You did not run in the Primary election. You are not serious. You have no chance of winning. You are wasting everybody’s time.
So the time to be thinking about being a candidate is now, January.
There is a saying that if you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Going into politics or running for office is not something you do just on the spur of the moment. You have to think it through. You have to have a plan. Otherwise, you’re going to waste a lot of time, a lot of money. Even worse, you will hurt a lot of other people, and you will achieve nothing.
And then these people go around and say, “the system’s rigged. I never had a chance”. But of course, these people did have a chance if they were serious.
When people go into a business, they spend months even years preparing. They think through what product will they sell, where is the best location, who is going to help me. But when it comes to politics, I’ve seen really smart people become candidates for some office without doing any of that kind of planning.
They say, I got 100 signatures on my petition and now I’m a candidate. I’m on the ballot. Our group, Liberty and Prosperity can be very helpful to people who want to be candidates. We have lots of people who have done this before and who are willing to share their knowledge.
So any any person who’s thinking about being a can be and by the way, this also goes for someone who wants to run for the school board in their town. The deadline for school board, you have until July 28 to file a petition. But if you’re serious about it, you’re going to be talking to people about it right now.
By the way, even President Trump now understands how important these elections are. He met with all of the Republican members of Congress last Tuesday at the Kennedy Center. And he told them, the midterm elections are coming up. And he said, if we don’t win a majority, they’re going to impeach me again. And, everything we’re working for is going to go down the drain. So I’m glad that President Trump is taking this midterm election seriously now.
We all have to take these elections seriously. They are the most important thing to work on for the next ten months.
