A Republican with principles AND courage … in NJ? (Opinion)

Yup, that’s right. At least one Republican legislator has had enough. State Sen. Joe Pennacchio is refusing to attend the sham budget speech that the gov has planned for Tuesday. It’s about time. This kind of visual protest is long overdue.

We are literally in day 162 of “15 days to stop the spread.” Now we have a governor who moved the goal from "not overwhelming our health care system," a laudable goal for sure, to zero positive cases. For those of us still grounded in reality, we know a couple things.

First, the virus will never fully go away as humanity simply doesn’t have the capacity to eliminate viruses. OK, we did it once with smallpox, but that’s it. So we know the virus is among us and we know that since it hit its peak in April, most will now test negative. But here we are, Day 162 locked down in New Jersey.

Despite the fact that we achieved the No. 1 goal of slowing the spread enough to make sure sick people could get treated.

Despite the fact that we never came close to overwhelming our medial facilities. So much so that temporary hospitals closed up shop soon after deployment because there were simply not enough sick people.

Despite the fact that most younger healthy people have virtually no risk of contracting the disease and getting sick whether they test positive or not.

Why is Sen. Joe Pennacchio seemingly the only member of the legislature who gets that the governor is using the arbitrary measure of positive tests, which we know are wildly inaccurate to boot? Where are the other senators? Members of the Assembly? Call Sen. Pennacchio’s office and encourage him to run for governor.

There is only one issue in 2021. Lockdown vs. Liberty. Sen. Joe gets it.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.

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