Is Mendacious Michael Gottesman’s Reckless Behavior Putting Turning Point USA Supporters at Risk?

Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman is back at it — more vicious than ever.  The founder of the NJEA-funded New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) is once again trying to to intimidate and silence those with whom he disagrees and trying to enlist New Jersey reporters to help him do it.  This time, Gottesman sent two emails to reporters to try to pressure them into opposing Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) efforts to start “Club Americas” in New Jersey high schools.  More ominously, Gottesman’s emails were also sent to NJPEC’s progressive membership and contained incendiary rhetoric — calling TPUSA “Charlie Kirk’s hate group” — and specifically identified people that were working with TPUSA.  In the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk and an environment of increased political violence, this is highly irresponsible and should be condemned.  This is not about the merits of TPUSA’s efforts but Gottesman’s bullying, reckless zealotry, and utter disregard for the safety of others. Will anyone call him out?

Using the press to intimidate opponents. Gottesman is a proven, serial bully (see here, here, and here) who has previously tried to use the press to aid his intimidation of his opponents. In July, Gottesman reached out to reporters at all the major New Jersey news publications in order to undermine a new effort called Wake Up Call NJ, which informs parents about the level of learning in New Jersey schools.  It was a typical Gottesman hit-job, with Gottesman stooping to his trademark personal attacks by going after an educator who made a video supporting Wake Up Call NJ. Gottesman sought to discredit her personally and then discredit Wake Up Call NJ by association, and pushed the reporters to do the same. Gottesman even provided the full name of the educator — doxxing her — no doubt in an effort to expose her to attacks from Gottesman’s fellow travelers and intimidate any other educators who might consider speaking out.

Incendiary rhetoric and doxxing in an environment fraught with political violence. This is exactly what Gottesman did with TPUSA but now in an environment that is fraught with political violence.  The TPUSA emails are vicious and were sent to both the press and NJPEC’s progressive membership (we were alerted by a recipient). Even in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, the founder of TPUSA, Gottesman uses deliberately incendiary rhetoric to describe TPUSA as “Charlie Kirk’s hate group,” which dehumanizes everyone working with TPUSA.  Then he identifies the people working with the “hate group” TPUSA by name and location. Is Gottesman trying to put a target on their backs? How is this acceptable behavior in the current environment?  New Jersey’s political leaders and the press should call him out on it.

The mendacious Gottesman is a proven, serial liar.  Sunlight will also remind everyone that Gottesman is a proven, serial liar who got his moniker “Hundreds of Millions” because he lied to the Star-Ledger.  He recently penned an op-ed in NJ.com entitled, “Trump’s Voucher Plan Hurts NJ’s Public Schools, Rewards the Rich,”  to which the estimable Laura Waters of NJEdReport responded: “None of this is true.” And she was right. Sunlight’s analysis also concluded that, true to past form, Gottesman resorted to falsehoods to make his (mendacious) case.  So Gottesman is a proven, serial liar and bully.

Normally, we would expect that such outrageous behavior would be condemned by New Jersey’s press corps, but unfortunately reporters such as NorthJersey.com’s Mary Ann Koruth and InsiderNJ‘s Fred Snowflack have taken the mendacious Gottesman at face value and written pieces that read like NJPEC press releases. New Jersey’s political leaders have also been silent — we wonder if it’s the NJEA connection — but they should also be condemning Gottesman’s reckless behavior in the current environment, which might be putting people at risk.  Will anyone call Gottesman out?