Is the League of Women Voters involved in a Democrat Party scam?

By Rubashov

If you are a candidate running in the General Election this November, you may have already received a request to attend a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters (LWV). Your first question might be: "Are they on the level?" Wikipedia describes the League of Women Voters (LWV) as follows:

“The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that was formed to help women take a larger role in public affairs after they won the right to vote… Originally, only women could join the league; but in 1973 the charter was modified to include men. LWV operates at the local, state, and national level, with over 1,000 local and 50 state leagues, and one territory league in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Although officially non-partisan since its founding in 1920, the LWV has adopted left-of-center policy positions on many issues so that it has come to mirror the Democrat Party. Wikipedia makes this clear:

“The League of Women Voter's primary purpose is to encourage voting by registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV supports a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, universal health care, abortion rights, climate change action and environmental regulation, and gun control.”

Wikipedia notes that the LWV supports the Kyoto Protocol and opposes the Keystone Pipeline project. Wikipedia highlights other policy positions adopted by the LWV:

“The League lobbied for the establishment of the United Nations, and later became one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization with the U.N.”

“The League supports the abolition of the death penalty. Furthermore, the League of Women Voters supports abortion rights and strongly opposed the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act.”

“LWV supports universal health care and endorses both Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act. It also supports a general income tax increase to finance national health care reform for the inclusion of reproductive health care, including abortion, in any health benefits package.”

“The League actively opposed welfare reform legislation proposed in the 104th Congress. It also opposes school vouchers. In 1999, LWV challenged a Florida law that allowed students to use school vouchers to attend other schools.”

“In May 2019, the League joined 400 other national, state, and local groups, in urging Congress to ensure passage of legislation that offers a path to citizenship to Dreamers and beneficiaries of temporary protected status and deferred enforced departure.”

“The League advocates gun control policies including regulating firearms and supporting licensing procedures for gun ownership by private citizens to include a waiting period for background checks, personal identity verification, gun safety education and annual license renewal.”

Nevertheless, the LWV presents itself as a non-partisan group – particularly when it comes to moderating debates between candidates of both major parties. But is it genuinely non-partisan? The LWV hasn’t been permitted to moderate a presidential debate for decades. Now, a situation in Passaic County calls into question the LWV’s suitability to moderate debates at any level.

Ringwood is a borough in Passaic County. Originally a Lenape settlement, it’s been officially a borough since the First World War and now has a population of just over 12,000 people. The borough is tucked into a beautiful landscape – the Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel grew up in Ringwood.

Recently, two of the three Republican candidates for Ringwood Borough Council received a certified letter from the local Democrats asking them to participate at a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters. This raised a flag, because the Democrat operative running the campaign for the local Democrats appears on the LWV website as a Member of its Board of Directors.

Dr. Jennifer M. Howard is the President of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. She’s a longtime activist from Princeton. Vice President Deborah McComber, of Morristown, “represented the League as co-organizer of the NJ Women’s March in Morristown 2018, adult advisor to March for Our Lives Morristown 2018, and webmaster for the NJ Women’s March 2019.”

LWV Secretary Lauren McCaskill “serves on the Long Branch Board of Education and is a graduate of Emerge New Jersey, a premier national training program geared towards increasing the number of Democratic women leaders in public office.” The League of Women Voter’s website notes that “Lauren has also worked on various political campaigns ranging from national to municipal races.”

And then we come to Jason DeAlessi. The LWV website describes Jason as “an entrepreneur who works in startups across the media, entertainment, real estate, and hospitality industries. His primary focus is currently with Fuerza Strategy Group, where he serves as Managing Director of the boutique digital and creative consulting firm on its projects with clients across the United States in the political and social justice arenas.” Jason “previously served as President of his local Board of Education.”

The LWV website does not explain that Jason DeAlessi is a Democrat Party operative active in Passaic County who previously worked on the state Democrat’s “flip the 40th” program (that’s 40th as in the legislative district). Jason has worked on a great many Democrat campaigns but what concerns us is his involvement with the Democrat candidates in the campaign the LWV wants to moderate a debate for. How is this not a conflict?

How involved is this member of the Board of Directors of the LWV? Well, while his group (LWV) is preparing the questions they’ll ask the candidates, he’s busy doing the opposition research on the Republican candidates. That’s a bit too partisan.

Has the LWV devolved into a networking/ client recruitment scheme for “social justice” entrepreneurs and Democrat Party start-ups? It appears so. And if so, it is simply one more establishment organization that has allowed itself to rot out from the inside through self-dealing, greed, and private corruption. It’s a long list.

“The entire business model of the Democratic Party is to avoid dealing with its own populists’ concerns, so they’ve never seen the Sanders wing of the party as anything but a threat to what they do for a living, which is basically take corporate money and then sell themselves as socially progressive. That’s what they do for a living. That’s their business.”

Matt Taibbi
Journalist and author of Hate, Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

The Reparations Racket is an exercise in vote-buying

Most of those alive today are descendants of slaves. Wikipedia defines slavery as follows:

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. Scholars also use the more generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour to refer to such situations. However, and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word, slaves may have some rights and protections according to laws or customs.

Slavery existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations. A person could become enslaved from the time of their birth, capture, or purchase.

Slavery was legal in most societies at some time in the past, but is now outlawed in all recognized countries. The last country to officially abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of modern slavery. The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery (or unfree labour) continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.

Race doesn’t enter in to it, as all manner of human beings, all colors and creeds, have enslaved their fellow man since the beginning of time. If it is, as some suggest, our original sin (and it is high on the list of sins) then it is a sin shared by all mankind, one that in our humility we must all account for.

The Bible tells us that the Israelites often found themselves enslaved as a people – by the Egyptians, and later, by the Romans. Slavery existed in the Americas at the time of its first contact with Europe. At the start of the American Republic, there were two African-based slave trades. One, out of sub-Saharan Africa, provided human beings to slaveholders in the United States and European colonies in America. The other, based in North Africa, brought European slaves and others to Islamic markets. The United States fought two wars to end the latter (1801-05 and 1815) and a civil war (1861-65) to end the former.

Politically, the Democrat Party was the institutional face of the slavery in America. You need only read the Democrat Party platforms prior to the Civil War to recognize this. Long after the Democrats were forced to give up on slavery, they continued to commemorate their slave-holding heritage. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders… they all have attended Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners and have, by doing so, honored those two slave-owning Democrats.

Slavery in America ended with the advent of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, was elected in 1860 with 39.8% of the vote. Lincoln was sworn-in on March 4, 1861. The American Civil War began a month later, on April 12, 1861. By then seven Southern states had seceded from the Union.

At the 1860 census, it was recorded that those in slavery made up 13 percent of the United States’ population. Slavery existed in 14 of the then 33 states (by the end of the war there would be 36 states). 3.9 million people were enslaved, but only 8 percent of American families were slaveholders. Slaveholders did not constitute a majority in any of those 14 states in which slavery was tolerated. But though a minority, slaveholders were an exceedingly rich minority.

All the anti-slavery states (as well as some of the slaveholding ones) produced soldiers and sailors for the holy cause of abolition. New Jersey furnished 76,814 soldiers and sailors – 1,185 of whom were African-American. This was a smaller contribution than neighboring states like Pennsylvania (337,936) and New York (448,850). It was claimed that New Jersey was less enthusiastic than more Republican states. In 1864, in the middle of the war, New Jersey would field the Democrat candidate against Lincoln, who won the state’s 7 electoral votes and a 53% to 47% popular vote win.

Nevertheless, 5,754 New Jersey soldiers/sailors gave their lives in that war to end slavery. Again, neighboring states gave more to the cause. Pennsylvania lost 33,183 of its sons. New York lost 46,534. Regiments were segregated then, so we know that most of those who gave their lives were classified as “white”. But it should be noted that they fought alongside comrades who were classified as “colored” – 36,847 of whom died. In all 178,975 “colored” soldiers and sailors served in the war.

Some Democrats have come up with the ridiculous fable wherein they argue that the parties “switched” ideologies. No, you will not find support for slavery in any Republican Party platform. Unfortunately, the Democrats cannot make that claim. Slavery is the sin of their party. Burdened by such a sin, it is natural that the Democrats wish to deflect the blame for it onto a wider population. And so they have come up with the idea of “reparations”.

What the Democrats propose is a tax (it’s always about a tax with them, isn’t it) on some people – regardless of whether or not their ancestors had slaves, or fought and died to end slavery, or even were in the United States before 1865. Then the Democrats propose that they make a gift of this money to a different group of people.

This satisfies the Democrats’ need to publicly proclaim their “goodness”. It also absolves their party of its unique blame by vastly expanding that blame to others, regardless of whether they have any specific guilt at all or of the sacrifices made by their ancestors. And finally, the Democrats calculate that by taking from Peter and giving it to Paul, Peter will be silenced into submission and Paul will reward the Democrats with his vote. Yes, the Democrats are without shame.

Later today, you can catch this shameless performance at the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Committee Room 11, Fourth Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey. The performance is for the benefit of the Democrat Party of Phil Murphy, Steve Sweeney, and Craig Coughlin.

Stay tuned…

Democrat Assembly candidates are members of group aligned with Linda Sarsour and CAIR

Linda Sarsour is the controversial Democrat activist who has praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and the anti-Semitic BDS movement.  In 2017, Sarsour famously called for “Jihad” against the elected government of the United States of America…

On February 10, 2018, Action Together New Jersey accepted an award from Linda Sarsour…

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Pictured with radical Linda Sarsour (above, L-R) are Uyen “Winn” Khuong, ATNJ Executive Director; Scott Baron, ATNJ Activist; Johannah Hinksmon, ATNJ Sussex County Co-Chair; and Kim Baron, ATNJ Director of Operations.

The award was in recognition of voter registration drives and other political campaigning done by Action Together New Jersey in coordination with a group called CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Presenting the award was  CAIR National Chairwoman, Roula Allouch, and CAIR-NJ Founder, Ahmed Al Shehab.

Due to its apparent ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of America’s most important Islamic allies – the United Arab Emirates – has designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

Action Together New Jersey is in the forefront of efforts to push the Democrat Party in New Jersey to the far-Left.  They have attacked the bi-partisan efforts of New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) to push back on members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” (far-Left Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) to promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement. 

Action Together New Jersey has endorsed the economically ruinous Green New Deal of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A number of Democrats who are running for Assembly this year are clearly identified as members of Action Together on the group’s website and have helped in their organizing efforts.  For their loyalty to the far-Left “cause” these Democrat candidates have been formally endorsed by Action Together New Jersey:

District 21

Stacey Gunderman

Lisa Mandelblatt 

District 24

Deana Lykins 

District 25

Lisa Bhimani

Darcy Draeger 

District 26

Christine Clark

Laura Fortgang 

District 30

Steven Farkas 

Among all the Democrats running for the Assembly this year, Action Together New Jersey chose to endorse only these candidates.  They represent the very radical far-Left of the Democrat Party. 

The people behind the New Democrats are radical and anti-Jewish

A fresh survey just out from Rasmussen reports on voters’ perceptions of the growing anti-Jewish chorus within the Democrat Party:

“Voters rate anti-Semitism as an increasingly serious problem in America today and see it on the rise among Democrats. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters think anti-Semitism is a growing problem in the Democratic Party. Thirty-five percent (35%) disagree, but nearly one-out-of-four voters (23%) are not sure.”  

“Seventy-six percent (76%) consider anti-Semitism a serious problem in America today, with 36% who say it’s Very Serious. That’s a noticeable increase from 65% and 24% respectively two years ago. Just 18% consider anti-Semitism a not very or Not At All Serious problem. Among voters who consider anti-Semitism a Very Serious problem in this country, 52% say it is a growing problem in the Democratic Party.”

This video explains who is behind the NEW DEMOCRATS (aka Democrat Socialists) who are leading this new, anti-Jewish charge within the Democrat Party…

Wow… a fusion between National Socialism and Communism.  What more can you say?

Here in New Jersey, the Democrat Party continues to embrace anti-Jewish hate, as these photographs from rallies attended by Democrat office holders show…

Will Democrats step back from going down the road of Anti-Semitism???

Yet another Labour Member of Parliament has walked away from the Labour Party over its embrace of Anti-Jewish hate.  That’s eight walk away Labour Members of Parliament in just two days.

Who would have thought that in Great Britain – the mother of democracies – that one of the two major parties would embrace open Anti-Semitism the way the left wing Labour Party has?  The Labour Party is Britain’s version of America’s Democrat Party – and when you look at the virulent Anti-Jewish talk coming out of the new Democrats – who is to say that America isn’t next?

Take a look at this new Democrat congresswoman…

That flag is the banner of a political movement… the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO.  It is a terrorist movement responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jewish civilians – mainly women and children. 

The Anti-Semitism that is causing honest people on the Left to leave the Labour Party will soon confront Democrats here in the United States.  As politicians like Cory Booker and Phil Murphy mainstream the goals of the PLO and Hamas – to wipe out the Jewish state and its people – Democrats are going to face the same decisions being faced by Left-of-Center people in Europe today.  To walk away from their party… or follow the path that could lead to a second Holocaust. 

Julie O’Connor: Stark raving ideologue

(originally published by CNJ in February 2013)

“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.” ― Milan Kundera

According a 2009 account given in the Star-Ledger, Julie O’Connor spent her formative years in that bastion of establishment liberalism, Montclair, New Jersey and now lives in one New Jersey’s Abbott Districts – Jersey City.  Like similar members of the establishment, Ms. O’Connor has had the benefit of most of the state’s income tax payers working hard to subsidize the property taxes paid by the affluent households in her community.  Isn’t it nice to live in one of the wealthy colonies dependent on the largesse of the state’s Democrat Party? 

Isn’t it nice to see your property tax bill subsidized by everyone else – including the 49 percent of the state’s economically deprived children living outside the Abbott Districts?  And this number comes from the state Supreme Court’s own Doin Report.  Even Governor Jim McGreevey’s Education Commissioner said that the state should stop subsidizing rich gentrified urban communities at the expense poor rural ones.

Before joining the Star-Ledger’s editorial board, Ms. O’Connor was active in the Peace Corps – in the vacation paradise known as Costa Rica.  The Ledger’s promotional piece on her notes:  “In her spare time, she enjoys running, drinking chai tea and watching reruns of ‘I Love Lucy.’”  Get the picture?

Somewhere along the way, this hothouse orchid developed quite a mouth on her and an intolerance to civil debate.  If she happens to disagree with your opinion, that makes you “nuts”, and she’ll call you that, in print.

And it doesn’t matter that her own newspaper, in editorial after editorial, once expressed the same concerns about the same issue – if you disagree with Julie O’Connor, you’re “nuts”.

In a February 14, 2013, editorial penned by Julie O’Connor on behalf of the entire Editorial Board and management of the Star-Ledger, Ms. O’Connor put forward the argument that anyone concerned about the unwieldy size, composition, or process that has gone into concocting the Bush-Obama “Terrorism Watch List” and the effects this might have on due process and the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights, was – in Ms. O’Connor’s word – “nuts”.

Apparently she hadn’t read the concerns put forward by the Star-Ledger itself, in earlier editorials:

“Terror list cries out for reform” screams one editorial.  Criticizing the million name list it notes:  “The number of names on the terror list, many as common as ‘Gary Smith’ or ‘Teddy Kennedy,’ guarantees thousands of innocent travelers regularly get pulled aside for questioning at airports and borders. Besides being a pain for ordinary people, it wastes valuable law enforcement time with no real security benefit.”

The Star-Ledger advises the FBI to “shelve” plans to use “profiling” to enhance its “terrorist” watch list.  The Ledger editorial warns:  “Comparing untold numbers of Americans to a terrorist profile would endanger civil liberties and wouldn't be a very effective way of ferreting out those who threaten the nation.”

In another editorial headline, the Star-Ledger concludes that “the watch list is dangerous”, and makes the following observations:  “The flaws in the FBI's handling of names on the nation's terrorist watch list are troubling enough. Inaccurate, outdated or incomplete data are passed along by agents without being reviewed for reliability. The result is a list with many names that shouldn't be there. Here's something more troubling: The FBI is probably doing the best job in government in processing names to be added to the list, according to a recent Justice Department inspector general's report. Other agencies don't share information reliably, don't all follow the same reporting protocols and don't even always define ‘terrorism’ the same way. Information isn't updated. Names aren't removed when people are cleared of any connection to terrorism.”

Those are from just three of the many editorials written before the management and editors of the Star-Ledger executed an about face on the question of due process and the Bill of Rights.  The list is flawed and should not be used as the basis of whether or not we are afforded our constitutionally protected civil rights.  In the following clip, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert shreds the ridiculousness of the so-called “Terrorist Watch List”, noting that Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela was on the list for many years:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/167607/may-07-2008/terrorist-nelson-mandela

Look, we all know why this editorial was written like a piece of attack mail from the New Jersey Democrat State Committee.  The day before the editorial’s publication, PolitickerNJ.com reported that state Democrat Party leaders had held a strategy session by conference call that day and were “mobilizing” for a “public relations assault” against Republicans on exactly the issue on which Ms. O’Connor labeled Republicans as “nuts”.  Maybe she was on the call?

In the past, Star-Ledger editors and management, through their editorials, have lectured the newspaper’s readers on the importance of “civility” in public discourse.  They have lectured against name-calling and bullying and on the need for a greater understanding of mental health issues and a greater sensitivity to those who suffer from mental health problems.  The Ledger praised then Acting Governor, Senator Dick Codey, for his good service in this area and noted the difficulties braved by the state’s then First Lady.  It is a good thing Julie O’Connor wasn’t selecting the words for that editorial.

Of course, the management of the Star-Ledger is in hock to the state’s Democrat Party and there is little the editorial board can do about it.  Like Julie O’Connor, the Star-Ledger is located in one of the state’s Abbott Districts and the corporation’s property tax bill would rise astronomically if New Jersey were to adopt Fair School Funding.  And the Ledger is only a tiny part of a much larger corporate enterprise with significant holdings that benefit from the largesse of state Democrats. 

Remember how the state’s newspaper industry panicked when they thought they would lose their corporate welfare?  When there was a bill up that would have allowed county and local governments to post notices on-line instead of forcing them to spend the money from property taxes to publish newspaper notices that nobody reads.  That’s right, in the age of digital technology your property tax dollars are being used to prop up a failing business model that depends on deforestation and flushing effluence into waterways. 

But there is a larger question here and it is a really BIG and IMPORTANT question:  The management of New Jersey’s largest newspaper, through its editorial board, appear to believe that due process and the Bill of Rights have no place in our current situation.  That in the twelfth year of the “War on Terror”, with no formal Declaration of War and no end in sight, we as a nation must accept that ideas such as due process, the rule of law, and justice no longer have a place in our society.  They appear to want to convince us that “if we can save just one life. . . for the children” then we should shove the whole Bill of Rights into the shit bin.

Tom Moran, the man entrusted by the management to run the Star-Ledger’s editorial board, has labeled the Constitution as a “source of our woes” and as much as said that we need to scrap the American Constitution in favor of a strong-man executive style of government, similar to what they have in Egypt or Russia.  One idea that Moran floated was to allow newly elected presidents to appoint 10 senators and 50 congressmen to serve “at large”. 

Let’s put President Obama aside for the moment.  Here’s the question for Tommy Moran:  “Would you really want a President Nixon, George W. Bush or even a President Christie with this kind of power?”

What Tom Moran advocates is neo-Fascism disguised as an attempt to break the slow, deliberative process inherent in every democracy.  It is no wonder then that the management and editors of the Star-Ledger want to dump due process and the Bill of Rights in favor of a secret list, with a secret process, developed by an unaccountable bureaucracy answerable only to the executive.

What happened to Blackstone's formulation that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"?  Too old-fashioned?  Not chai tea enough for our contemporary “lifestyle”?  With thousands of drones set to take to the skies and some in the government arguing that Americans can be killed extra-judicially – is neo-Fascism our future?

Maybe we will get some answers.  CNJ’s editor has been reaching out to people concerned about due process and the Bill of Rights, regardless of party or ideology, because that doesn’t matter.  Without due process and the Bill of Rights, all of us are susceptible to being terrorized by the government of the day.  Who gets terrorized will just depend on the regime.  And who “wins” in a game with no rules? 

In the next week or so, the editor will be contacting the management and editors of the Star-Ledger, to ask them to be part of a cross-party, cross-ideology, cross-community discussion about due process and the Bill of Rights in a time of endless, undeclared “war”.  We will all be watching to see if the Ledger’s apparatchiks have the courage to come out of their well-guarded building to sit down with other Americans to discuss the position put forward in their name, by Julie O’Connor.

McCann manager attacked McCann's Democrat boss

You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.  The young fellow running candidate John McCann's effort this year, wrote a very potent attack against McCann's Democrat boss -- Bergen County Sheriff Mike Saudino -- last year, accusing him of siding with groups like Black Lives Matter.  The article appeared as commentary, under McCann's manager's own name, in the Save Jersey blog.

In the article, McCann manager Matthew Gilson, took Democrat Saudino (who was paying McCann, a patronage employee in his office, at the time) to task in a rather brutal fashion.  Here is an excerpt from what he wrote:

Saudino’s greatest betrayal?  Siding with the Democrats’ police-hating allies

Support for America’s local police used to be fairly universal or at least never a partisan issue.  Over the last year, however, Democrats have shown their true colors by siding against law enforcement at every turn. Whether it is supporting indictments for officers doing their job, or outright calling for violence against law enforcement officials, Democrats have been fairly vocal in their refrain: cops are the real criminals.

That’s what makes the betrayal of Mike Saudino all the more interesting...

One can’t help but marvel at his logic – or lack thereof – as Saudino cites the need to put good law enforcement over politics while siding with those who side with cop killers’ apologists. I can understand Saudino’s self-preservation instinct given the disarray within the Bergen GOP’s rank’s, but the larger message he is sending is one which frankly scares the hell out of me. That somehow Democrats are the party which supports law enforcement, or that campaigning for Bernie Sanders is something all those who support good police work should be doing? 

Give me a break, Mr. Sheriff.

Do what you want with your career but don’t insult our intelligence.

John McCann's manager makes the point that Sheriff Saudino's party -- the Democrats -- are "a party which thinks that Mumia al-Jamal should be freed from prison, and that Joanne Chesimard is a folk hero..."  which begs the question:  What was John McCann thinking when he agreed to take a pay check from these people?

On the "morality" of Phil Murphy

The Record's Dustin Racioppi has actually taken to tracking the gubernatorial candidates on where they stand on what they, the candidates, believe are "moral" issues.  What is fascinating about this is just what goes for morality these days. 

Basically, it comes down to symbols.  In Phil Murphy's shallow world, for a man to be moral he need not control his appetites, and he need not be "spiritual" in any traditional way.  For Phil Murphy, morality consists of reading "fault" into what others do, pointing to it, and then condemning it to demonstrate your superior "virtue." 

To place Phil Murphy's take on morality in context, we have to turn to the Bible, which warns:   “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Murphy's new morality allows its acolytes to see themselves as superior.  Looking for signs of "sin" in others or interpreting their actions as "sinful" kills mercy and destroys the possibility of collaboration, of progress.  Instead of sharing in the human condition of sin, in the brotherhood of imperfection, some are apportioned as "good" and others as "evil" -- and so no commonality is possible between the two.  By keeping the focus on the perceived faults of others, it allows those who embrace this new morality to forget their own faults.  Of course, the resulting moral reflection one gets from all this is as distorted as that from a circus mirror.

Steve Lonegan, the father of the modern conservative movement in New Jersey, ticked off the areas of morality apparently not covered by Phil Murphy's moral compass.  He started with life itself.

Science recognizes that the fetus or unborn child feels pain in the womb at 20 weeks.  This is a matter of science, not faith.  Most of the world's governments recognize this, and in all but seven countries they base their laws regulating abortion on this science.  Communist China, North Korea, Vietnam... and the United States are among those seven nations that don't. 

Phil Murphy believes that abortion is a kind of sacrament -- one to be practiced up to the moment of birth.  He and his allies use the term "sacrosanct" -- a religious word meaning "most sacred or holy."  What can we say about a moral code that claims that ending a life, or even, a potential life, is a "sacred or holy" act? 

Of course, Phil Murphy, along with his party, holds that the taking of the life of a serial murderer; or someone who rapes and murders children; or someone who rapes, murders, dismembers, and eats children; or indeed your garden variety terrorist who kills a few thousand innocents -- they should not get the same sanction as Murphy and his allies serve up to "inconvenient" life.  In the new morality embraced by Phil Murphy, the death penalty is wrong.  But only when it is part of an extensive judicial process.  When the President he served extra-judicially imposed the death penalty on American citizens and foreign nationals, that was okay.  Their lives became as meaningless as those "inconvenient" lives.

Phil Murphy inhabits a moral shallowland, in which symbols are used as garments to clothe the decadent flesh of those wishing to appear "virtuous."

Phil Murphy also has a curious "morality" when it comes to elected officials accepting gifts -- or the company of young women -- from rich "benefactors".  Of course, Phil Murphy is a "man of the world" and such men accept such things, normalize them, and incorporate them into their "morality."  They do this, much as they accept the presence of slave labor and the profits from slave labor in the global economy.  Phil Murphy is a very rich man, and rich men do not grow richer by concerning themselves with the 45 million in slavery today.  Far better to pocket the profits from slavery that globalism offers and to content oneself with symbols like, the band banner used by Hank Williams Jr. (or even the logo from the group KISS).  It is better to condemn and distract than to own up and go without the profits from modern slavery.

And when confronted with legislation like the Human Trafficking & Child Exploitation Prevention Act, Phil Murphy and his moral allies ask:  "What do the corporate giants think and how will it affect their profits?"  What are the loss of a few thousand children each year to sexual slavery when profits are at stake?  Stick to condemning symbols and be assured that you are "moral" and "good" and that the other man is "bad."  And pocket those profits.

The harm done by Phil Murphy, in his most capitalist incarnation, while a Wall Street banker would lead a more introspective man to become a recluse -- or a monk.  But these are shameless times and the new morality-- and the lubricant of money -- injects a narcotic lethargy into the former keepers of what was, the public morality.  So a few million were made destitute, had their lives ruined, families displaced, dreams destroyed, and the death penalty of economic circumstance called suicide imposed -- so what?  There is nothing to see here, move on say the Record, and the Ledger, and the Times, and the Press.  Move on.  The dead will be buried and their pain forgotten.  Move on.

It's time for symbols.