The buttheads on the Star-Ledger editorial board owe Sussex County an apology

By Rubashov

People in Sussex County have just spent most of the week without electricity, heat for warmth or washing, and hot food. They’re used to waiting for the government and government-sanctioned utilities to get around to them last. Sure they provide the drinking water to New Jersey’s cities – but that hasn’t stopped Governor Phil Murphy from wanting to turn the county into a dumping ground and cutting education funding to the county’s children.

Now the editorial board of the Newark Star-Ledger have directed their collective bungholes in the direction of Sussex County – to engage in a bit of unreserved dumping themselves. Over the weekend, the Star-Ledger let go a massive dump on folks still in the process of dealing with the damage done by that early December snowstorm.

According to the Star-Ledger, the arrest of two social outcasts – members of a biker gang – is a sign of a vast underlying social and political movement in Sussex County. The editorial board claims that in “sleepy Sussex County” there has been “a troubling uptick in hate crimes lately.”

Of course, this isn’t true. According to the official Bias Incident Report put out by the Murphy administration earlier this year – signed by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan, and Civil Rights Director Rachel Apter – Sussex County experienced no increase in bias crime between 2017 and 2018 (the latest available figures). No increase… as in zero.

The same cannot be said for counties like Passaic, which experienced a 286% increase; or Union County, with a 200% increase; or Camden, with a 55% increase in bias crime; or Hudson County with its 43% increase. Of course, these are all Democrat-controlled counties, so the Star-Ledger would be hesitant to tie these genuine “up-ticks” to something like “White Extremism”. Far-better to just fashion a narrative around the arrest of a couple biker gang members in a relatively peaceful county – and then use them to characterize and smear the entire population.

The official figures – the data – reveal something else as well. Statewide, “bias crime” or “hate crime” has fallen. Since figures began in 2006, reported incidents have fallen from 825 that year to 569 incidents in 2018. Such crimes are actually quite rare – from 151 arrests in 2006, “bias crime” has fallen to just 59 arrests in 2018. Those are the official figures, direct from the Murphy administration.

In fact, the only “bias crime” evidenced by the Star-Ledger’s editorial board is the crime of bias committed by said board against the people of Sussex County.

In August of this year, NJ 101.5 went through the Murphy administration’s Bias Incident Report and listed the 49 municipalities with the worse incidence of “bias” or “hate crime”. Guess what? None of those municipalities were in Sussex County. None.

Now guess which towns were listed? Number one for “hate crime” was East Brunswick, in Middlesex County. Number two was Evesham Township, Burlington County. Woodbury (Gloucester), Hoboken (Hudson), South Brunswick (Middlesex), Cherry Hill (Camden), Fort Lee (Bergen), Princeton (Mercer), Hackensack (Bergen), Livingston (Essex), Montclair (Essex), West Orange (Essex), Jersey City (Hudson), Edison (Middlesex), and New Brunswick (Middlesex) all appear to be hotbeds of “White Extremism” if the Star-Ledger is to be believed.

Funny thing… some of these towns are the places of residence of those very same members of the Star-Ledger’s editorial board. Which means, next time they want to take a dump on somewhere, they should just step outside, pull down their drawers, and do it on their own front steps – because apparently, that’s where all the action is.

So why would the Star-Ledger just make this crap up and defame a whole county and its people? Well, we’ve been here before…

All this puts us in mind of the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. The media went crazy reporting on every salacious detail, hundreds of suspected “witches” and “cultists” were investigated while politicians and prosecutors pontificated and made their careers, dozens were arrested, many of whom were convicted and spent years in jail – before the truth pushed through to reveal that it was all just media hype. A public circus of show trials and fake stoked fear.

The New York Times covered this in one of their Retro-Report series…

Those convicted were eventually released. Instead of the media, the politicians, and prosecutors who convicted them being made to pay – the taxpayers paid out millions as some measure of restitution to the people whose lives were destroyed (for a story, a headline, a conviction). Writer Aja Romano wrote an interesting piece on the Satanic Panic a few years ago…

In 1980, a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse. Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. Pazder purportedly helped Smith uncover memories of past abuse at the hands of members of the Church of Satan, which Pazder insisted was older than LaVey’s group by several centuries.

Almost from the moment of Michelle Remembers’ publication, its claims and allegations were repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media praise, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse.

Despite the wild implausibility and unverifiable foundation of its stories of grisly abuse and sex orgies, Michelle Remembers was presented during the ’80s and early ’90s as a textbook for legal professionals and other authorities. It also spawned numerous copy-cat memoirs like 1988’s Satan’s Underground, all equally false, which embellished and mainstreamed the idea of a massive, intergenerational, clandestine satanic ritual sex abuse cult — one that could be occurring in your very own neighborhood.

“The devil worshippers could be anywhere,” writer Peter Berbergal said in summing up the zeitgeist. “They could be your next-door neighbor. They could be your child's caregiver."

The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the 1980s…

This fear would ravage communities and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history.

…In 1980 in Bakersfield, California, social workers had been reading the just-published Michelle Remembers as part of their training when a number of children came forward to declare that they had been molested as part of a clandestine local occult sex ring. Two of the girls had been coached by a grandparent who was believed to have a history of mental illness. Over the coming months, their story of strange occult sex acts would grow more and more bizarre, as they claimed to have been hung from hooks in their family’s living room, forced to drink blood and watch ritual baby sacrifices, and much more.

Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims of satanic ritual abuse would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.

Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of a local carpenter named John Stoll, who spent 20 years of his 40-year sentence in jail. Parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen were each sentenced to 240 years in jail after their own sons were coached, through coercive investigative techniques and overeager therapists, to accuse them of child molestation. Both children later recanted and the Kniffens were released after serving 12 years in prison. As adults, several of the children involved in the trials professed to have been traumatized by their own earlier false testimony and the subsequent damage it caused.

But these children weren’t alone; the Kern County abuse case was the first, but would not be the last, to spiral hopelessly out of control.

…Among the many failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in daycares was the McMartin trial, which became the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. This massive investigation began in 1983, when one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the police investigation into the abuse claims, a child-service nonprofit group known as the Children’s Institute conducted examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare. The examinations were run by a woman named Kee MacFarlane, who was an unlicensed psychotherapist.

MacFarlane had no psychological or medical training, and boasted a welding certificate as her highest academic credential; still, she and two other unqualified assistants were allowed to conduct the investigations, famously using “anatomically correct” dolls and other questionable methods of interrogation. These extremely coercive interview processes led to false memories among children, which then led to highly fantastic claims of abuse directed at even more staff members. Out of 400 children, the interviewers determined that 359 of them had been abused.

The accusations collected by the Children’s Institute resulted in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse being leveled at seven daycare staff members by 41 children. (Pazder, now considered an “expert” in satanic ritual abuse, was among the consultants in the case.) Among the litany of outlandish claims children made in the case were that daycare owners would flush them down toilets, that they had built secret underground tunnels to transport them to ritual ceremonies, that they had ritually sacrificed a baby, and that they could turn into witches and fly.

After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to an utter lack of evidence. The original accusing parent in the case was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative techniques used by the Children’s Institute were thoroughly discredited by the psychological community, and one by one, all charges against the daycare staffers were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Due to the over-the-top nature of the allegations in the McMartin case, the public gradually became skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse. “After scouring the country, we found no evidence for large-scale cults that sexually abuse children,” Dr. Gail Goodman, a psychologist who conducted a wide-scale survey of US case workers about the hysteria, told The New York Times in 1994. What criminal allegations were made had generally come about due to a mix of mental illness, false memories implanted during therapy and witness investigations, and, most frequently, reports from people who were being influenced by histrionic media reports of satanic ritual abuse — a pattern very similar to the current outbreak of clown scares.

The writer goes on to outline a dozen or so similar prosecutions. All built on literally insane allegations. All debunked in time – but not after causing a remarkable degree of harm on those who were falsely accused.

Where were the members of the Star-Ledger editorial board in the 1980s and 90s? Maybe they were covering the Satanic Panic? Maybe they were fanning the flames of illogic and fear? Maybe they believe enough time has passed, that people have forgotten, and that maybe they’ll do it again? Let’s hope not. But then again, it’s not the 1980s… and who reads newspapers nowadays (besides the advertisers, many of whom rely on customers from… Sussex County)?

Is “White Extremism” the new “Satanic Panic” scare?

By Rubashov
 
On September 16, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law. More than $30 billion was spent during the Clinton presidency to work with state and local law enforcement to drive down crime.  It worked, crime declined sharply during the 1990’s.  But President Clinton would later complain that voters’ perceptions continued to reflect concerns about the “high incidence” of crime, despite the empirical evidence of its decline.
 
Why?  Well, news coverage of crime had changed.  Facing an increasingly competitive environment, media outlets fought to attract more customers.  From Agatha Christie to True Detective, crime brings in an audience, so the media began to spend an enormous amount of time covering crimes that in the past would have been noted, if at all, by a line or two in the “police blotter”.  The media’s increased coverage of crime made people believe there was more of it, despite the evidence.
 
Democrats like Congressman Tom Malinowski would have us believe that there are “white extremist” cells in every town and neighborhood where average working class folk account for a significant portion of the population.  Of course, this is not the case within the precincts of those bubble lands inhabited by rich One-Percenters like Tom Malinowski.  There only good-will and tolerance abide, so says Malinowski.    
 
The New York Times, that bastion of unbiased journalism, supports the Democrat narrative of “white extremism” (aka “white supremacy”).  Of course they would.  Despite having plenty of opportunities to do so, the New York Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican for President since 1956.  If you voted that year based on the Times’ recommendation, you would be 84 years old today. 
 
The evidence suggests the New York Times has a record of bias that is surpassed only by the newspapers of the former Soviet Union.  And yet day by day we receive missives from the New York Times, begging for money, suggesting that by paying them money we are somehow performing a public good.  One recent appeal for money stated this bald faced lie: 
 
“The freedom of the press is essential to our democracy, and subscriber support is vital in helping journalists follow the facts wherever they lead and report without fear or favor.”
 
The sales flunky who penned that howler either doesn’t read the newspaper he’s shilling for – or he has a set of grapefruit-sized cojones.  Follow the facts wherever they lead… tell that to the millions of murdered Ukrainians defamed by the New York Times.  You can read all about the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize winning genocide-denier here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

Hey, now don’t get the idea that the New York Times is some wild radical or revolutionary media outlet.  Far from it.  The New York Times is the newspaper of record of the Corporate/Government/& Academic Establishment of these United States.  It supports all the wars, all the foreign interventions, all the big spending, all the government intrusions into private life, it is a champion for the slow decline of freedom in this country.  Just look at how the New York Times trashes Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard… 

In pushing the Democrats’ “white extremism” narrative, the New York Times seizes upon the affinity that some biker gangs have for WW2-style German military helmets, Nazi-insignia, and other pointedly non-conformist paraphernalia. Of course, such has been adopted and worn by anti-social delinquents since at least the 1950’s (as any of a number of popular “biker” movies from that and later eras will illustrate).

It would be monstrous for a serious newspaper to argue that the members of a criminal biker gang with ties to illegal narcotics represents a “political” force, or is representative of a specific community or region, or is somehow the face of a significant piece of the American working class – if it wasn’t so patently silly and ridiculous. Married up to this are the efforts of individual Democrats like Tom Malinowski – who is forever on the hunt for “evidence” of the “looming threat” of “white extremism” (too bad he forgets the role he played in selling out the Rohingya people to genocide).

All this puts us in mind of the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. The media went crazy reporting on every salacious detail, hundreds of suspected “witches” and “cultists” were investigated while politicians and prosecutors pontificated and made their careers, dozens were arrested, many of whom were convicted and spent years in jail – before the truth pushed through to reveal that it was all just media hype. A public circus of show trials and fake stoked fear.

Those convicted were eventually released. Instead of the media, the politicians, and prosecutors who convicted them being made to pay – the taxpayers paid out millions as some measure of restitution to the people whose lives were destroyed (for a story, a headline, a conviction). Writer Aja Romano wrote an interesting piece on the Satanic Panic a few years ago…

In 1980, a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse. Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. Pazder purportedly helped Smith uncover memories of past abuse at the hands of members of the Church of Satan, which Pazder insisted was older than LaVey’s group by several centuries.

Almost from the moment of Michelle Remembers’ publication, its claims and allegations were repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media praise, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse.

Despite the wild implausibility and unverifiable foundation of its stories of grisly abuse and sex orgies, Michelle Remembers was presented during the ’80s and early ’90s as a textbook for legal professionals and other authorities. It also spawned numerous copy-cat memoirs like 1988’s Satan’s Underground, all equally false, which embellished and mainstreamed the idea of a massive, intergenerational, clandestine satanic ritual sex abuse cult — one that could be occurring in your very own neighborhood.

“The devil worshippers could be anywhere,” writer Peter Berbergal said in summing up the zeitgeist. “They could be your next-door neighbor. They could be your child's caregiver."

The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the 1980s…

This fear would ravage communities and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history.

…In 1980 in Bakersfield, California, social workers had been reading the just-published Michelle Remembers as part of their training when a number of children came forward to declare that they had been molested as part of a clandestine local occult sex ring. Two of the girls had been coached by a grandparent who was believed to have a history of mental illness. Over the coming months, their story of strange occult sex acts would grow more and more bizarre, as they claimed to have been hung from hooks in their family’s living room, forced to drink blood and watch ritual baby sacrifices, and much more.

Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims of satanic ritual abuse would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.

Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of a local carpenter named John Stoll, who spent 20 years of his 40-year sentence in jail. Parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen were each sentenced to 240 years in jail after their own sons were coached, through coercive investigative techniques and overeager therapists, to accuse them of child molestation. Both children later recanted and the Kniffens were released after serving 12 years in prison. As adults, several of the children involved in the trials professed to have been traumatized by their own earlier false testimony and the subsequent damage it caused.

But these children weren’t alone; the Kern County abuse case was the first, but would not be the last, to spiral hopelessly out of control.

…Among the many failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in daycares was the McMartin trial, which became the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. This massive investigation began in 1983, when one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the police investigation into the abuse claims, a child-service nonprofit group known as the Children’s Institute conducted examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare. The examinations were run by a woman named Kee MacFarlane, who was an unlicensed psychotherapist.

MacFarlane had no psychological or medical training, and boasted a welding certificate as her highest academic credential; still, she and two other unqualified assistants were allowed to conduct the investigations, famously using “anatomically correct” dolls and other questionable methods of interrogation. These extremely coercive interview processes led to false memories among children, which then led to highly fantastic claims of abuse directed at even more staff members. Out of 400 children, the interviewers determined that 359 of them had been abused.

The accusations collected by the Children’s Institute resulted in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse being leveled at seven daycare staff members by 41 children. (Pazder, now considered an “expert” in satanic ritual abuse, was among the consultants in the case.) Among the litany of outlandish claims children made in the case were that daycare owners would flush them down toilets, that they had built secret underground tunnels to transport them to ritual ceremonies, that they had ritually sacrificed a baby, and that they could turn into witches and fly.

After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to an utter lack of evidence. The original accusing parent in the case was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative techniques used by the Children’s Institute were thoroughly discredited by the psychological community, and one by one, all charges against the daycare staffers were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Due to the over-the-top nature of the allegations in the McMartin case, the public gradually became skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse. “After scouring the country, we found no evidence for large-scale cults that sexually abuse children,” Dr. Gail Goodman, a psychologist who conducted a wide-scale survey of US case workers about the hysteria, told The New York Times in 1994. What criminal allegations were made had generally come about due to a mix of mental illness, false memories implanted during therapy and witness investigations, and, most frequently, reports from people who were being influenced by histrionic media reports of satanic ritual abuse — a pattern very similar to the current outbreak of clown scares.

The writer goes on to outline a dozen or so similar prosecutions. All built on literally insane allegations. All debunked in time – but not after causing a remarkable degree of harm on those who were falsely accused.

Perhaps the New York Times writers are too young to remember the 1980s and 90s. Perhaps they failed to study it at journalism school. Perhaps it wasn’t offered. In any event, let’s hope the Times and its political fellow-travelers are not heading down this well-beaten road again… only this time the accused, the victims, will be whole communities, regions, a whole class of working people, or anyone from anywhere not likely to believe the New York Times.

Hypocrisy, War, and “Islamophobia”

By Rubashov

The New York Times is the newspaper of record in America. So if you ever want to know which way the Establishment is blowing in the good old U.S. of A., consider this: The last time the New York Times endorsed a Republican for President was in 1956. His name was Dwight Eisenhower. If you voted for him then, you would be 84 years old today. That’s the American Establishment.

Of course, since 1956, the American Establishment – with the New York Times as its lead mouthpiece – has endorsed a whole series of wars which actually are not “official” wars because, per the Constitution, Congress did not declare them. Of course, the media doesn’t focus on the illegally of these seemingly endless wars, only the often made up justifications for them.

The same Establishment media that makes a show of displaying its morality – with fashionable admonishments like “how dare you be Islamophobic” – has for nearly two decades marched people off to wars in which they have been killed and maimed and left psychologically damaged by the Islamic combatants of the other side. And our own side has been asked to kill and maim and break the Islamic peoples against whom they have been cast. Ask any combat veteran. Killing is not an antiseptic business. It stirs the emotions. One cannot be fond of those you are asked to kill.

During and after the Great War (World War I) German-sounding place names across New Jersey were eliminated, changed to something else. Was it racism? Or was it in the nature of people who have been asked by their government to get angry enough to kill? Was it racism? Or was it the pain of a dead son or husband or father? Was it racism? Or the loss of a limb or limbs or eyes or psychological wholeness? Forty years after the end of the Second World War, there were still people who refused to buy Japanese automobiles. Racism or the residuals of a prescribed anger? Anger and loss…

The same Establishment media that decries “Anti-Muslim” thoughts or speech supports the wars in which actual Muslims are bombed, shot, starved, made homeless – and we are asked not to notice. They are our moral superiors, the arbiters of what is good and what is evil. Just do as they direct and know that to kill a man (as directed by government) is not as great a sin as to think an unsanctioned thought. Thought is the only real crime. Thought and its attendant, speech.

This is why Establishment media so hates the Ron Pauls and Tulsi Gabbards of the world. Anyone who questions war is job one on their hit list. The honest Left and the honest Right know this, which links them forever as “outsiders”.

Who is Tulsi Gabbard?

Tulsi Gabbard is a military combat veteran serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Elected in 2012, she became the first Samoan American and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress.

Gabbard served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 2002 to 2004. When she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at age 21, she was the youngest woman to be elected to a U.S. state legislature. Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in a combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009.

Gabbard was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Gabbard opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She is critical of interventionism in Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and Syria.

Gabbard is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020.

Gottheimer attacked leader of “Jihad Squad”.

They have been satirically called the “Jihad Squad”…

You remember satire, don’t you?  Yes, it had something to do with comedy… but all that was banned after the rise of the Neo-Cromwellians…

Satire (noun) the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Apparently, satire – like everything else these days – is now a form of “racism”.

This so-called “Jihad Squad” is composed of the following members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.  A couple of them are rather anti-Semitic and none of them much like the Jewish state.  One member of Congress – Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-Minnesota) – actually mocks Jewish people by calling them “Benjamins”.  Another, Rashida Harbi Tlaib (D-Michigan), holds rallies under the banners of the PLO – a terrorist group.

Maybe that is why Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) called out the group’s leader, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after she threatened him and other Democrats with placement on a kind of political extermination list.  Gottheimer asked: “Since when is it okay to put you on a Nixonian list?  We need to have a big tent in our party, or we won’t keep the House or win the White House.”  The New Jersey Globe did a nice job covering Gottheimer’s response to the “Jihad Squad” leader’s attacks.  You can read the full story here…

https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/gottheimer-takes-on-ocasio-cortez/

Rashida Harbi Tlaib doesn’t much care for Josh Gottheimer either (hey, at least she doesn’t call him a “Benjamin”).  The Democrat from Michigan called the Democrat from New Jersey a “bully”.  Gottheimer had simply raised the issue of anti-Semitism amongst members of what has been jokingly referred to as the “Jihad Squad”.  According to media reports, Gottheimer noted… “anti-Semitic comments on dual loyalty and other anti-Semitic tropes that the Congressman and many other members of Congress found deeply disturbing."  The Intercept, run by that hero of transparency Glenn Greenwald, reported on this in May. 

All the members of the so-called “Jihad Squad” are supporters of Linda Sarsour, a co-founder of the famous (or, depending on one’s perspective, infamous) Women’s March.  Sarsour has, in fact, used the term “Jihad” in her speeches and, to our knowledge, not one of the “Jihad Squad” has attempted to distance themselves either from her or her use of the word.

In July 2017, Linda Sarsour called for a "Jihad" against the American government. 

Here's what she said:

"During a speech to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago last weekend, Sarsour, a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention who is an anti-Israel and pro-Sharia activist, made the startling call and also urged against 'assimilation.' 

'I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,' she said. 'That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.'

'Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority,' she said.

'Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community. Our top priority and even higher than all those other priorities is to please Allah and only Allah,' she said."

Sarsour started off her call for "Jihad" by praising the work of Siraj Wahaj, who she described as her "favorite person in the room."  Wahaj is a controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of American law enforcement for years.  Federal prosecutors included him on a 3½-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged, the Associated Press reported.

That same month, July 2017, Linda Sarsour’s organization "honored" cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur). 

Then there is the extensive media coverage of Sarsour’s supportive statements towards the virulently anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan.  And her statements about wanting to remove another Muslim woman’s vagina…

In an August 1, 2017 New York Times column – When Progressives Embrace Hate – Editor Bari Weiss wrote:

"The leaders of the Women’s March, arguably the most prominent feminists in the country, have some chilling ideas and associations. Far from erecting the big tent so many had hoped for, the movement they lead has embraced decidedly illiberal causes and cultivated a radical tenor that seems determined to alienate all but the most woke.

Start with Ms. Sarsour, by far the most visible of the quartet of organizers. It turns out that this 'homegirl in a hijab,' as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views, as advertised by . . . Linda Sarsour.

There are comments on her Twitter feed of the anti-Zionist sort: 'Nothing is creepier than Zionism,' she wrote in 2012. And, oddly, given her status as a major feminist organizer, there are more than a few that seem to make common cause with anti-feminists, like this from 2015: 'You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sound nice, doesn’t it?'  She has dismissed the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the most crude and cruel terms, insisting she is 'not a real woman' and confessing that she wishes she could take away Ms. Ali’s vagina — this about a woman who suffered genital mutilation as a girl in Somalia." 

Hey, maybe the reason why some Democrats don’t get satire is that, in this case, they don’t think it is satire.  Maybe they think it is reality and they just want to suppress it?

Could be.

NJGOP should try to stop sale of New Jersey college to Chinese Navy.

The Chinese Navy… yes, the Communist Chinese Navy… is trying to purchase a college in New Jersey.

For nearly a century, Westminster Choir College (part of Rider University), has been one of America’s leading academic institutions for advanced musical studies, with a core mission of “training ministers (with music as their ministry) in the Christian evangelical tradition.”  It is also one of America’s national treasures for classical music.  The college’s Westminster Choir has performed with the New York Philharmonic over 300 times, more than any other organization. 

This story has been reported extensively… from the New York Times to Fox News, but now there's opposition to a Chinese government-owned defense contractor for the Chinese Navy trying to buy it.

An alumni group, the Westminster Foundation, has sued to stop Rider University from selling it, claiming that the Chinese government would have a direct foothold in America academia.

The Westminster Foundation’s lawsuit contends that the company intended to run the school, Princeton Westminster International, is really owned by Bejing Wenhuaxuexin Education, which is a subsidiary of Bejing Kaiwen Education Technology, "a for-profit Chinese entity owned and controlled by the government of China."

The lawsuit states that just three weeks before it announced its intent to buy Westminster, Kaiwen changed its name from Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Company, "a manufacturer of components of Chinese naval vessels and is a defense contractor" for China's military," in order "to create the veneer and seeming appearance of an education entity to justify its acquisition of Westminster Choir College."

Security experts believe that the real reason the Chinese government wants to buy Westminster Choir College is to gain a foothold in Princeton’s regional academic community and then exploit Princeton's reputation as a center of studies for the U.S. intelligence community.  The United States government maintains contracts at known research centers in high tech, defense, and cyberspace that happen to be near Westminster's campus. Westminster Choir College is a tiny music school in one of the most sensitive centers of intelligence and defense research in the world.

The attorney for the Westminster Foundation recently was quoted:  "For the first time in American history, an American college would have been taken over by a unit of a foreign authoritarian foreign dictatorship, which is what China is. The sad reality is that academic freedom disappears, true education disappears, the ability to create music, drama culture, to study religion disappears because all of these things are subject to censorship in China."

So… what is the NJGOP going to do about it?

This is a made to order issue for Republicans and right-thinking Democrats alike.  So who is going to step up?

Tom Moran is trying to fool you. He’s a partisan warrior.

Remember when ObamaCare was going to make health care less expensive?

How is that working out for you?  Are you paying less for health insurance than you were in 2008 and getting more coverage?  Or is it costing you more for less?

Sure, it’s been a deal for some.  But for most?

Ehealth, which calls itself the country’s “largest private online health insurance exchange”, issued a report in 2017 claiming that average individual health insurance premiums increased 99% under ObamaCare, with family premiums increasing by 140%. 

Are these self-serving corporate statistics?  Perhaps.  But they certainly jive with what everyone’s been hearing from friends, neighbors, and family.  Health care didn’t get any cheaper for most Americans under the regime of President Barack Obama. 

Of course, if you are a key corporate man with a fat paycheck and a benefits plan to die for, you don’t notice these things.  Enter the Newark Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran. 

The newspaper Tom Moran works for is one of many that belongs to a family of billionaires.  Health care is not one of their personal worries.  And because he has followed their lead and done their bidding, it’s not one of Tom Moran’s personal worries either.  He’s covered.

In return, they get the use of his pen when it comes time to defend outrages like the Abbott Decision, which forces poor families in rural New Jersey to subsidize the property taxes of rich corporations and wealthy professionals living in places like Hoboken and Jersey City.  A city like Newark has enough wealth from the rich corporations and law firms that reside there to fully pay for the education of the children of their community – but because of the Courts are able to shirk that responsibility and off-load it onto the shoulders of over-taxed suburban seniors.

The rich guys who own the Star Ledger appreciate Moran’s defense of their tax dodge, as they have long had property in places covered under the Abbott Decision.  And Moran writes it in a way that them not paying their fair share is a virtue – something worthy of moral approbation.  Though he hates the Roman Catholic Church, he’s still the alter boy with his eyes set on becoming a priest, holier than thou, the holiest guy in the room – the “saint” who, under cover of darkness, you find eating worms in the sacristy basement, preparing to howl at the moon.

Tom Moran has made it is his business to attack anyone who questions the legacy of Barack Hussein Obama.  It’s religion with Tom Moran.  Having rejected the religious idealism of his youth, he needed to replace it with something.  That something became Barack Obama.  For Tom Moran, he is a Christ figure.  So naturally Tom Moran gets very emotional if someone questions why Obama got that Nobel Prize for doing nothing more than being Obama.  And that’s why Tom Moran is so angry and twisted in his attacks on anyone who questions ObamaCare (or should we call it the “sacrament” of ObamaCare?).

Unfortunately for Tom Moran, his new-found idealism is misplaced.  ObamaCare wasn’t fashioned in Nirvana but rather in the backrooms and lobbyists offices in the swamp that is Washington, DC.  There was something downright carnal about the undemocratic, top-down, vote-for-it-before-reading-it way in which it was done.  It had more to do with a whore-house than a church.  But you can’t convince Tom Moran of that.  He thinks it’s pure and, like some especially delusional Don Quixote, Tom Moran anxiously defends his whore’s honor.

The blinders necessary to accomplish this makes it impossible to see the realities of the evil of a man like Senator Bob Menendez – who helped his pal import at least two young women into the United States.  Or men like Senator Cory Booker whose childishness and wish to please has led him into the arms of people who want to finish-off every Jew in the Middle East.

Calling for the end to the border wall and other fortifications that protect Israel against terrorists is like calling for a second Holocaust.  It is not enough that Cory Booker’s international allies have driven Jews out of every country they control, now he wants to tear down Israel’s protective barrier and allow them to march in to commence a pogrom of terror, torture, rape, and murder.

And to make matters worse, thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer, now we know that Booker’s fellow Democrat – Bob Menendez – is allowing his campaign to be run by a lobbyist for the foreign government of Qatar, one of the worse anti-Jewish culprits in the world and a government criticized by the United Nations and Amnesty International for its relaxed attitudes towards modern slavery – human trafficking and the exploitation of children.

So why is Tom Moran silent about this?  What’s wrong, anti-Semite got your tongue?

Ditto for the three moe-moes Mikie Sherrill , Tom Malinowski, and Andy Kim.  The anti-Semites must have their tongues too.

And Tom Moran will keep on writing his apologia.

Democrat Cory Booker demands an end to the Jewish State

Calling for the end to the border wall and other fortifications that protect Israel against terrorists is like calling for a second Holocaust.  It is not enough that Cory Booker’s international allies have driven Jews out of every country they control, now he wants to tear down Israel’s protective barrier and allow them to march in to commence a pogrom of terror, torture, rape, and murder.

And to make matters worse, thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer, now we know that Booker’s fellow Democrat – Bob Menendez – is allowing his campaign to be run by a lobbyist for the foreign government of Qatar, one of the worse anti-Jewish culprits in the world and a government criticized by the United Nations and Amnesty International for its relaxed attitudes towards modern slavery – human trafficking and the exploitation of children.

So why are wannabe Democrat politicians like Mikie Sherrill, Tom Malinowski, and Andy Kim hanging out with Booker and Menendez?  Andy follows Menendez around so closely that if the Senator stopped suddenly, he would find Andy’s head lodged firmly up his bunghole.  Tom and Mikie are that way with Booker too.  So what’s up with the hero worship of these cretins?

Over the last couple days, both the New York Times and its little sister, the Newark Star Ledger, have been openly advocating on behalf of congressional candidate Mikie Sherrill.  They are shilling for her, spinning for her, claiming that if she were to attend a rally of the Ku Klux Klan, she (and only she, mind you) would be doing so strictly as an observer.  One could not conclude that she was in simpatico with the Klan, even if she asked for their votes – so the New York Times and Newark Star Ledger argue – unless she actually put a torch to the cross and set it on fire.  That’s what these newspapers are arguing.  As their special pet, they claim that Mikie Sherrill should be treated like a journalist looking for copy instead of a politician looking for votes.

So if a Republican attended a far-right rally, the newspapers claim the right to link him to the far-right and then to call for his resignation.  But when a Democrat (especially their special pet, Mikie Sherrill) attended a far-left rally, and asked for their votes, the newspapers claim it is a “lie” to say that she supports them and they support her.  Of course, the old double-standard at work again.

If anyone tries to tell you that the New York Times isn’t biased, remind them of this one important FACT:  The last time the New York Times endorsed a Republican for President was in 1956.  Anyone who voted in that election would be at least 83 years old today.  Any American under 83 has never seen a New York Times endorsement of a Republican.  That’s pretty damned biased.

Like Andy Kim and Tom Malinowski, Mikie Sherrill is a former Obama administration bureaucrat who responded to the election of a new American President by becoming part of a “resistance” movement.  So much for democracy, the rule of law, the Republic… and so much for humility. 

This is a generation raised on make-believe.  So instead of grappling with reality, they made pretend they were living in France, circa 1940, during its occupation by the Wehrmacht – and that they are the brave boys and girls of the French Resistance. 

Mikie Sherrill, who never ceases to remind us that she flew a helicopter for the Navy, seems to want to forget how she got this far… She knew that Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Veteran of the Vietnam War, was getting up there in age and that his health was in decline.  She also knew that he was one of the most bi-partisan members of Congress… known for his mild, gentlemanly demeanor, respected by both parties, willing to work with all sides to find solutions.

But Mikie Sherrill didn’t care.  She set her Antifa hoodlums on this elderly Vietnam Veteran.

They screamed and shouted down old Congressman Frelinghuysen – spat insults at him, called him vicious names, trashed his name and all the good works that he stood for.  Just as Rodney Frelinghuysen was about to secure mass transit service for Sussex County… Mikie Sherrill’s loudmouths tortured the old fellow, drove up his blood pressure, rattled his nerves, to the point that he quietly exited the stage.

Good job, jackasses.

You lost New Jersey one of its most powerful advocates in Congress – no, not with press releases, but in his quiet way, he knew how to get things done in Congress. He secured the post of Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 2017.  In this powerful position, Rodney Frelinghuysen would have been able to accomplish so much for our state.  Now that’s all gone.  You killed the guy who was in the best position to serve our state and don’t think for one moment that some wet-behind-the-ears freshman is going to make a patch on Rodney’s arse.

What got us to thinking about this was candidate Mikie Sherrill’s recent cable advertisement in which she poses in front of a helicopter that wasn’t in Vietnam and talks about how she wants to be a “bi-partisan” force for good.  That’s bullshit.  You just killed off the most effective “bi-partisan” force for good in the state. 

Meanwhile, her fellow “resistance” movement people target a mixed-race couple having breakfast at a café in Philadelphia because they happen to hold free-market ideas on economics and somebody recognized them.  Enlightened members of the “resistance” smashed up a United States Marine Corps recruiting office and attacked police for the same reasons they went after Vietnam Vet Rodney Frelinghuysen… and the same reason they scream “abolish ICE” and protest enforcing the law.   They’re on planet make-believe… and Mikie Sherrill is there with them.  In full embrace.  She owns it.

Reason magazine demolishes “Russian troll hysteria”

The conventional story is that Russian trolls infiltrated the 2016 election with fake social media ads. But according to details from a February 2018 indictment of those trolls, it's unclear how much of an effect they actually had.

Federal prosecutors have filed charges against 13 Russians who allegedly sought to "sow discord in the U.S. political system" through social media posts, ads, and videos falsely presented as the work of Americans. After the indictment was unveiled in February, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump's "admirers and detractors" both agree with him that "the Russians intended to sow chaos" and "have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams." But Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum says a close look at the indictment tells a different story.

Here are "5 Reasons Not to Feed the Russian Troll Hysteria:"

1) Russian trolling was a drop in the bucket. According to the indictment, Russian trolls associated with the so-called Internet Research Agency (IRA) in Saint Petersburg spent "thousands of U.S. dollars every month" on social media ads, which is a minuscule fraction of online ad revenue. Facebook alone reported advertising revenue of $9.16 billion in the second quarter of 2017. The Russians are said to be responsible for producing 43 hours of YouTube videos, but that doesn't seem like very much when you consider that 400 hours of content are uploaded to the site every minute.

2) Russian trolls were not very sophisticated. Russian trolls supposedly had the Machiavellian know-how to infiltrate the American political system, but their social media posts don't look very sophisticated. The posts often featured broken English and puzzling topic choices. A post promoting a "buff" Bernie Sanders coloring book, for instance, noted that "the coloring is something that suits for all people." Another post showed Jesus and Satan in an arm wrestling match under this caption: "SATAN: IF I WIN CLINTON WINS! JESUS: NOT IF I CAN HELP IT!" The post generated very few clicks and shares.

3) Russian troll rallies apparently did not attract many participants. The indictment makes much of pro-Trump and anti-Clinton rallies instigated by Russian trolls, but it does not say how many people participated. The New York Times reported that a Russian-organized rally in Texas opposing Shariah law attracted a dozen people. An anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rally in Idaho drew four people. Attendance at other rallies was similarly sparse.

4) Russian trolling probably didn't change anyone's mind. Broken English aside, the social media posts were not qualitatively different from content created by American activists, and they seemed to be aimed mainly at reinforcing pre-existing beliefs and divisions. The Russians might have gotten a few Trump supporters to show up at anti-Clinton rallies, but that does not mean they had an impact on the election.

5) Russian troll hysteria depicts free speech as a kind of violence. The Justice Department describes the messages posted by Russians pretending to be Americans as "information warfare." But while the posts may have been sophomoric, inaccurate, and illogical, that does not distinguish them from most of what passes for online political discussion among actual Americans. The integrity of civic discourse does not depend on verifying the citizenship of people who participate in it. It depends on the ability to weigh what they say, checking it against our own values and information from other sources. If voters cannot do that, maybe democracy is doomed. But if so, it's not the Russians' fault.

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Andy Kim: Petraeus gave out medals for "schmoozing"

Poor Andy Kim.  Trying to make himself out to be some kind of warlord while working for two of the wildest hanky-panky loving generals in memory. 

Andy Kim claims to have been on assignment in Afghanistan in 2011.  That's when two now disgraced generals ran the United Nations operation there.  Kim claims it was a NATO deal, but that is just more of his b.s. -- it was a U.N. operation. 

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, established by the United Nations Security Council in December 2001 by Resolution 1386.  Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and assist Afghanistan in rebuilding key government institutions.  In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan.  ISAF ceased operations and was disbanded in December 2014. 

And while Andy Kim wants to beat his chest about it, the truth is much sadder, as these headlines show...

Taliban control of Afghanistan continues to grow, US data reveals - CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/30/asia/afghanistan-taliban-us-control.../index.html

Jan 30, 2018 - The Taliban strengthened its hold over Afghanistan in the second half of last year, according to new US military data released to CNN on ..

Taliban threaten 70% of Afghanistan, BBC finds - BBC News

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42863116

Jan 31, 2018 - The BBC study shows the Taliban are now in full control of 14 districts .... a bloody insurgency which continues today; In 2016, Afghan civilian ...

Afghan Forces Battle Taliban for Control of Western City, Farah - The ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-farah-.html

9 hours ago - KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents entered the capital of the ... “We are hoping to get control of the fighting in the city by today,” Gen.

No, it doesn't look like Andy and the Obama administration solved much. 

But there was time for fun... and a lot of hanky panky.  According to numerous media reports, one of the guys Kim worked for -- John Allen -- exchanged 30,000 emails with a lovely beauty in Tampa, Florida.  No kidding -- 30,000 emails.  How did the guy manage to get anything done with all that playmail?

All that carrying on made the American military a laughingstock...

'Commander, you are SUCH a tease!' How Gen Petraeus was nicknamed James Bond by the socialite who felt his quads over dinner - and who exchanged 30,000 flirty emails with another top general

(Daily Mail, March 28, 2016)

In Andy Kim's defense, he is never mentioned in connection to any of the hanky panky -- unless he answered to one of the nicknames "snoopy" or "moe of planet moe".  No, Andy Kim didn't merit a mention in the biography of General Petraeus written by the lady reservist Petraeus was getting it on with.  But they did get the same photo-op:

And as for awards.  Poor Andy was left in the dust again.  The civilian service award that Andy Kim got was a paltry affair compared to the big-deal Joint Chiefs of Staff award that the "quad-feeler" socialite got.  Apparently they were handing out civilian awards like candy over at Fort Runamuck. 

Jill Kelley awarded prestigious medal from Joint Chiefs in 2011

(New York Post, November 22, 2012)

COMRADES: Jill Kelley demonstrates her “selfless contributions” for which Gen. David Petraeus (left) bestowed the second-highest citation for a civilian.

They’ll give a medal to anyone.

Military schmoozer Jill Kelley — a central figure in the investigation of Gen. David Petraeus — in March 2011 was awarded a prestigious medal from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The award, the country’s second-highest honor for a civilian, was given to acknowledge Kelley’s “selfless contributions” and “willingness to host engagements” for top pols and military brass.

Beads... Maybe Andy should have worn beads.

Meanwhile, actual heroes were getting screwed by the Petraeus crew that Andy Kim worked for...

Ex-Army Gen. David Petraeus tried to downgrade war hero’s valor award: Pentagon

(New York Daily News, November 8, 2013)

A soldier nominated for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, had to endure a sneak attack from then-Army Gen. David Petraeus, who reportedly wanted to downgrade his heroism.

A Pentagon investigation into the botched nomination of Army Capt. William Swenson revealed Petraeus surreptitiously tried to give Swenson the nation's second-highest award, according to reports.  Swenson, 34, ultimately was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama last month for nearly singlehandedly fighting off 60 Taliban insurgents in 2009. He heroically assisted injured U.S. and Afghan troops following an assault in the Ganjgal Valley, and further proved his mettle by returning to the dangerous scene multiple times to recover his fallen brothers and sisters.

Never fear though, Petraeus did manage to dish out the civilian awards like hot dogs at a baseball game...

General Petraeus Gave Jill Kelley A Medal For Schmoozing

(Business Insider, November 22, 2012)

Did you know you can get a medal from the U.S. military for schmoozing?

Apparently you can.

At General David Petraeus's recommendation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave Tampa Bay socialite Jill Kelley the country's second-highest honor a civilian can receive, reports Jeane MacIntosh of the New York Post.

Kelley received the award from Petraeus himself in a ceremony in Washington DC last year.

Jeane MacIntosh quotes from the citation, which lauds Kelley for many achievements:

·       "outstanding public service to the United States Central Command, the MacDill Air Force Base community and the Department of Defense from October 31, 2008 to May 31, 2010."

·       Kelley's work in "advancing various military endeavors" and her "willingness to host engagements with senior national representatives from more than 60 countries," according to the Tampa Tribune.

·       "On multiple occasions, Mrs. Kelley invited senior national representatives, their spouses and senior leaders to her home to demonstrate their gratitude and support. These events promoted camaraderie, understanding and a better appreciation for coalition and military customs, concerns and abilities."

·       "She [was] instrumental in introducing the commander, early in his tenure, to local and state officials, particularly the mayor of Tampa and the governor of Florida."

·       "The singularly distinctive accomplishments of Mrs. Jill Kelley are in keeping with the finest traditions of public service and reflect great credit upon herself, United States Central Command and the Department of Defense."

Amazing the things you learn from a sex scandal.

We have excerpts below for those of you who have not had the opportunity to read General Petraeus' biography, All In, written by former "squeeze" Paula Broadwell...

NY Times writer leads PAC that attacks suburban Republicans

A group from Amherst, Massachusetts, the only town in America that flies the UN flag in front of its town hall, is coming to New Jersey's 3rd District, home of one of America's largest military bases and a large population of serving and retired military personnel.

The group, Swing Left, was founded by a New York Times travel writer from Amherst, Massachusetts, a solidly Left-Democrat area.  He told the New Yorker magazine that where he lived there was "no immediate opportunities to flip or meaningfully defend a congressional district." 

“No Republican ran for office around here—they didn’t even bother—and a lot of progressives live in districts like that,” he said. So he went home and perused CNN’s Web site to find the closest district where the margin of victory was close. It was New York’s 19th Congressional District...  “I was getting ready to post on Facebook, to say that I would commit my time and energy to flipping N.Y. 19 in 2018,” he said. “But then I wondered, Why did I just have to do that? Why doesn’t a tool for finding your nearest swing district already exist?”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/swing-left-and-the-post-election-surge-of-progressive-activism

So bubbleland comes to suburbia.  Not to live here, of course, but to choose our elected officials, so that they can inflict on suburbia the kind of fashion statements that bubbleland demands.

We asked some Swinging Lefties why they didn't just move to places they consider uncool and boring -- like most of New Jersey -- there was a uniform gasp, followed by "no way!"  Perish the thought!

Swing Left isn't looking to become your neighbor.  They just want to choose your Member of Congress.

And it's not just the 3rd District they're coming for.  Democrat Andy Kim may be their latest love interest, but they are also playing for Democrat incumbent Josh Gottheimer -- and for the eventual Democrat nominees in the 2nd, 7th, and 11th districts.

The presence of the U.N. flag in front of the Amherst town hall is important, because the U.N. has a very particular record regarding Israel:

"As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by United Nations Human Rights Council. Since its creation in 2006—the Council had resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance)."

Some call this anti-Semitic. 

The flag has stirred up a lot of controversy.

They say timing is everything. But for indoctrinated college students, timing, along with respect, apparently doesn’t matter much as long as their narrative is heard.

On the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, unidentified students at Amherst College in Massachusetts hung a banner outside a campus dining hall shaming the U.S. for its “war on terror.”

Here’s the banner in question:

The banner reads, “There is no place large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. In honor of those killed and displaced by America’s so-called ‘war on terror.’”

Peter Murphy screwed his own GOP Freeholder candidate

How mercurial is Peter Murphy?  Enough to recruit a solid Republican candidate for Freeholder and after that screw him by recruiting an Independent to split the vote. 

In 2014, Murphy recruited a solid Republican candidate in union leader John Capo, but then he turned around and had his Republican town committee contribute $1,000 to another candidate recruited from Totowa -- Sami Merhi -- but this guy was running as an independent.  Merhi's candidacy undercut the Republican's chances and virtually insured that the Democrats' would win. Here's the contribution...

On top of this, Sami Merhi was a highly controversial candidate, having been rejected by the Democrats as a candidate a couple years before over what many in the media described as "anti-Semitic" remarks: 

"Passaic County Democrats withdrew their endorsement of a Lebanese-American freeholder candidate who had been criticized for remarks some critics said conveyed sympathy with Palestinian suicide bombers...

The decision came following reports that at an April 2002 rally and at a fund-raiser the same day for Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Dist. 8), Merhi made comments allegedly conveying sympathy with Palestinian suicide bombers. According to a report in The New York Times, he rejected a comparison between such attacks in Israel and the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, in which he lost a godson, and he quoted a would-be bomber captured in Israel in a way that some observers interpreted as a justification for such attacks.

According to Julie Roginsky, a spokeswoman for Democratic Party county chair John Currie, Merhi is to be replaced by Joanne Graviano, a Hawthorne school board member who is also active with the New Jersey Education Association. Roginsky quoted Currie as saying Graviano should have had the nomination from the start and that there was no room for divisiveness in the party.

Following Saturday’s vote, Merhi told the Associated Press: 'I’m in shock, feeling betrayed. They should be ashamed of themselves.' Merhi, who narrowly lost the party’s endorsement in 2004 because of the same issue, said he asked the party leaders on Saturday to support him and accept his explanation that his comments were misinterpreted. He said he reiterated his opposition to all forms of terrorism and his belief that killing innocent people is always wrong."

The full article can be accessed here: 

http://njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/033006/njPassaicDems.html

Apparently, Sami Merhi is a personal friend of both Passaic County GOP boss Peter Murphy and liberal Democrat Congressman Bill Pascrell.  Murphy and Pascrell are the nexus of horse-trading in Passaic County.  The following year, Murphy slated Merhi as a Republican candidate for Freeholder, which resulted in a predictable loss to the Democrats.  Apparently, Merhi was unavailable to make a run for Congress against Republican Assemblyman Jay Webber this year, hence his substitution with another Totowa resident.

Who is Peter Murphy?

He's the GOP party leader who runs the 23 insiders who pick which candidates represent the Republican Party in Passaic County.

He's been to prison.  Convicted on charges of public corruption.  But don't take our word for it, ask the man who sent him to prison.  Here's what then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie had to say about Peter Murphy: 

"We are pleased with the end result here – that Mr. Murphy served a considerable amount of time in prison for crimes which he has finally acknowledged committing as Republican party chairman in Passaic County... For those crimes, Mr. Murphy has lost his prestige and power, nearly a year of freedom and now is a convicted felon."

And that's who is choosing the official Republican candidates in Passaic County. 

Every candidate running in the June 5th Republican primary on the line PASSAIC COUNTY REGULAR REPUBLICAN ORGANIZATION is backed by Boss Peter Murphy, convicted of public corruption.  It is time to reject the GOP establishment and its coddling  of corruption.

Selling out: Media's decline from Al Doblin to Jonathan Salant

New Jersey's establishment media -- its editors and reporters -- are in a freefall and have lost their sense of decency.  Job security is such that they have all become free agents, writing articles to please prospective employers. 

So we have Star-Ledger Editor Tom Moran performing a masochistic panegyric to please Democrat machine boss George Norcross.  Over at the Bergen Record, that newspaper's editor was turning out pro-Democrat columns non-stop while engaging in backdoor negotiations with Senate President Steve Sweeney's office.  A few years ago, boss Norcross tried to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer, now his machine is getting all the talent on the cheap.

The NJGOP's answer to this was predictably self-defeating.  It's idea of a GOP counterbalance to the growing Democrat hegemony over media was to bring back Bridgegate mastermind David "Wally Edge" Wildstein, possibly the only person more hated in New Jersey than his old boss, Chris Christie.  To fund Wildstein's operation they found former Jamestown alumnus Ken Kurson.  It was Kurson who ran such memorable efforts as incumbent Marcia Karrow's loss to Mike Doherty in 2009 and incumbent Jeff Parrott's loss to Parker Space in 2010.  But losing has never been a bar to advancement in the NJGOP.  In fact, it generally is an asset.

Yep, Kurson has been accused of sexual harassment by writer and cancer-survivor Deborah Copaken.  This comes at a time when Kurson's old firm is trying to convince the women of New Jersey that the NJGOP's choice for U.S. Senate -- Bob Hugin -- is a new kind of man, when it comes to women (whatever that is supposed to mean).  You can read about what Kurson gets up to here: 

https://www.mediaite.com/online/author-deborah-copaken-accuses-ex-observer-editor-ken-kurson-of-sexual-harassment-in-powerful-op-ed/

It was Wildstein who outted Al Doblin as the ethical-free-zone he is.  Doblin plainly hated the kind of attention he's bestowed on others his entire working life.  In a series of whines, he complained to Wildstein:

“I am the editorial page editor.  If someone makes me an offer, I have the right to consider it,” Doblin explained.

Doblin called a request for information regarding his employment search “truly horrific.”

“This is unfair.  Truly unfair,” he said.

But Doblin is not the worst of the bunch.  That "honor" must surely go to Jonathan "short-ass" Salant, a reporter worthy of his own Duranty Prize for consistent blindness to all but the party-line.  In case you've forgotten Walter "the hand" Duranty.  He's the assbandit who denied that Stalin was starving to death millions of human beings in the Ukraine and elsewhere in what was once called the "Soviet Union".  He even won a Pulitzer Prize for it. 

Duranty wrote for the New York Times, which later was forced to admit that his articles denying the famine constituted "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."  There have been calls to revoke his Pulitzer, but you know how tough it is to get elitist filth to admit they made a mistake.  So Duranty's award -- for 1930's era Fake News -- still stands.  And so much for journalism.

Salant's latest dry-humping of the news came a few weeks back, when he attempted to write an update of the various congressional races in New Jersey. 

He started off by being childishly giddy about Republican Leonard Lance's district having gone for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while failing to mention that Democrat Josh Gottheimer's had done the same for Trump that year.

Salant never fails to describe a Republican donor negatively, offering bits of color, always dark.  On the other hand, old short-ass describes such creatures as George Soros in this light:  "Malinowski (received a donation of) $5,400 from investor George Soros, a major Democratic donor."

Investor?  A major Democratic donor??  How about convicted financial scammer who liberal economists have criticized for his callous manipulations of currency? 

Perhaps Salant is displaying his talents for the consideration of one of the many Soros media organs?  That seems to be the way these days.

In writing about the fifth district, Jonathan Salant somehow missed the fact that a third Republican, Jason Sarnosky, had dropped out of the race weeks before.  He wrote about him as if he were still campaigning. 

He went on to cover the race in southern New Jersey's first district.  And once again, Salant behaved like he was on a job interview.  He never once mentioned the machine that bears the Congressman's name and wrote as if it didn't exist.

Not to place Donald Norcross in the context of the machine of which he is a part is misleading and unethical.  It promotes bad government by purposefully covering up the truth and it gives aid and comfort to one of the most authoritarian political machines in America.  Don't want to see it, Jonathan?  Well just try being an ordinary citizen when the machine decides it wants to use eminent domain to take your property in order to give it to one of their corporate friends.  That's what you are shilling for.

The southern region of New Jersey is an example of a dominant-party system or one-party dominant system of government.  According to South African political scientist Raymond Suttner, such a system occurs when there is "a category of parties/political organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future".  It is a de facto one-party system, often devolving into a de jure one-party system, a semi-democracy. Usually, the dominant party has a tendency towards "suppressing freedom of expression and manipulating the press in favor of the ruling party." 

Well, short-ass, that is who you are shilling for.  That is who you are now.  All those romantic post-Watergate notions about doing right... well you're over that, right?  Expensive restaurants and sexy vacations got the better of you, didn't they?

Sell-out.

NJEA should withdraw backing from Jihadist and cop-killer supporters

From our friends at Sussex County Watchdog

We all remember the Women's March organization and who was very loud about supporting it:

...And then it turned out that the leadership of the Women's March was calling for "jihad" against the elected government of the United States of America.

...And then the Women's March posted a birthday greeting on its Facebook page praising a terrorist who murdered a New Jersey State Trooper.  That terrorist cop-killer is on the FBI's "most wanted list" -- with a $2 million reward.

Even the New York Times gets it.

In an August 1st piece titled -- "When Progressives Embrace Hate" -- NY Times Editor Bari Weiss points out that the Women's March is connected to some very unsavory people but that groups like the NJEA (the state teachers' union) and those candidates they support don't seem to care.  Weiss wrote:

"The leaders of the Women’s March, arguably the most prominent feminists in the country, have some chilling ideas and associations. Far from erecting the big tent so many had hoped for, the movement they lead has embraced decidedly illiberal causes and cultivated a radical tenor that seems determined to alienate all but the most woke.

Start with Ms. Sarsour, by far the most visible of the quartet of organizers. It turns out that this 'homegirl in a hijab,' as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views, as advertised by . . . Linda Sarsour.

There are comments on her Twitter feed of the anti-Zionist sort: 'Nothing is creepier than Zionism,' she wrote in 2012. And, oddly, given her status as a major feminist organizer, there are more than a few that seem to make common cause with anti-feminists, like this from 2015: 'You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sound nice, doesn’t it?'  She has dismissed the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the most crude and cruel terms, insisting she is 'not a real woman' and confessing that she wishes she could take away Ms. Ali’s vagina — this about a woman who suffered genital mutilation as a girl in Somalia."

Which brings us to Jennifer Hamilton, Kate Matteson and Gina Trish.  They are running for office in Sussex County.  Matteson and Trish have expressed personal support for the Women's March organization and have failed to retract or even comment on the organization's "illiberal" and "radical" (according to the New York Times) leadership or the group's praise of a terrorist cop-killer.  Now, all three have embraced the same NJEA group that organized for these "illiberal" radicals and that also refuses to comment on the group's praise of a terrorist cop-killer or its leadership's call for "jihad".

The NJEA, along with Jennifer Hamilton, Kate Matteson and Gina Trish have failed to call out Linda Sarsour, the co-chair of the Women's March, and a self-proclaimed advocate of "jihad" against the democratically elected American government.

Yes, the co-chair of the Women's March actually called for "jihad" against the government of the United States of America.  And Democrats have remained politically-correct silent about it.  Instead, Democrat leaders have praised the Women's March and continue to do so -- lending their support to its leadership while American troops are in the field, engaged in a fight against jihadists.  Why have the Democrats and their candidates refused to comment on these threats of "jihad"?

Last month, Linda Sarsour -- a prominent Democrat Party activist and co-chair of the Women's March -- called for a "jihad" against the American government.  You can catch her act here:

Here's what she said:

"During a speech to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago last weekend, Sarsour, a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention who is an anti-Israel and pro-Sharia activist, made the startling call and also urged against 'assimilation.' 

'I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,' she said. 'That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.'

'Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority,' she said.

'Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community. Our top priority and even higher than all those other priorities is to please Allah and only Allah,' she said."

Sarsour started off her call for "jihad" by praising Siraj Wahaj, who she described as her "favorite person in the room."  Wahaj is a controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of American authorities for years.  Federal prosecutors included him on a 3½-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged, the Associated Press reported.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, some Democrats appear to have gone completely loopy.  We believe that dissent is an American right, but "dissent" isn't "jihad".  When did the democratic concept of a "loyal opposition" morph into "jihad" -- a "holy war" to be waged by all means necessary?  And why are Democrats and their candidates too afraid to talk about it?

And here is another thing that they are afraid to comment on.   It was reported extensively in the media last month that the Women's March "honored" cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur). 

Referring to the notorious cop-killer, who murdered a New Jersey State Trooper in cold blood, as a "revolutionary" whose words "inspire us to keep resisting", the far-left Women' March organization issued a statement "celebrating" Ms. Chesimard's birthday.

The Star-Ledger reported on this:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/womens_march_wishes_nj_cop_killer_a_happy_birthday.html

So did the Save Jersey blog:

Joanne Chesimard, the Black Liberation Army member hiding in Cuba after murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973, has long eluded American justice and vexed New Jersey public officials as well as the public at large.

Donald Trump made headlines in June by spiking the Obama-era Cuba deal and citing the case of Chesimard (a/k/a Assata Shakur) as one of the reasons.

Eyebrows were therefore raised on Sunday when the far-left Women’s March’s social media accounts CELEBRATED the notorious cop-killing fugitive’s birthday:

 “I think you guys accidentally left out the part where she shot a police officer in the face, escaped from prison, then fled to Cuba in this post,” responded one Facebook user.

We know where Republicans like Assemblymen Parker Space stand on cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur).  They want her extradited back to the United States to face trial for the murder of a police officer.  They backed that up by sponsoring a legislative resolution (AR-111) to urge Congress and the Administration to make that happen.

Why haven't we heard from Jennifer Hamilton, Kate Matteson and Gina Trish or the NJEA about this?  Why have they remained silent?

Why don't some Democrats appear to mind associating with radicals calling for "jihad" and cop-killers?  Do they consider these legitimate forms of "dissent"?  We are very interested in hearing what Jennifer Hamilton, Kate Matteson and Gina Trish have to say about a group, that the NJEA strongly supports, honoring a cop-killer.

Mandelblatt should take stand against Jihadist and cop-killer

Even the New York Times gets it.

In an August 1st piece titled -- "When Progressives Embrace Hate" -- NY Times Editor Bari Weiss points out that the Women's March is connected to some very unsavory people but that individuals on the Left don't seem to care.  Weiss wrote:

"The leaders of the Women’s March, arguably the most prominent feminists in the country, have some chilling ideas and associations. Far from erecting the big tent so many had hoped for, the movement they lead has embraced decidedly illiberal causes and cultivated a radical tenor that seems determined to alienate all but the most woke.

Start with Ms. Sarsour, by far the most visible of the quartet of organizers. It turns out that this 'homegirl in a hijab,' as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views, as advertised by . . . Linda Sarsour.

There are comments on her Twitter feed of the anti-Zionist sort: 'Nothing is creepier than Zionism,' she wrote in 2012. And, oddly, given her status as a major feminist organizer, there are more than a few that seem to make common cause with anti-feminists, like this from 2015: 'You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sound nice, doesn’t it?'  She has dismissed the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the most crude and cruel terms, insisting she is 'not a real woman' and confessing that she wishes she could take away Ms. Ali’s vagina — this about a woman who suffered genital mutilation as a girl in Somalia."

Which brings us to Lisa Mandelblatt a suburban lady with a charming smile who suffers from a form of identity dysphoria:  She believes that she is Bella Abzug, the late Congresswoman from New York.  On her Facebook page, Mandelblatt frets:

"Like so many of you, I woke up after the election and I was absolutely terrified. What was going to happen to my friends, family, and neighbors?"

Lucky for Mandelblatt that her last name isn't Oroho.  With a son (U.S. Army Rangers) in Iraq, a daughter-in-law (U.S. Army) in Kuwait, and a brother (U.S. Army Black Hawks) in Afghanistan, Senator Steve Oroho might be expected to have some of the concerns that Mandelblatt claimed to have experienced as the result of... wait for it... an election.

Lisa Mandelblatt is a Democrat candidate for Congress against incumbent Republican Congressman Leonard Lance.  Like fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer, Mandelblatt has failed to call out Democrat Party leaders for their support of Linda Sarsour, the co-chair of the Women's March, and a self-proclaimed advocate of "jihad" against the democratically elected American government.

Yes, the co-chair of the Women's March actually called for "jihad" against the government of the United States of America.  And Democrats like Gottheimer and Mandelblatt have remained politically-correct silent about it.  Instead, Democrat leaders have praised the Women's March and continue to do so -- lending their support to its leadership while American troops are in the field, engaged in a fight against jihadists.  Why have the Democrats and their candidates refused to comment on these threats of "jihad"?

Last month, Linda Sarsour -- a prominent Democrat Party activist and co-chair of the Women's March -- called for a "jihad" against the American government.  You can catch her act here:

Here's what she said:

"During a speech to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago last weekend, Sarsour, a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention who is an anti-Israel and pro-Sharia activist, made the startling call and also urged against 'assimilation.' 

'I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,' she said. 'That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.'

'Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority,' she said.

'Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community. Our top priority and even higher than all those other priorities is to please Allah and only Allah,' she said."

Sarsour started off her call for "jihad" by praising Siraj Wahaj, who she described as her "favorite person in the room."  Wahaj is a controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of American authorities for years.  Federal prosecutors included him on a 3½-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged, the Associated Press reported.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, Democrats like Lisa Mandelblatt appear to have gone completely loopy.  We believe that dissent is an American right, but "dissent" isn't "jihad".  When did the democratic concept of a "loyal opposition" morph into "jihad" -- a "holy war" to be waged by all means necessary?  And why are Democrats and their candidates too afraid to talk about it?

And here is another thing that they are afraid to comment on.   It was reported extensively in the media last month that the Women's March "honored" cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur). 

Referring to the notorious cop-killer, who murdered a New Jersey State Trooper in cold blood, as a "revolutionary" whose words "inspire us to keep resisting", the far-left Women' March organization issued a statement "celebrating" Ms. Chesimard's birthday.

The Star-Ledger reported on this:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/womens_march_wishes_nj_cop_killer_a_happy_birthday.html

So did the Save Jersey blog:

Joanne Chesimard, the Black Liberation Army member hiding in Cuba after murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973, has long eluded American justice and vexed New Jersey public officials as well as the public at large.

Donald Trump made headlines in June by spiking the Obama-era Cuba deal and citing the case of Chesimard (a/k/a Assata Shakur) as one of the reasons.

Eyebrows were therefore raised on Sunday when the far-left Women’s March’s social media accounts CELEBRATED the notorious cop-killing fugitive’s birthday:

 “I think you guys accidentally left out the part where she shot a police officer in the face, escaped from prison, then fled to Cuba in this post,” responded one Facebook user.

We know where Republicans like Assemblymen Ron Dancer and Parker Space stand on cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur).  They want her extradited back to the United States to face trial for the murder of a police officer.  They backed that up by sponsoring a legislative resolution (AR-111) to urge Congress and the Administration to make that happen.

Why haven't we heard from Lisa Mandelblatt and Josh Gottheimer and other Democrats?  Why have they remained silent?

Why don't some Democrats appear to mind associating with radicals calling for "jihad" and cop-killers?  Do they consider these legitimate forms of "dissent"?  We are very interested in hearing what Lisa Mandelblatt and Josh Gottheimer and other Democrats have to say about a group, that Democrats strongly support, honoring a cop-killer. 

Steve Lonegan defends President Trump

Donald Trump is getting the Reagan treatment

By Steve Lonegan

Shortly after taking office in January 1981, Ronald Reagan's national security adviser found himself accused of taking a bribe from a foreign government. That man was Richard Allen, a native of Collingswood.  The investigation was “leaked” to the press. President Reagan called the whole thing an act of political sabotage. In the end, Allen resigned but was later cleared.

Sound familiar? Welcome to being a conservative Republican in a country dominated by a liberal media.

In 1981, thousands of protesters marched in a movement that came to call itself the “Days of Resistance.” The New York Times reported that among the group’s concerns were the “equal rights for racial minorities, women and homosexuals, nuclear disarmament, abortion rights, sterilization abuse, unemployment, cuts in Federal social programs and disparate treatment of refugees and undocumented aliens.”

This was followed by even larger anti-Reagan marches in September 1981 and June 1982.

Nothing new here. either. This is the standard leftist response to conservative leadership.

And as for Donald Trump’s first days on the job? Domestic policy, foreign policy, Cabinet appointments and tax cuts … what’s not to like?

After eight years of a gray economy – eight years of the media celebrating every little downtick of unemployment, while trying to ignore losses in workforce participation, upsurges in underemployment and a grinding foreclosure rate – working America, business America, is excited and hopeful about the future.

Look at the stock market.

Investor confidence is up and business is looking toward a boom. Trump has moved quickly to get to work on infrastructure – like the Keystone pipeline project – even as liberal naysayers attempt to delay it and pour cold water on the blue-collar workers who will benefit from employment the project will create.

What is it with these liberals? What is inside their heads and how must they view a world in which building a wall is impossible? We are the nation that built the Erie Canal with picks and shovels! We built the Panama Canal, too, railroads coast to coast, the Empire State Building and the interstate highway system.  We sent a man to the moon and brought him safely home. Now they want us to believe we cannot bring manufacturing jobs back to America. They want us to give up and go down without a fight.

That is why there are large numbers of people who support the president. They want to believe that we, as a nation, still have it. They want to believe that if we decide to do a simple thing – like secure our borders against terrorism, illegal drugs and human trafficking – that we can accomplish it. That having defeated slavery once, 150 years ago, that we can defeat this new slavery called human trafficking. That we are still as good men and women as our grandparents were.

For all the dark appraisals of the situation in which we find ourselves, the appeal of Donald Trump is essentially an appeal to America’s inner optimism. That we can figure out a way to move forward – to make America great again.

The liberal elites in this country would prefer it if Americans behaved like content consumers of the products, culture and ideas they fed them. Optimism is an emotion that leads to growth and emancipation, and for the elites, this is dangerous thinking.

It is important to remember that Trump has been in office one month, during which time he has challenged policies thought unchangeable and spoken frankly about what was formerly unmentionable.

Yes, the Washington establishment has pushed back. Its members want the intractable to remain so. Their world is a “Catch-22” world, because in a “Catch-22” world, change is impossible and only the status quo endlessly remains.

It’s been a month and it has taken the whole of the establishment just to deal with the burst of effusive, optimistic energy that is Donald Trump. Even with an adversarial media and all the rest, it has not stopped him or driven him out or turned him from his course. And that is because of the support Trump gains from a broad group of forgotten Americans who are forgotten no longer.

And as his first month passes, remember that at least 47 months – and more likely, 95 – remain.

Steve Lonegan, Republican, is a former mayor of Bogota, former state director of Americans for Prosperity and was a national surrogate spokesman for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign.

This column was originally published in the Record of Bergen County.

"Others Pledge" a lesson in Virtue Signaling

Man's inhumanity to man is with us always.  It begins when you take individual human beings and place them into boxes, and then slap labels onto those boxes, by which it is made easier to hate them.

People should be engaged on-the-level, one at a time.  No box, no label, should confer a special grace or sin on any individual person.  Take any box into which you have thrown a group of people, apply any label to it, and within you will find both saints and sinners.

It is the relentless process of commercial marketing that has placed individuals into boxes, given them labels, the better to sell them products and ideas.  And once assigned a label, once placed into a box and provided with a list of "attributes" those in the box should conform to -- many do conform, buy the "right" things, think the "right" thoughts.  So the process is validated, reinforced, and perpetuated.

Our political process dismisses the individual in favor of boxes and labels.  Instead of an on-the-level, personal appeal, the political class employs appeals to labels, assuming that everyone within the box so labeled will conform to the behaviors assigned to them.  We have just been through a presidential election where these assumptions did not run to plan.

Instead of thinking about it, Senator Ray Lesniak and some of his Senate colleagues appear to be doubling-down.  Lesniak has come up with something called "The Pledge to Stand Up for the Other."  The idea behind this pledge is that we all inhabit boxes in which we interact exclusively with "people like us."

The pledge states:  "While interacting with members of my own (box) faith, ethnic, or gender community, or with others, if I hear hateful comments from anyone about members of any other community, I pledge to stand up for the other and challenge bigotry in any form."

Now take Ray Lesniak for instance.  He was raised Roman Catholic and told the New York Times some years back that he was an "evangelical Christian," and yet his voting record doesn't really fit the box that most would place him in.  For Ray Lesniak, as well as for the rest of us, the artificial boxes of faith, ethnicity, and "gender community" have less meaning than do those differences of ideas.

Lesniak is being too easy on himself and allowing a loophole to hate Trump supporters while admonishing his fellow Evangelicals to embrace same-sex marriage.

The pledge's "background" statement reads:  "Racial bigotry, religious persecution, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other form of hatred cannot be wiped out unless each and every one of us confronts it within ourselves, our own circles of family, friends and others that we interact with. Silence is seen as consent. It takes courage to stand up for the other. It is important to prevent bigoted speech coming from public officials, but it is even more critical to focus on our own individual responsibility to prevent bigotry we may see around us. By taking this pledge, each one us can make a profound difference in the world."

The language used here is worrisome.  "Wiping out" a belief system because it is deemed "hateful" is at the root of the aforementioned "Islamophobia" and Lesniak himself is widely read enough to know that the NSDAP (National Socialist Party) painted itself the victim of hate before launching the Holocaust and a World War.  We would direct Senator Lesniak to read some of Dr. Goebbels' pronouncements on the hatefulness of the Poles towards their German minority and the Reich Minister of Propaganda's stated goal to "wipe out" said hatred.

It should be of even more concern that Lesniak's pledge conflates "silence" with "consent," demanding proactive speech.  This is a very fascist prescription.  Will Lesniak adopt the North Korean model -- jailing those who don't express the "right" point of view with sufficient vigor?

Finally, who is this Ray Lesniak to even suggest such a pledge?  Has he lived his life as a model to others?  He most certainly has not.  Time and time again, he has adopted the morals of the legal profession, wantonly confusing "legal" with "ethical."  As Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, told the New York Times:  "He (Lesniak) was really the first legislator to put all three together -- power, politics and pay-to-play."

Lesniak vigorously practiced pay to play until it was outlawed -- as if it takes a law to tell a man what is right and what is wrong.  By that rule, Senator Lesniak would have vigorously supported slavery in the 1850's.  It shouldn't take a law to make a man behave.  Those things come from within. 

The pledge reminds us of a line from that 1960's anthem by Barry McGuire:  "Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace."  That line is all about something called "virtue signaling" -- "the expression or promotion of viewpoints that are especially valued within a social group, especially when this is done primarily to enhance the social standing of the speaker."  Wikipedia has an entry on it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

Lesniak's "Pledge to Stand Up for the Other" is all about making Lesniak appear morally superior without him actually having to do anything uncomfortable or meaningful.  It is a pure example of virtue signaling.     

If Senator Lesniak wanted to do something to really foster dialogue, he would reach out to those he truly dislikes and then try to understand them.  How about a confab with some right-wing Trump supporters, just to get to know them, just to acknowledge that they are fellow human beings?  We doubt we'll see that in real life, from Senator Lesniak, although they have done it in the movies:

We'll end on this note.  While an exercise in virtue signaling designed to allow those who take the pledge to go right back to hating their neighbor the moment after they sign it, it does at least raise the question of how we can better love those we disagree with.  Yes, "love" is a strong word, so maybe let's just start with acknowledging our common humanity.  That's going to take hard work, and a lot more than this pledge.

The Clintons and tax cheat Marc Rich

The New York Times has been beating its partisan drum regarding Donald Trump's taxes.  But, as Sussex County citizen activist Harvey Roseff points out, there is an even larger tax story out there that "better deals with proper ethical behavior."

Roseff writes:

"Today's NY Times story is that Trump filed his taxes and it was proper. That's all that matters - nothing was avoided or illegal.  In fact, Trump filed to laws and regulations that Bill Clinton was in charge of.  Irrespective of if we are for or against Trump or Hillary, the story that taxes were 'avoided' is wrong - the government got what it wanted.

So let's look at Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.  A tax cheat who was on the FBI's most wanted list.  Rich undermined US sanctions and hugely profited. Rich was pardoned and many leading Democratic leaders (and of course Republican) denounced Clinton's act. So compared to the Trump tax story, here we have one person thwarting the will of the people's government.

And ever since, Rich's interests have taken care of the Clintons."

Roseff links to a story from the New York Post (January 17, 2016):

Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich continues to pay big

By Peter Schweizer

January 17, 2016 | 6:00am

Fifteen years ago this month, on Jan. 20, 2001, his last day in office, Bill Clinton issued a pardon for international fugitive Marc Rich. It would become perhaps the most condemned official act of Clinton’s political career. A New York Times editorial called it “a shocking abuse of presidential power.” The usually Clinton-friendly New Republic noted it “is often mentioned as Exhibit A of Clintonian sliminess.”

Congressman Barney Frank added, “It was a real betrayal by Bill Clinton of all who had been strongly supportive of him to do something this unjustified. It was contemptuous.”

Marc Rich was wanted for a list of charges going back decades. He had traded illegally with America’s enemies including Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, where he bought about $200 million worth of oil while revolutionaries allied with Khomeini held 53 American hostages in 1979.

Rich made a large part of his wealth, approximately $2 billion between 1979 and 1994, selling oil to the apartheid regime in South Africa when it faced a UN embargo. He did deals with Khadafy’s Libya, Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, Kim Il Sung’s North Korea, Communist dictatorships in Cuba and the Soviet Union itself. Little surprise that he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

Facing prosecution by Rudy Giuliani in 1983, Rich fled to Switzerland and lived in exile...

Read the rest of the story here:

http://nypost.com/2016/01/17/after-pardoning-criminal-marc-rich-clintons-made-millions-off-friends/