On gun-control, McCann tries to have it both ways.

When phonies want to appear as though they support the Second Amendment, they have a nice photograph taken of themselves with a firearm of some kind.  So following in the footsteps of John Kerry and Barack Obama, candidate John McCann posted a photo of himself playing with a gun.

(FYI:  Gilson works for McCann.  One lies, the other swears by it.)

All this play-acting aside, when John McCann was asked to fill out a questionnaire that would put in writing where he stood on the issues affecting the Second Amendment, hunting, school safety, and such -- McCann refused.  He will show up and spew some b.s. (so long as he isn't video-recorded) and take a picture, but he won't put in writing where he stands.

McCann dissed the NRA when they asked him to step up and tell them where he stood on the issues of importance to their members.  McCann wants it both ways.  He wants NRA votes and Brady Campaign votes.  That's dishonest.

Typical lawyer?  Well, there are good, pro-Second Amendment attorneys out there, so we think it is more a case of typical urban political machine lawyer.

Candidate John McCann served as the right-hand-man to the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County (according to the Bergen Record).  He's the guy who switched Bergen County from GOP red to Democrat blue.  In 2016, the Sheriff ran on a ticket headed by Democrats Hillary Clinton for President and Josh Gottheimer for Congress.  John McCann worked for the Democrat then, celebrated that victory with his boss, and continued to work for the Democrat until late last year, when he departed to run for Congress as a Republican.

Why would McCann do such a thing?  He had 167,000 reasons a year plus benefits.  That was reason enough for McCann.

John McCann has been in bed with Democrats for years.  A case in point is John McCann's sneaky little way of getting contributions to Democrat candidates.  Take this example from Passaic County.

McCann's wife used her maiden name and her office address in New York City to slip $1,000.00 to a Democrat running in Wayne Township.  Here is a copy of the report, filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC):

SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR VIEW

John McCann is a phony -- a b.s. artist.  He is supported by corrupt convicts and thug life.  Politics is worse for his presence on a ballot.

Pro-abort McCann attacks Cruz endorsement of Lonegan

Self-described "Arlen Specter Republican" John McCann has attacked conservative Steve Lonegan for picking-up the endorsement of United States Senator Ted Cruz. 

Through an anonymous "spokesperson", McCann -- who the Bergen Record calls "the right hand man" of Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino of Bergen County -- said that Lonegan was "out of touch" by accepting the endorsement of Senator Cruz. 

So let's see.  John McCann's model of a Republican office-holder is Arlen Specter, a RINO so extraordinary that he finally switched parties to Democrat because he believed he had become so distasteful to Republican primary voters.  A big government liberal who never met an abortion clinic that he didn't want to fund.

In contrast, Steve Lonegan has the strong support of one of the nation's top conservative leaders, Senator Ted Cruz.  The American Conservative Union rated Ted Cruz as voting the conservative position 100 percent of the time.  The National Taxpayers Union gave Cruz a 95 percent rating, while the Club for Growth rated Cruz at 96 percent.

When Arlen Specter was a Republican, before he embraced his "inner Obama" and became a Democrat in name as well as in practice, he didn't make it above 50 percent and some years flirted with zero.  This is who John McCann is modeling himself on.

You have to ask yourself... Don't we already have a liberal holding the seat?  And then the penny drops... McCann is a Democrat patronage employee put up by the Democrats to trash the Republican primary.  He isn't real.  Just a tool... for the Democrats.

The facts here are plain.  The Democrats (McCann included) know and respect the fundraising prowess of Senator Ted Cruz.  They know he will raise a half-million to a million dollars for the Republican in the race, Steve Lonegan.  They know that there are more than 2,000 Cruz donors who reside in New Jersey.

By attacking Ted Cruz, the spokesperson for "Stumbling John" McCann shows just how clearly out of touch he is.

Star Ledger editorials reinforce its anti-worker bias

We have all learned to expect Facebook-level writing from the Star-Ledger's editorial writers.  The snarky style, the gross exaggeration, the stereotyping, have driven away many readers, while reinforcing the worst prejudices of others.  Two recent editorials are especially noteworthy.

First, we have an editorial written by a climate change true-believer.  There is nothing wrong in this, there is much scientific evidence in favor of this theory, but it rings kind of hollow when the people demanding that we "pay attention to science" turn around and ignore the science of genetics.  The role of X and Y chromosomes in determining gender is much more established than is "climate change" and yet the same folks who say that we must believe in the science behind climate change theory decry genetic science as "bigotry." 

Is some science more politically correct and therefore more supported and promoted than other science?  Apparently so, at least as far as the Star-Ledger is concerned.

But the hypocrisy of the Ledger's editorial board is only part of the problem.  The Star-Ledger follows the editorial direction of its owners -- the Newhouse brothers -- two of the richest billionaires in America.  How rich?  They made a documentary about their kids called Born Rich.  These two are up there with the Koch brothers and they hate unions and working people just as much. 

One would think that with having so many billions you could pay the people who print your newspapers, the warehouse workers, and the distribution drivers a decent livable wage.  But no, they screwed all those union brothers and sisters in order to add to their profits.  It's like George Carlin said:  "They want more for themselves and less for everyone else."  They even screwed the hard news writers, turning them into little more than stringers.  The only group saved were the Newhouse brothers' hit men -- the editorial writers who spew the billionaires' line as directed.

On climate change the line is simple:  Get America to sign international agreements to combat climate change because it will accelerate the movement of American jobs overseas and that will increase corporate profits for big investors like... the Newhouse brothers.  And that is why the Star-Ledger's editorial writer dutifully trashed congressional candidate Steve Lonegan.  Lonegan doesn't want to lose a million American jobs to overseas sweatshops and outright slavery.  The Newhouse brothers' mouthpiece thinks less opportunities for Americans is good for their bottom line.

George Carlin was right when he said that people like this "...they don't care about you, at all, at all, at all."  The Star-Ledger's editorial writers are just facilitators to what Carlin called "these rich c*cksuckers."

Over the weekend, another attack on the working class appeared.  This one on a country rock and roll singer named Hank Williams Jr.  His band, which is thoroughly integrated by-the-way, issued a banner that incorporates the rebel flag, the singer's face, and the lyrics from one of his songs.  A local legislator and his wife, while attending a tailgate party in advance of the concert, had their picture taken in front of the banner, which they posted to Facebook -- along with what they thought was an artful comment.

Of course, this got the American flag-burners up in arms.  That's a "treasonous flag" they said in mock seriousness (to go with their mock patriotism).  The editorial writer noted that a majority of African-Americans found the Confederate flag (though not the Hank Williams Jr. band banner) offensive, ignoring the fact that in the face of consistent majorities of Americans opposing the burning of the American flag, the Star-Ledger and its cohorts have used their editorial pages to argue that it is a protected right to burn the flag, wipe your feet on it, and so on.

The Star-Ledger even defended the likes Annie Sprinkle who not only put the American flag to some rather "exotic" uses but wanted the American taxpayer to pay for her to perform her fetishes on stage.  Shucks, the legislator and his wife just wanted to have a beer before a Hank Williams Jr. concert.  They didn't ask anyone to pay for it.

If we may quote from the Star-Ledger's own editorial on desecrating the American flag:  "In a democratic society, the rights of free expression and political dissent have a fundamental constitutional primacy; they should not be diminished, even in such regrettable instances where extreme protests are patently offensive to most Americans."  Evidently this doesn't apply to country music, because the editorial writer went so far as to call Hank Williams Jr. a "racist" for criticizing Barack Obama.  Evidently, it is okay for the Star-Ledger to call President Trump a "Hitler" but not for Hank Williams Jr. to say the same of President Obama. 

And as for Confederate flags, where was the outrage when the Obama campaign issued Confederate flag pins with his name on them -- or when Hillary Clinton did or the Clinton-Gore ticket?  Oh, they were corporate globalist Democrats and the Newhouse boys are down with that.  Got it.

Back to George Carlin:  "They own all the big media companies, so they control all the news and information you get to hear.  They got you by the balls... they beat you over the head all day long, when they tell you what to believe, all day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy."

Now what can we expect from an editorial writer who services the owners of such elitist snob titles as Conde Nast, Bon Appetit, Golf Digest, Architectural Digest, Golf World, Conde Nast Traveler, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The World of Interiors, Style.com, TheScene.com, and Epicurious.com?  Of course she thinks that all listeners to country music are racist working class scum.  In her world, all listeners to rap music are sexists.  She loathes the working class in the manner that her billionaire bosses prescribe.  They can't wait to have us all replaced by robots.  Our flaws will be their pretext for killing us.

Thinking of those editorial writers, a friend of ours has a real easy way to separate working Americans from those inhabitants of the elitists' "bubble world."  Ask them how they take their coffee.  Working Americans will ask for it in a mug -- doesn't matter the race of the drinker or the color of the coffee, it will be a mug.  That's not the way with people in bubble world.  In their neck-of-the-woods they're into something called coffee enemas -- so theirs isn't going into a mug, its heading on down a tube.  And that is about as good an indicator as there is.

Democrat Operative calls out nominee Phil Murphy

New Jersey Democrat operative and trusted party hand-job Devine James posted a nasty tweet about his own party's gubernatorial nominee, Phil Murphy.  Devine posted:  "We are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people."

Murphy, who was a Democrat Party fundraiser and finance chair before President Obama rewarded him with a grace and favor position as an Ambassador, has bragged that he raised more than $300 million for Democrat Party candidates and himself spent at least $2 million greasing the palms of office holders and candidates for public office.

Phil Murphy is a Wall Streeter who made his money at the notoriously anti-worker firm of Goldman Sucks.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Mr. Murphy's career there:

From 1997 to 1999, Murphy served as the President of Goldman Sachs (Asia).[9] In that capacity, he was officed in Hong Kong.[19] During this time Goldman Sachs profited from its investment in Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, a shoe manufacturer which became notorious for its harsh labor practices.[20]

... Then in 1999 Murphy secured a spot on the firm's Management Committee.[7] There his colleagues included Hank Paulson and Gary Cohn, both of whom later served at highest levels of the federal government.[17] This coincided with the Glass–Steagall: aftermath of repeal and made a profound change in how Murphy and his colleagues made their profits, with much greater use of leverage than before.[17]

In 2001 Murphy became global co-head of the Investment Management Division of the firm.[7][21][17] This unit oversaw the investments of foundations, pensions, hedge funds, and wealthy personages, and by 2003 it had amassed some $373 billion in holdings.[17] Hedge funds in particular received large lines of credit from Murphy's unit.[17] Another company initiative that Murphy helped to undertake was the unit that did major business in the emerging markets within the EMEA region.[19]

Murphy thinks of himself as a member of the "elite" and actually bragged about this to the Wall Street Journal in 1998, comparing Goldman Sucks to the United States Marine Corps... but with a different pay scale... and you don't get shot at... and you get to rip-off child workers... and finance regimes that uphold the best traditions of slave labor and human trafficking.

We think Devine James might be on to something. 

The Left asks: What happened to the Democrats?

There is a new book out by Thomas Frank, a journalist who writes for Harpers magazine.  His book was recently reviewed by the magazine In These Times. 

In These Times was founded in 1976 by author and historian James Weinstein to "identify and clarify the struggles against corporate power now multiplying in American society."  Weinstein was joined by noted intellectuals Daniel Ellsberg, E.P. Thompson, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Julian Bond and Herbert Marcuse, all of whom were among the original sponsors of the magazine.

Thomas Frank's new book is titled:  Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?  The title In These Times chose for its column on the book is even more explicit:

HOW DEMOCRATS WENT FROM BEING THE ‘PARTY OF THE PEOPLE’ TO THE PARTY OF RICH ELITES

The column is in the form of an interview of Thomas Frank, conducted by Tobita Chow, chair of The People’s Lobby, an independent progressive political organization based in Chicago. Below are some excerpts from the column:

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WAS ONCE THE PARTY OF THE NEW DEAL and the ally of organized labor. But by the time of Bill Clinton's presidency, it had become the enemy of New Deal programs like welfare and Social Security and the champion of free trade deals. What explains this apparent reversal?

...According to Frank, popular explanations which blame corporate lobby groups and the growing power of money in politics are insufficient.

Frank instead points to a decision by Democratic Party elites in the 1970s to marginalize labor unions and transform from the party of the working class to the party of the professional class... The end result is that the party which created the New Deal and helped create the middle class has now become “the party of mass inequality.” 

***

The book is about how the Democratic Party turned its back on working people and now pursues policies that actually increase inequality. What are the policies or ideological commitments in the Democratic Party that make you think this?

The first piece of evidence is what’s happened since the financial crisis. This is the great story of our time. Inequality has actually gotten worse since then, which is a remarkable thing. This is under a Democratic president who we were assured (or warned) was the most liberal or radical president we would ever see.  Yet inequality has gotten worse, and the gains since the financial crisis, since the recovery began, have gone entirely to the top 10 percent of the income distribution.

This is not only because of those evil Republicans, but because Obama played it the way he wanted to. Even when he had a majority in both houses of Congress and could choose whoever he wanted to be in his administration, he consistently made policies that favored the top 10 percent over everybody else. He helped out Wall Street in an enormous way when they were entirely at his mercy.

He could have done anything he wanted with them, in the way that Franklin Roosevelt did in the ’30s. But he chose not to.

Why is that? This is supposed to be the Democratic Party, the party that’s interested in working people, average Americans. Why would they react to a financial crisis in this way? Once you start digging into this story, it goes very deep. You find that there was a transition in the Democratic Party in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s where they convinced themselves that they needed to abandon working people in order to serve a different constituency: a constituency essentially of white-collar professionals.

That’s the most important group in their coalition. That’s who they won over in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. That’s who they serve, and that’s where they draw from. The leaders of the Democratic Party are always from this particular stratum of society.

... Money in politics is a big part of the story, but social class goes deeper than that. The Democrats have basically made their commitment [to white-collar professionals] already before money and politics became such a big deal. It worked out well for them because of money in politics. So when they chose essentially the top 10 percent of the income distribution as their most important constituents, that is the story of money.

It wasn’t apparent at the time in the ’70s and ’80s when they made that choice. But over the years, it has become clear that that was a smart choice in terms of their ability to raise money. Organized labor, of course, is no slouch in terms of money. They have a lot of clout in dollar terms. However, they contribute and contribute to the Democrats and they almost never get their way—they don’t get, say, the Employee Free Choice Act, or Bill Clinton passes NAFTA. They do have a lot of money, but their money doesn’t count.

All of this happened because of the civil war within the Democratic Party. They fought with each other all the time in the ’70s and the ’80s. One side hadn’t completely captured the party until Bill Clinton came along in the ’90s. That was a moment of victory for them.

***

Do you think there’s a connection between the fact that the Democratic Party has turned against workers and the rise of Donald Trump?

Yes. Because if you look at the polling, Trump is winning the votes of a lot of people who used to be Democrats. These white, working-class people are his main base of support. As a group, these people were once Democrats all over the country. These are Franklin Roosevelt’s people.

These are the people that the Democrats essentially decided to turn their backs on back in the 1970s. They call them the legatees of the New Deal. They were done with these guys, and now look what’s happened—they’ve gone with Donald Trump. That’s frightening and horrifying.

But Trump talks about their issues in a way that they find compelling, especially the trade issue. When he talks about trade, they believe him.

... Millenials’ take on the world is fascinating. Just a few years ago, people thought of them as very

different. But now they’re coming out of college with enormous student debt, and they’re discovering that the job market is casualized and Uberized. The work that they do is completely casual. The idea of having a middle-class lifestyle in that situation is completely off the table for them.

Every time I think about these people, it burns me up. It makes me so angry what we’ve done to them as a society. It really gives the lie to Democratic Party platitudes about the world an education will open up for you. That path just doesn’t work anymore. Millenials can see that in their own lives very plainly.

 READ THE FULL COLUMN HERE:

HTTP://INTHESETIMES.COM/FEATURES/LISTEN-LIBERAL-THOMAS-FRANK-DEMOCRATIC-PARTY-ELITES-INEQUALITY.HTML

 OR BUY THE BOOK:

http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391