GOP Insiders: BLM Republicans rather than MLK Republicans?

By Rubashov

David Wildstein has been a Republican candidate, an elected Republican office holder, a Republican campaign manager, a Republican political consultant, and a high-ranking appointee in a Republican administration. His PoliticsNJ and PolitickerNJ political blogs supported the rising political fortunes of childhood friend Chris Christie. When Christie was United States Attorney, Wildstein’s blogs would often break stories before established media outlets had even got wind of one.

After Bridgegate, Wildstein joined with fellow Republican political consultant Ken Kurson to start New Jersey Globe. And when Kurson found himself in some trouble, it was a Republican President who granted him a pardon. By any measure then, David Wildstein is a Republican insider.

We thought about this when reading a column Wildstein posted on Friday, bidding farewell to New Jersey Globe reporter Nikita Biryukov. Wildstein wrote:

“Frankly, I can’t help but have pride in the careers of some of journalists who began their career working for me, including three of my first hires: MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, who spent three years as a reporter at my old site, PoliticsNJ; and the Boston Globe’s James Pindell, who spent a few years at PoliticsNJ and is now the nation’s premier expert on New Hampshire presidential primaries; and POLITICO’s Matt Friedman, who was just developing his snark and perhaps had not yet owned a cat. Reporters I’ve helped train now work at the Philadelphia Inquirer, POLITICO in Washington, Roll Call, National Journal, Advance Publications, and other news organizations, and I wear that with a badge of honor.”

Wait… he’s a Republican, right? So, why didn’t anyone he mentored go on to work at Fox or Newsmax or National Review? Why isn’t conservative media represented at all?

Steve Kornacki and Matt Friedman are among the most knee-jerk corporate Democrats writing today. They, along with everyone Wildstein recruited, worship big government power and push a relentlessly Establishment line. They all became what Leftwing populist Jimmy Dore calls media “shitlibs”. All good little members of the MSM – mainstream media – and all dedicated to splitting the American people into marketable silos, creating the reality described by journalist Matt Taibbi in his book, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

Just the other day, Nikita Biryukov was bashing Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli for daring to question Governor Phil Murphy’s unfunded mandate LGBTQ+ curriculum that teaches anal sex to grade school children. As only a very young man could, Biryukov wrote: “Many LGBT issues are considered settled in New Jersey.” Considered by whom? The corporate, media, government, and academic establishment? The One Percent?

You may ask: But Wildstein is a Republican, right? A former GOP campaign manager, an insider in the Bergen County Republican Organization, a GOP mayor, a former consultant to the NJGOP, one of Governor Christie’s top appointees… How is it that he unerringly recruited and produced employees who hate traditional values, who hate conservatives, who hate the platform of the Republican Party? Why was this man rewarded for doing so? And why does he continue to be rewarded by the GOP?

People like David Wildstein are turned on by power. Very early on, they learn to mimic the attitudes and language of those who have power in the institutions they wish to be a part of. In the Republican Party in New Jersey, that means the corporate elite, the lobbyist community, and the Trenton establishment. These are not conservative people. They do not hold with traditional values or with any of the party platforms since Ronald Reagan captured the nomination in 1980.

They are exactly what you would expect corporate people to be… woke. They are exactly what you would expect people who lobby for woke corporations to be… paid to act woke. They mind their language and keep in fashion. And people who want to get ahead in the GOP do the same and act like they do.

That goes for party people – staff and such – all those appointees who keep the engine going. And that’s why it goes the way it does. That’s why, as Tucker Carlson recently observed: “And you wonder why you no longer recognize the party that you vote for.”

And it’s not just the Republicans in New Jersey. This is as much the case in Washington, DC…

The Google lobbyist and the GOP Leader.

Of course, not all Republican leaders are in lock step with the Establishment. Many actually listen to the members of their party and to the people who vote for them. Republican elected officials who listen to average party members and voters tend to do better at elections than those who simply try to mimic Establishment attitudes. Anyone who has closely watched the campaign of GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli has been impressed by his ability to listen to what average voters have to say.

Did you know the Establishment actually runs finishing schools for wokeness that Republican operatives are enrolled in before going out and imparting their wisdom to candidates, party committees, and campaigns? They go by names like the Center for America Women and Politics or CAWP. It’s part of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics and it claims to be bi-partisan – in that it trains both Democrats and Republicans. Yes, it may be bi-partisan, but it is 100 percent woke and in service to the modern fascism of identity politics. Catch this language from a statement CAWP put out last year:

“The Center for American Women and Politics was founded to examine and disrupt the gender bias built into America’s political institutions. But these institutions – formal and informal – were also constructed to privilege whiteness. To uphold that privilege, entire communities have been dehumanized, exploited, endangered, and disempowered. Our work has made us keenly aware that changing institutions built to uphold the power of white men is difficult, and it requires those who benefit most from these power dynamics to call for and actively participate in their disruption. It also requires changing who holds power within those institutions.

We denounce the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, as well as the systemic racism, sexism, transphobia, and inequity that their deaths illuminate. We condemn the long history of police violence against Black Americans and the legal system's failure to respond. We state unequivocally our commitment to anti-racism and to our continued work to transform political institutions to make them more inclusive and responsive to the demands and experiences of all Americans.

…committing to anti-racism also means educating those who are privileged within racist systems to confront their own privilege, and to become both active and accountable in transforming these racist systems.”

No Republican should be a part of an organization that puts out racialist slop like this. As the party of Lincoln – the party that was formed to end slavery and the party that ensured civil rights for all – Republicans should follow the color-blind path of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. NOT the racist neo-fascism of BLM.

This is the kind of nonsense Republican operatives are being fed before they are handed the keys to run things. This is why there is a disconnect between party operatives and grassroots activists. It’s simple: They are NOT on the same page.

To be sure, the people who run CAWP are racialists. Their ideology is fascist rather than Marxist, because there is no mention of economic class.

In White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University Professor Nick Carnes cites studies showing that while a majority of Americans work in blue-collar employment, only 2 percent of Congress were blue-collar workers before being elected and only 3 percent of State Legislators are employed as blue-collar workers. Carnes and others hold that this disparity reflects the economic decisions and priorities of legislative bodies in America. But in the happy-clappy rainbow fantasy world of the One Percenters who run CAWP, Oprah Winfrey is oppressed and the Appalachian family living in a shack are the oppressors. Based on their skin color. The Germans had a word for this.

Conservatives, traditional Republicans, those who believe the party is something more than a racket must demand and keep demanding a seat at the table. Understand that you are not going to be liked, get past it, and keep insisting on an accommodation. They want to keep you out. It is up to you to muscle your way in.

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”

Robert A. Heinlein

More Dem LGBTQ+ scammers target GOP’s Jack Ciattarelli

By Rubashov

It seems that every Democrat county machine in the state has its own stable of “LGBTQ+” operatives who benefit from the corrupt grease machine of insider-dealing. There is no mystery to this. The movement’s activist class is made up almost entirely of Democrat Party loyalists who anointed themselves as the “face and voice” of thousands of people they have never met or spoken with.

No matter what you do they always return to their party and stab you in the back for having an "R" next to your name. Ask Kim Guadagno and Jenn Beck.

Of course, sometimes the narrative breaks down, like when actual businesspeople (who happen to enjoy same-sex relationships) rebelled in Asbury Park against Governor Phil Murphy’s wanton destruction of everything they had achieved and worked for. It is in moments like this that the “identity” that is imposed on you and that is supposed to inform your every action fails – and the more complicated self that inhabits every human being is revealed.

Trenton has a very selective memory. That’s why a blog, run by the “Mastermind” of one of the worst political scandals in memory, can express horror at someone having an opinion not in line with that conjured by Trenton pollsters, and then trot out someone like Steve Goldstein as a corrective.

When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was mired in scandal, the Trenton blog PolitickerNJ (funded by Jared Kushner) trotted out Steve Goldstein to defend the embattled New York Governor. Goldstein lavished praise on Spitzer, reminding readers: “I was Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary in his successful 1998 campaign for New York State Attorney General.” Indeed.

Well, not even the pollsters could save Spitzer. The infamous “Client 9” resigned from office. And despite his Princeton-Harvard background and “Sheriff of Wall Street” reputation (not to mention all that polling) Spitzer could not win a victory and return to public office. Even his wife left him.

Nothing is ever “settled” in politics.

Steve Goldstein is a Democrat operative and the founder of a political lobbying organization called Garden State Equality. GSE has morphed from a group concerned with issues like same-sex marriage into a government vendor that uses political pressure and vendor money to lobby government for even more taxpayer money.

Like so many good ideas that turn into scams, GSE succumbed to mission creep once they achieved the goal of same-sex marriage. The current controversy they’re embroiled in has to do with teaching children a new, unfunded mandate from Trenton, called the LGBTQ+ curriculum. And everyone in New Jersey who pays property taxes is going to foot the bill.

One of the controversies surrounding the new curriculum is how it presents such sensitive issues as anal sex – and to what age groups. Now a clinical presentation, run by a group like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would focus, at least in part, on the spread of specific diseases associated with this manner of sexual activity (not to mention the wear and tear on muscles not particularly designed for the purpose).

Unfortunately, Trenton’s political class handed the job to its allies and campaign underwriters – Garden State Equality. This is the corrupt Trenton Establishment all over, isn’t it? Take a serious issue – turn it into a scam for the boys to make money from.

The central question in this debate is who owns your children. Are they part of a million individual social organisms, called families – or does the government own your kids?

Governor Phil and Tammy Murphy certainly act like government owns your children. They don’t hesitate inserting the government between child and parent on the most sensitive of levels.

New Jersey enjoys a great diversity amongst its millions of families. Whether agnostic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or any of the thousands of permutations possible, it has been the role of each individual family to pass along its moral values and manners, generation to generation. This, above anything else, preserves the idea of diversity.

Phil and Tammy, who had the opportunity to pass on their moral values and manners to their children, now wish to take that opportunity away from you. They want conformity. On that most personal issue of sexuality, they wish to cut out the parent, and to bring in a lobby group looking for a payday – Garden State Equality.

Hey GSE, it is not our fault that you won and did not have the dignity to declare victory and fold your tent. You became addicted to the money and the power. You will never return to the private sector because of this. You will never mind your own business and seek to live and let live. For you there can only be crisis and turmoil and the endless froth of campaigning… because that is how you are paid.

If Phil and Tammy want to cut out the parent, at least they should be prepared to pick up some of the expenses of raising a child.

Government certainly doesn’t pay for your children. From the child poverty and food insecurity figures in New Jersey, we know that government doesn’t care enough to feed them. From the foreclosure figures, we know that government doesn’t care enough to house them. And we damned well know that government doesn’t give a hang about ensuring they have adequate health care.

So, we suggest a compromise. If government wants to cut out the parents and impart its moral values and manners to the next generation – then government owes the parents of that next generation a tax cut that fully covers the raising of that generation. The government’s generation. Generation “G”.

Finally, why has Steve Goldstein gone so prudish? Why is it such a big deal to him to call anal sex, anal sex? Or oral sex, oral sex? The legal term for that – and Goldstein can ask Spitzer about it – is “sodomy”.

The legal definition of sodomy includes any sexual penetration aside from vaginal intercourse, including oral and anal sex. Neo-Victorians like Steve Goldstein appear to want to banish such coarse and realistic definitions from our language and replace them with saccharine formulations that make references to “love”.

Love may become part of it. But more generally it flourishes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Any honest person will acknowledge this.

Be honest, humans are attracted to these practices because we derive pleasure from them. It isn’t so much a case of “love is love” but rather, “pleasure is pleasure”. An attachment may follow, or it may not, or it may and then be broken. These are deep waters that no lobby group-turned government vendor can adequately plumb. Leave it to the families. Preserve diversity.

Goldstein. Always a Democrat. No matter what.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.”

Robert A. Heinlein

Goldstein a Democrat first. Supported Eliot Spitzer even after corruption.

By Rubashov

Trenton has a very selective memory. That’s why a blog, run by the “Mastermind” of one of the worst political scandals in memory, can express horror at someone having an opinion not in line with that conjured by Trenton pollsters, and then trot out someone like Steve Goldstein as a corrective.

When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was mired in scandal, the Trenton blog PolitickerNJ (funded by Jared Kushner) trotted out Steve Goldstein to defend the embattled New York Governor. Goldstein lavished praise on Spitzer, reminding readers: “I was Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary in his successful 1998 campaign for New York State Attorney General.” Indeed.

Well, not even the pollsters could save Spitzer. The infamous “Client 9” resigned from office. And despite his Princeton-Harvard background and “Sheriff of Wall Street” reputation (not to mention all that polling) Spitzer could not win a victory and return to public office. Even his wife left him.

Nothing is ever “settled” in politics.

Steve Goldstein is a Democrat operative and the founder of a political lobbying organization called Garden State Equality. GSE has morphed from a group concerned with issues like same-sex marriage into a government vendor that uses political pressure and vendor money to lobby government for even more taxpayer money.

Like so many good ideas that turn into scams, GSE succumbed to mission creep once they achieved the goal of same-sex marriage. The current controversy they’re embroiled in has to do with teaching children a new, unfunded mandate from Trenton, called the LGBTQ+ curriculum. And everyone in New Jersey who pays property taxes is going to foot the bill.

One of the controversies surrounding the new curriculum is how it presents such sensitive issues as anal sex – and to what age groups. Now a clinical presentation, run by a group like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would focus, at least in part, on the spread of specific diseases associated with this manner of sexual activity (not to mention the wear and tear on muscles not particularly designed for the purpose).

Unfortunately, Trenton’s political class handed the job to its allies and campaign underwriters – Garden State Equality. This is the corrupt Trenton Establishment all over, isn’t it? Take a serious issue – turn it into a scam for the boys to make money from.

The central question in this debate is who owns your children. Are they part of a million individual social organisms, called families – or does the government own your kids?

Governor Phil and Tammy Murphy certainly act like government owns your children. They don’t hesitate inserting the government between child and parent on the most sensitive of levels.

New Jersey enjoys a great diversity amongst its millions of families. Whether agnostic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or any of the thousands of permutations possible, it has been the role of each individual family to pass along its moral values and manners, generation to generation. This, above anything else, preserves the idea of diversity.

Phil and Tammy, who had the opportunity to pass on their moral values and manners to their children, now wish to take that opportunity away from you. They want conformity. On that most personal issue of sexuality, they wish to cut out the parent, and to bring in a lobby group looking for a payday – Garden State Equality.

Hey GSE, it is not our fault that you won and did not have the dignity to declare victory and fold your tent. You became addicted to the money and the power. You will never return to the private sector because of this. You will never mind your own business and seek to live and let live. For you there can only be crisis and turmoil and the endless froth of campaigning… because that is how you are paid.

If Phil and Tammy want to cut out the parent, at least they should be prepared to pick up some of the expenses of raising a child.

Government certainly doesn’t pay for your children. From the child poverty and food insecurity figures in New Jersey, we know that government doesn’t care enough to feed them. From the foreclosure figures, we know that government doesn’t care enough to house them. And we damned well know that government doesn’t give a hang about ensuring they have adequate health care.

So, we suggest a compromise. If government wants to cut out the parents and impart its moral values and manners to the next generation – then government owes the parents of that next generation a tax cut to cover the raising of that generation. The government’s generation. Generation “G”.

Finally, why has Steve Goldstein gone so prudish? Why is it such a big deal to him to call anal sex, anal sex? Or oral sex, oral sex? The legal term for that – and Goldstein can ask Spitzer about it – is “sodomy”.

The legal definition of sodomy includes any sexual penetration aside from vaginal intercourse, including oral and anal sex. Neo-Victorians like Steve Goldstein appear to want to banish such coarse and realistic definitions from our language and replace them with saccharine formulations that make references to “love”.

Love may become part of it. But more generally it flourishes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Any honest person will acknowledge this.

Be honest, humans are attracted to these practices because we derive pleasure from them. It isn’t so much a case of “love is love” but rather, “pleasure is pleasure”. An attachment may follow, or it may not, or it may and then be broken. These are deep waters that no lobby group-turned government vendor can adequately plumb. Leave it to the families. Preserve diversity.

Douglas Murray Explains The Internal Politics Of The LGBT Community.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer

Beware of know-it-alls from the House of Wally Edge

There is a lot of major league handjobbery going on these days from the former occupants of the House of Wally Edge.  You know the guys (no gals, just guys).  They were all trained by that know-it-all of know-it-alls, David "Mr. Bridgegate" Wildstein (aka Wally Edge). 

Whether they occupied positions at PoliticsNJ, or PolitickerNJ, or one of its state affiliates, these people all learned at the hand of Wally and they have all absorbed much of his arrogance.  Like Wally, his acolytes are political "players" disguised as journalists.  They take sides and then try to deliver winners and losers. 

This hubris has caused some to over-reach and to look ridiculous in even bigger settings.  Here is one of the more famous exercises in arrogant over-reach by a former inmate at the House of Wally Edge:

Get that?  Hillary Clinton in a landslide. 

Is Save Jersey playing it straight?

We remember when Save Jersey was created as a vehicle for the election of Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey.  That's the actual origin of the website's name:  Chris Christie was going to "Save Jersey." 

Save Jersey was to be a Lonegan-bashing adjunct to Wally Edge's PoliticsNJ (aka PolitickerNJ and Observer.com).  The Christie people already had the somewhat mercurial David "Wally Edge" Wildstein in their pocket, so Save Jersey's young editor, Matt Rooney, worked slavishly to impress the boss.  The website even went so far as to mock conservative Steve Lonegan's blindness. 

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.  Rooney got out of school and failed to get that social media job at the Governor's office he had his eye on.  Wally Edge left his website, got a political patronage job at the Port Authority, did his BridgeGate thing, and pleaded guilty in federal court.  Chris Christie went from being (in Rooney's eyes) New Jersey's savior and potential occupant of the White House to a liability.  Rooney, along with Kim Guadagno, and an assortment of rats, "jumped ship" and began to attack their former master, the one-time object of their somewhat overly intense affections.

Once upon a time they praised Governor Christie for "reaching out" to secure the support of organized labor, much as Ronald Reagan had done.  Today, they treat anyone in a blue-collar as a pariah.

For the record, the contributors here at Jersey Conservative (except for Professor Murray Sabrin) were uniform in their support for Steve Lonegan in his 2009 gubernatorial battle with Chris Christie.  It is not that we have ever supported the Governor's agenda (although parts have been very worthy of that support), it is just that we abhor the craven, vulgar, opportunistic disloyalty shown towards Governor Christie, by those who once attacked us for not following him.  We marvel at how their intensity has not changed.  They were jerk-offs then and they remain jerk-offs now.

Take Matt Rooney as an example.  A shameless self-promoter, even by New Jersey standards.  He is a lawyer who belongs to a firm that exists in the highly political, you-scratch-my-ass-and-I'll-scratch-yours, world of municipal contracts. 

And we have to tell you, that for all Rooney's protestations about being anti-Democrat Party, he doesn't seem to mind being associated with a law firm that takes contracts from Democrat machine towns in South Jersey.  Hey, didn't someone say "follow the money"?  Okay, let's do that:

Save Jersey's Matt Rooney is a lawyer with the Camden County firm of DeMichele & DeMichele.  According to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, the principals of that firm hold the following public contracts/offices:

We searched for Matt Rooney, but came up with nothing:

But that doesn't jive with what Rooney puts in his lawyer's biography:

Matt Rooney has been a member of the New Jersey Bar since 2011 and the District of Columbia Bar since 2012. A significant portion of his practice concerns matrimonial matters including divorce, custody disputes, support modifications, and domestic violence. Matt also handles personal injury, municipal court, and a variety of other types of litigation. He currently serves as a municipal prosecutor in four (4) different South Jersey communities.

So what gives?  Aren't you the guy who is preaching disclosure?  So how about compliance with Local Government Ethics rules?

Matt Rooney

Photo credit: Madison Mae Photography (2014)

Phone: (856) 546-1350
Fax: (856) 546-1365
Email: matt@southjerseylawfirm.com
LinkedIN: MattRooneyNJ
Facebook: MattRooneyNewJersey
____

Practice areas: family law (divorce, child support, domestic violence); municipal court; personal injury; civil litigation; collections

____

Matt Rooney has been a member of the New Jersey Bar since 2011 and the District of Columbia Bar since 2012. A significant portion of his practice concerns matrimonial matters including divorce, custody disputes, support modifications, and domestic violence. Matt also handles personal injury, municipal court, and a variety of other types of litigation. He currently serves as a municipal prosecutor in four (4) different South Jersey communities.

http://southjerseylawfirm.com/blog/attorney-profiles/matthew-rooney/

Sen. Doherty is wrong to attack Lonegan

Politics is the realm of any number of social pathologies, but the inability to feel or to express gratitude is one of the least attractive.  We were reminded of this yesterday, when we read Senator Mike Doherty's comments on Steve Lonegan in PolitickerNJ.

Evidently, Senator Doherty now looks upon his old friend with a dismissive arrogance born of pride.  Doherty has been hanging out with establishment liberals like Senator Jennifer Beck.  Nowadays Doherty gets to sit at the cool table.  What use has he now for Lonegan, who Doherty mocked as "the Howard Cosell of politics." 

We recall when Steve Lonegan was New Jersey's Mr. Conservative.  The man who had pushed Bret Schundler off the pedestal to establish himself as the standard-bearer of the movement.  In the spring of 2009, Lonegan was in the fight of his life with Chris Christie.  Both wanted the Republican nomination for Governor to take on Democrat incumbent Jon Corzine. 

Assemblyman Mike Doherty had just been rejected by the members of the Republican county committee to succeed Leonard Lance, elected to Congress the previous November, as the Senator from District 23.  Doherty would now have to face an incumbent in the primary -- Senator Marcia Karrow -- and all Trenton was betting against him.

In stepped Steve Lonegan.  First, Lonegan sent one of his own gubernatorial campaign consultants to Doherty to help him organize his campaign.  Lonegan asked conservative legislators like Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll and Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose to back Doherty.  Most importantly, Lonegan raised money for Mike Doherty, practically all of it.

Day after day, when he was finished with the grueling schedule of running for Governor, Steve Lonegan would go into a windowless room at the heart of his campaign headquarters to make money calls for Mike Doherty.  He brushed aside complaints from his own campaign people with the words, "I got to do this for Mike." 

And not only did he raise nearly every dime Doherty spent on that Senate campaign, when Doherty seemed too depressed or unable, Lonegan found him a strong running mate in Hunterdon County Freeholder candidate Jennifer McClurg.

Lonegan placed Doherty, Ed Smith (Assembly), and McClurg on his ticket -- but it was Doherty who benefitted from a Lonegan GOTV operation that pushed just two names in Warren and Hunterdon Counties:  Lonegan for Govenor and Doherty for Senate.   

Lonegan won Legislative District 23 with 11,384 votes and Doherty won with 11,049.  But while Mike Doherty was elected to the Senate, Steve Lonegan lost statewide to Chris Christie.  And so Lonegan began a long slide from the scene in New Jersey, while Doherty, now a Senator, has established himself as a middling sort of legislator, known for his criticisms of government rather than for his constituent service or legislative accomplishments.

Last year, Lonegan re-emerged as a strong figure on the national presidential campaign of the United States Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz.  Doherty, a one-time backer of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, supported billionaire Donald Trump over Congressman Paul's son, the U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.

Now Lonegan has become a leader in a rather broad group of conservatives who are questioning the wisdom of nominating Donald Trump for President, at the Republican National Convention this summer.  Lonegan's effort is quite different from those of more mainstream Republican leaders who seek the same end.

Senator Doherty seems to believe that he can make someone a conservative simply by saying it is so, rather like bestowing it on someone.  Just who he is to believe that he has this power is the question here.  What Doherty suggests is rather like a nun believing that she can "bestow" virginity on a tart, simply by saying it is so.  Next he'll be telling us that Senator Beck is a conservative.

Doherty also mistakes boorish ways for evidence of a conservative intellect.  Loud talk and obnoxious carryings-on, threat-facing and other primate behaviors, do not make a conservative... it makes a baboon.

If Senator Doherty wants to be a good conservative, he should conjure up some gratitude for the conservative leaders who wet-nursed him and gave him the career he has today.  Mike Doherty owes a great deal to Steve Lonegan.  In future, he should show it.

Will O'Toole serve Sweeney in cabinet?

A sickening saccharine story on PolitickerNJ today, looks at Boss Norcross' Steve Sweeney and the efforts of the South Jersey Democrat Machine to recruit their own version of Senator Stack. Maybe this is how to avoid having the Rutgers SuperPAC set on you... take their tokens as an affirmation of submission.

Should writing a book disqualify someone from public office?

By Rubashov

Catch-22, The Grapes of Wrath, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Canterbury Tales, Tropic of Cancer, Ulysses, Naked Lunch, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Moll Flanders, Candide, Women in Love, Fanny Hill, The Decameron, United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-67, Operation Dark Heart, The Federal Mafia, My Life and Loves...

Each one of these books was labeled "obscene trash" by some pundit who had sufficient influence to ban the book in part or even the whole of America.  Yes, books have been banned in America -- books that have gone on to become classics, like those above, and many more that have been lost to time.

Pundits like to think of themselves as writers and it is true that some do write, but their main vocation is that of hall monitor, dashing off sometimes to make a quick comparison in the boys' room, but generally alert to any threat to the "propriety" imposed by their hypocritical masters, and enforced by the punditry. Pundits hate intellectual freedom, because the freedom of people to think what they will is not in their self-interest.  What use for their interpretive priesthood if people read and made up their own minds? 

Yesterday, a pundit writing on PolitickerNJ took a febrile quote from an obviously overwrought young candidate and twisted it into something quite diabolical. It was suggested that someone who was nominated by a free vote be denied his civil right to run for public office because... (wait for it) ...he was the author of a book that the pundit considers "obscene trash". 

Wow... where was this guy when authors like Jim Webb and Al Franken were making their way to the United States Senate? 

Move over Putin, we want to get in on the action too.  Let's strip people of their civil rights -- not because they commit a crime -- but  because we don't like the way they think or what they say or write down. 

Pussy Riot goes to jail because we don't like their performance.  We think it "obscene trash."  If you are a writer, make sure you write in a way that is so bland that nobody is offended.  Otherwise, you will lose your civil rights, starting with the right to represent your fellow citizens.

Armbands anyone?

Did Star-Ledger Editor become part of the story?

According to a source who claims direct knowledge of it, Star-Ledger Editor Tom Moran contacted Republican Party officials in an attempt to have GOP candidate Synnove Bakke recant some controversial opinions she had expressed some years ago regarding Muslims and Islamic terrorism.  Apparently, after this attempt to steer a political campaign the Star-Ledger launched an editorial attack on the candidate and the entire state GOP. 

If this is true -- and we will publish in full and unedited any clarification offered by Mr. Moran -- it represents an escalation of the growing censoriousness by the political pundits who now shape and control news content in New Jersey.  If true, then it is political correctness gone mad -- choking the free expression of ideas, constraining candidates, censoring them when they neglect to self-censor, and through them telling us all what to think, what to do, and how to feel.

Political pundits have pushed traditional journalists out and have taken over the reporting of the news.  But instead of reporting the news, these pundits try to steer it, picking winners and losers as they go.  Instead of reporting what one candidate said and then asking his or her opponent for comment, they condemn what a candidate says as "out of bounds" and then ask the opponent and others to pile on.  Who elected these pundit "judges" to preside over us and to determine what may and may not be said? 

These pundits are paid by extraordinarily rich and powerful families.  The stinking rich, union-busting Newhouse family, the corrupt Kushner family, the in and out of bankruptcy Trumps.  Their money does not set the bounds of what we can and cannot say.  We shouldn't be afraid of people whose personal lives are replete with the shame they attempt to use to muzzle us.

Rough speech is genuine, from the heart.  Do not shame it.  Let people vent, allow the emotion to flow free.  If there is something in it with which you disagree, if you see an error, then cure it with dialog -- not with name-calling and attempts to shame.  That only shuts people up, makes them give up, and tune out.  But maybe that is what you want?

They are vendors NOT journalists

As if it needed to be clearer, Matt Friedman's page on Politico included this salesman's pitch yesterday:

Want to make an impact? POLITICO New Jersey has a variety of multi-platform solutions available to reach and activate the most influential people in the Garden State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Share your message with our influential readers to increase awareness and drive action. Contact Chris Falls to find out how: cfalls@politico.com.

The message:  Hire us as your vendor.

This goes beyond blurring the line, it jumps it.  "Multi-platform solutions... to reach and activate... Have a petition you want signed?  A cause you are promoting?"  Wanna bet that "cause" will get better treatment than Synnove Bakke did?

For Jersey Democrats (and the pundits) how low is the bar?

The Star-Ledger came to the defense of political pundit Matt Friedman today.  Friedman, for a time, worked at the Star-Ledger, but that's not how he became a member of New Jersey's political punditry.  Friedman started with David "Wally Edge" Wildstein, creator and editor of the political pundit website that became PolitickerNJ.com, and later the mastermind behind the Bridgegate scandal. 

Remember the cold indifference Wildstein exhibited towards school children caught in traffic on that bridge?  Something worthy of an Ernst Roehm, was it not?

As editor Wally Edge, Wildstein inculcated his apprentice pundits with his peculiar take on New Jersey politics.  He hated a lot of people, a lot of them were Republicans, and at every opportunity, he made them feel his hate.  This was the training that Friedman and other future pundits picked up from the notorious Wally Edge.

Pundits are different from journalists.  While journalists report the news, pundits try to mold the news to fit a particular agenda.  Wally is not around anymore -- but his acolytes are -- and they have bent the way political news is reported in New Jersey.

Take today's Star-Ledger editorial as an example.  The "crimes" it reports on are "crimes" of thought.  This candidate thought about something and wrote something that we disagree with.  Instead of debating it -- of addressing words with words -- we want to criminalize it.  We demand that these ideas, these words, be "denounced" and that the offenders be made to recant such thoughts and words or be denied their civil right to run for public office.

In the case of one candidate, he stands accused of the high crime of comedy.  This fellow wrote a book many years ago, marketed as "satire", that was nonetheless treated like a position paper freshly released from his campaign.  They even targeted his marriage, accusing him of being "anti-Asian" when they full-well knew that his wife is Korean, and he is not anti-her or anti-their children.  This is the madness of punditry as practiced by Wally's acolytes.

It's not like there isn't plenty to write about in New Jersey.  There's a seemingly never-ending saga of crime and corruption.  But pundits aren't equal opportunity writers.  They have an agenda and that agenda has targets.  Those targets get the business and everyone else gets a pass.  So you have to take everything one of these pundits writes with a healthy dose of skepticism. 

Unfortunately however, a lot of regular reporters get caught up in the crap spewed by pundits.  Go back and read the last month of political reporting in this state and you would be led to believe that the only candidates running for the Legislature who have anything remotely objectionable in their pasts are three or four Republicans who made the mistake of thinking the wrong thoughts or writing satirical prose. 

It's pretty darned sad -- and a gross misrepresentation of the truth.

Here's an example -- just one, of many, many, many.  Back around the time our Republican comedian was writing his book, a young up-and-coming Democrat lobbyist was being accused of stalking women, breaking into their home, and so on.  Accused, mind you, only accused.  He is rich, connected, and powerful.  Well, here's the headline: 

Lobbyist accused of stalking pleads guilty to trespassing

Additional charges dropped as part of deal  

A 22-year-old business whiz and lobbyist from Fanwood faces a probationary term after pleading guilty yesterday to a count of trespassing, admitting he was intoxicated when he entered a home where, police say, a young woman and her boyfriend were sleeping... avoided a trial on charges of stalking two women under a plea agreement reached as jury selection was about to begin in Middlesex County.  

Today this Democrat is an incumbent member of the Assembly and is on the ballot for re-election this November 3rd.  Now Matt Friedman should know all about this because, like him, the Assemblyman was an associate of Wally Edge and his operation.  But trespassing isn't the only thing this guy got up to.   

Around the time a certain Republican candidate for Assembly was committing the unforgivable crime of thought, aka "the tweet", the Democrat Assemblyman was, well, let's just say he was violating federal law.  Here is a copy of the federal indictment:

This guy had a masterful defense team and they played out the clock, seemingly waiting for United States Attorney Chris Christie to leave office.  In the end, he got a plea deal.  He pleaded guilty to one count and five others were dropped.  Among the terms of his probation were:  "...the defendant shall notify third parties of risks that may be occasioned by the defendant's criminal record or personal history or characteristics..."

Like those Republicans targeted because of their thoughts and opinions, this Democrat is on the ballot on November 3rd.  The difference is, what is documented here is a bit more serious than expressing an opinion.  So why isn't it worthy of a mention?

Why does the "readers' right to know" begin with opinion and end with satire -- and leave out criminal case records?  

And this is by no means the worst incidence by the punditry.  A few years ago the arrest and conviction of a candidate was brought to a newspaper in this state.  It involved violent assault on the part of this candidate against a woman.  The editor of that newspaper so wanted to defeat the Republican that he shrugged his shoulders, claimed that it was not newsworthy, and ignored actual violence.  The Republican won but the defeated candidate might be a candidate again, only next time there will be no presentation of the evidence to the press.  Next time it will be on cable.

And that's because New Jersey's political pundits are only interested in pursuing candidates who commit thought crime, not real crime.