Is the Star-Ledger’s Jon Salant a handjob? He re-wrote a hit piece for Menendez using old news.

There is a lot of real news floating around out there.  Certainly enough to prevent a writer from needing to plagiarize an early hit piece by the Menendez campaign for reuse as “fresh” news three weeks out from an election.  If the headline reads like the title of an attack piece put out by Menendez – that’s because it is: 

“Hugin says he's a different kind of Republican, but his campaign donations show otherwise.”

Breaking news… Republican Bob Hugin donates to the campaigns of (wait for it)… Republicans!!!  No shit. 

And this differs from (name ANY partisan candidate for office – Democrat or Republican) how?   

As evidence for his screwy contention, Jonathan Salant actually attacks Republican Bob Hugin and HIS WIFE for failing to support a Democrat Senator from Washington State.  Salant claims the Senator is bi-partisan… the record shows that she is the 5th most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.  Maybe we should just change Jonathan’s name from “Salant” to “Slant”.  What a pissbrain!

(Speaking of wives, as they have now been made fair game by Jonathan Slant, old Mrs. Slant is a kind of lobbyist/crony capitalist out on the hunt for taxpayer dollars for “deserving” corporations.  Yep, you can’t make this shit up.)

Salant’s hit on Hugin was all addressed earlier this year in a series of campaign attacks against Hugin by the Menendez campaign.  It is now being repackaged by the Star-Ledger and Salant in order to give it an “objective” slant – three weeks out from Election Day.  Salant’s goal is simple:  He wants to influence those women who have been turned off by Menendez’s trafficking of Eastern European women for his pal’s sexual purposes or the Obama Justice Department’s allegations about sex with underaged girls in the Caribbean.  Salant wants them to put that aside and pull the Big “D” lever (as they used to say).

Jonathan Salant wants reform Democrats to forget what kind of corrupt POS Bob Menendez really is.  Salant wants them to forget the bank scams and the Medicare fraud and stare straight ahead while they yank that Big “D”.  And the best he can come up with is that Bob Hugin is… a Republican. 

And that’s a big deal to a religionist like Jonathan Salant, who sincerely believes that being a Republican is a kind of original sin.  Salant, as his writing shows, will not be comfortable until the last of these venomous creatures is driven from the public square.

Every candidate gets stuck in the ass by the media.  It happens.  But there’s a difference between getting stuck by what was once a generally “uninvolved” or “non-partisan” press and getting stuck by a partisan writer like Jonathan Salant.  Salant is the kind of guy who will stick a candidate in the ass and not have the common courtesy to give him a reach around.  It’s an act of violence with him… and he’s going to make sure there’s nothing in it for the object of his attentions.

Cory Booker hearing Jonathan Salant’s confession.

Cory Booker hearing Jonathan Salant’s confession.

That is our critique on the writing of Jonathan Salant.  We acknowledge that he is a “writer” of some standing and craft.  We dispute the title “journalist” being applied to him, because he has ventured so far from it.  Others may disagree… particularly the more “clubbable” members of the Establishment.  Nevertheless, these are our opinions.  If Jonathan Salant would like to dispute them on these pages, we will gladly publish what he writes, UNEDITED, which is a courtesy the corporate arse-lickers who run the Star-Ledger would NEVER extend to anyone with whom they disagreed.

Did someone dump in Alan Steinberg’s brain and neglect to flush it?

Over the past year or so, we have been watching Alan Steinberg’s irretrievable slide into the dark waters of a wannabe fellow-traveler.   With today’s column – the one attacking Republican Bob Hugin and praising the Democrats’ nomination of a 1960’s era socialist as that party’s face in Florida – Steinberg has finally hit crush depth.

We are genuinely concerned for Alan, a one-time devotee of Her Bluebloodedness Christie Todd Whitman, and recall how slavishly Steinberg attempted to defend her disastrous policies – fiscally ruinous – for which every taxpayer in New Jersey continues to suffer.  In recognition of such devotion, the Whitmanites kept Steinberg in patronage heaven.

But with the advent of Donald Trump, something went terribly wrong with Alan.  He’s in touch with too much of the old crowd, most of whom switched party in the Year of Our Lord 2008, when Heaven sent down the anointed one to dwell amongst and lead us.  We hate to remind Alan that when the folks who voted for He Who Must Be Obeyed got through all the smoke and bullshit only to realize that they were still living in their mother’s basement, without a job (but in plenty of debt) – these same folks voted for a newer, coarser savior… The Donald. 

The Bluebloods, who Steinberg seems so intent on virtue-signaling to, never got over their rejection by the vast working and middle classes who make up most of America’s voters.  They are not concerned by people like Andrew Gillum, who they long ago sponsored, co-opted, and turned into salon pets.  Corporate America has been pouring money into the Left for generations, with the understanding that when the Left does get power, it leaves them alone and is focused instead on the average American taxpayer.

That’s the great culpability of the 1960’s era New Left – bourgeois academics who found that it was easier to take the rich man’s money and make war on the working class… to compound a philosophy of “identity” that would split the mighty working class into white and black, male and female, gay and straight, urban and rural… to allow it to endlessly battle itself.  And in the time since, economic inequality has grown to the point where, if you believe the Washington Post, the richest 1 percent own more wealth than at any time in the last 50 years.  If you believe the New York Times, the richest one percent hold more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined.  That’s what the New Left’s identity bullshit and the fracturing of the working class has got us… vast economic inequality.

As for the race between Republican Bob Hugin and the incumbent Democrat, Senator Bob Menendez, is Steinberg serious?

Yes, we do remember that Menendez was once the pet of Governor Tom Kean and that a great many of the most vulgarly rich, formerly Republican, Bluebloods still carry a torch for “that nice young man” from Hudson County.  The trouble is, that “nice young man” grew up to be a corpulent bowl of putrid corruption – and he’s not from Hudson County anymore, he’s from Washington, DC. 

Hey, maybe it’s not all his fault, that place will do it to you, but after the shit he’s pulled, he owns it.  You can’t help your rich buddy import women into the United States and still expect to be called a civilized human being.  It’s a crime against nature.  And that’s before we examine the policies pursued by Bob Menendez… like wanting to waste money on a border wall with Canada (yep, like in South Park) or never meeting a war that he didn’t want to send some blue-collar kids to fight.  Hey, did this guy ever serve himself?  Does that make him a chicken hawk?

So piss on Alan Steinberg’s prognosticating… it’s all just aid and comfort for a very bad guy who has a lot of old-fashioned, formerly Republican, majorly blueblood friends.  And Alan, get hold of yourself, you don’t need those bluebloods’ approval to feel relevant.  Screw them.  Resist.

The hypocrisy of Assemblywoman Timberlake ignores vulnerable women, embraces criminality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... we've all heard your faux outrage at band banners (yeah, it was a band banner, not a Johnny Reb flag) and rap lyrics before.  Some people just hate music.  Is Assemblywoman Timberlake trying out for the Mrs. Al Gore awards?  Is Timberlake the anti-Lady Gaga?

Look, we appreciate how seriously Lady Timberlake takes unproven allegations from decades ago, but what about actual criminal indictments and convictions, how seriously do you take them?  We'd like to know what goes through your mind as you snuggle up in caucus to fellow Democrats like Raj Mukherji?

Remember him?  Raj was buddies with another politician who killed a homeless African-American veteran.  Just ran him over on the street like he was a dog and when the cops came he told them he had hit a deer.  Your kind of guy, right Lady Timberlake?  And how about your caucus mate Raj?  He's some guy...

Message to Lady Timberlake... stop deflecting and apologize to Bob Hugin and Assemblywoman DeCroce for your stupid comments.  Own up to the criminality of the scumbags in your own caucus.  Then do something about it.

Once you've cleaned up that stable of a mess the Democrats call a caucus, then you can play high and mighty.