Dem operative Devine continues attack on Phil Murphy

New Jersey Democrat operative Devine James has continued questioning Democrat gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy's fitness to hold public office.  Last week, Devine posted this nasty tweet:  "We are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people."

Over the weekend, we found these insightful comments by Devine on a website he maintains as a panegyric to himself: 

"We need to take the power to sway elections away from the greedy rich billionaires and put it back in the hands of the people. We need to make life livable so impoverished families are not at the mercy of uncaring politicians and greedy corporations. We need to restore faith among people that government can be a force for good and the first step would be stopping the government from doing so much harm."

We agree.  Rich liberal billionaires suck.  Big government sucks.  Corporate welfare and its enablers suck.

Devine's website calls himself a "masterful Democratic Party campaign strategist, a crusading journalist and an accomplished leader..."  He is also regarded to be a very trusted Democrat Party hand-job with a penchant for tortured prose like this: 

"A total of 7,765 Occupy protesters have been arrested around the U.S. since Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011. Bankers arrested for robbing $22 trillion from middle class families, greedy corporate executives charged for wrecking the American economy and sanctions imposed on those greedy corporations are outnumbered by the words in this sentence."

Although oddly worded, Devine does make the point that it was bankers -- like Phil Murphy -- who sucked the life out of the U.S. economy and got both a bail out and a bonus for their efforts.  It does pay to lobby... don't it?

Democrat nominee Murphy was a Democrat Party fundraiser and finance chair before President Obama rewarded him with a grace and favor position as an Ambassador.  Murphy 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.

And for all of you who still want to think of the media as political noncombatants, get a load of what Devine writes about himself:

"In addition to his decade of experience publishing a chain of weekly newspapers, including the News Record, the Patriot, the Perth Amboy Gazette, the Atom Tabloid, the South Amboy-Sayreville Citizen, Devine was publisher of several monthly special interest magazines, including New Jersey Wreck Diver and Kid Zone, During that period, he served two years as secretary of the Rahway Chamber of Commerce.

Devine started his career in journalism as a reporter for WKNJ FM Radio, the Elizabeth Daily Journal, and the Bridgewater Courier News (a Gannett newspaper) and as managing editor of the Kean College Independent, a student-run campus weekly newspaper. He is a currently a contributing editor and consultant to New Jersey's oldest weekly newspaper and its website, WWW.NJTODAY.NET."

This is the same guy who, when he is not dumping on Phil Murphy, says he wants to hunt Republicans.  Why?  Do they taste better than Democrats?

"In addition to being elected six times as a member of the Union County Democratic Committee, Devine served as a council coordinator with MoveOn.org, member of the Sierra Club, ACLU, NOW (National Organization for Women), AARP and NAACP, president of the Elizabeth Democratic Association and chairman of the Coalition for Quality Education."

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]

According to Wikipedia, Murphy thinks of himself as a member of an "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.

Likewe said, Devine James makes some real strong points about Phil Murphy, and that's something, coming from the former political director of the New Jersey Democrat State Committee.  Here's a photo of Devine with the first Phil Murphy, another corporate Democrat billionaire who made his dough ripping off the folks.

"An ardent believer in lifelong learning, Devine studied Political Science, Journalism and Mass Communications at Kean University. He has been accredited by the New Jersey Press Association and as a member of the Academy of Political Science, as well as numerous other professional and civic associations.

Over the years, Devine has been employed by seven Democratic state lawmakers as a legislative aide or chief of staff."

That's a lot of smoke to blow up your own ass.  Little guy... big ego?  Let's ask an expert...

But the smoke from this hero's pipe just keeps blowing...

"Throughout his life, Devine maintained vast moral courage, often paying a high personal price for showing unequaled bravery by taking principled stands against fierce adversaries and standing up to his friends when he believed them to be wrong. The qualities his critics may never acknowledge have been documented from his earliest days in politics right through to the current time; by some of the very friends he suffered for opposing."

Yep, in this hero's mind, his shit is vast and unequaled.  So what does our expert think?

To close, here is the hero himself, caught short, in a candid pose, outside the corporate offices of a local pharmaceutical giant.

GOP Legislators get duped into anti-Trump pledge

Democrat Senator Ray Lesniak got New Jersey Republicans to take an anti-Trump stance in an attempt to mar the Electoral Vote victory of Republican President-Elect Donald Trump.   Lesniak takes credit for coming 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."

A little further research revealed that this pledge is actually the work of a group of individuals who the Bergen Record describe as Muslims, although non-Muslims, such as Senator Lesniak, are involved as well.  The impetus is clear from the Record's story (November 23, 2016):

" Many have publicly and privately shown support for Muslims amid anxiety about the intentions of a Trump administration... James Sues, leader of a Muslim civil rights group in New Jersey, received nearly 20 emails in the week after Donald Trump's election, each asking: How can I help?"

" As Muslim Americans ponder the consequences of a Trump presidency, they’re finding momentum within their communities to organize and protect their rights."

"At first, many Muslims questioned whether Trump would carry out promises for proposals such as banning Muslim immigration or asking them to register with the government as a faith group, Sues said.

They grew even more concerned amid news reports that high-level appointees would include retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has called Islam a cancer, and  Stephen Bannon, a man who ran a media outlet seen as a platform for anti-Muslim commentary. Meanwhile, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Trump adviser, said he was drafting a proposal for a Muslim registry program that Trump talked about in his campaign."

"...Trump was casting suspicion on Muslims – something she feared would influence Americans. She said she felt nervous walking at the mall in her hijab, a Muslim headscarf, in the days after the election. 'I felt like everyone's eyes were on me,' she said."

"In a rally on the Statehouse steps a week ago, around 35 people from different faith groups and community groups called for inclusiveness and safety for all, including Muslims. Participants included the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, who leads the Reformed Church of Highland Park and is running for governor on the Green Party ticket. He said he would also register as a Muslim if a registry took place.

Mohammad Ali Chaudry, an organizer for a coalition of 150 Muslim groups across New Jersey, said he’s gotten strong support for his 'I Stand With the Other' pledge, which asks people to denounce hate and bigotry when they see or hear it. He created the pledge as an initiative of the New Jersey Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee. Clergy, students and elected officials are among those who have signed, with interest growing after the election.

...Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, signed the pledge and has asked for Senate lawmakers to say the pledge in unison at their Dec. 15 meeting."

We all know who Ray Lesniak is.  He is the king of pay-to-play.  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. 

And who is Mohammad Ali Chaudry, who claims that it is his pledge?  He runs The Islamic Society in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.  The group is suing a local planning board for denying it permission to build a mosque on a 4 acre site.  Chaudry got the Obama Justice Department in on the act and they sued the town as well. 

Then the town cited a conflict of interest between Chaudry and one of the top officials in the Obama Justice Department.  It's a real mess that is costing property taxpayers dearly.

Reporter Dave Hutchinson of the Star-Ledger has been covering this story and he filed this the same day the Record story about the pledge was published: http://www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2016/11/town_that_denied_mosque_accuses_doj_of_conflict_of.html

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?

In short, Senator Lesniak's pledge not only shackles speech (even comedy) but it prescribes corrective speech, while it allows a giant loophole to hate Republican Donald Trump and his supporters while feeling good about it.  That isn't helping the cause of human respect and understanding.

Too bad so many Republican legislators allowed themselves to be duped.

"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.

Beck & Doherty join left wingers to oppose tax cut for retirees

At yesterday's back to back press conferences at the State House in Trenton, GOP Senators Jennifer Beck and Mike Doherty joined with Democrat Senator Ray "Lord of Ass" Lesniak and Democrat Assemblyman John Wisniewski in opposing a plan that would give retirees an average $1,200 tax cut and phase out that destroyer of small businesses and family farms, the estate tax, while preventing an increase in property taxes to pay for local road and bridge repairs and maintenance. 

Beck and Doherty have their own plan, also supported by GOP Senator Gerald Cardinale, that freezes property tax relief to local governments for seven years and borrows heavily to run the state deeper into debt.  The Beck plan makes no tax cuts -- something the state teachers' union agrees with -- and leaves New Jersey's tax structure the worst in the region for retirees and the worst in the nation to grow a business and create jobs.

By refusing to fund roads and bridges through a petroleum-based user tax, the Beck plan gives out-of-state drivers a free ride while pushing the costs of maintenance and repair onto property taxpayers and future generations.  Groups  like AFP, which is funded by the petroleum industry, support Beck and Doherty, as do liberal organizations like the New Jersey Education Association and the Sierra Club.

When it comes to opposing the phase out of the Estate Tax, Liberal Assemblyman Wisniewski and talk show host Bill Spadea are both adamantly opposed.  They part company on a user tax on gasoline, with Wisniewski in support of an increase in the current tax, whereas Spadea would rather see no tax on gasoline at all and instead a substantial property tax increase to pay for roads and bridges.

All this is bound to have ramifications for the 2017 elections -- with the primaries now less than a year away.   How would retired voters behave if individual legislators voted against their $1,200 tax cut?  What would the effect be if it failed to become law and the state's retirees saw their $1,200 tax cut taken away?

In Jennifer Beck's District 11, 48 percent of all registered Republicans are aged 60 or over.  Just 20 percent are under age 45.  66 percent of Republican super voters (3 of 4 or above) are aged 60 or over.

42 percent of all registered Republicans in Mike Doherty's District 23 are aged 60 or over.  Just 21 percent are under age 45.  58 percent of Republican super voters (3 of 4 or above) are aged 60 or over.

In Senator Cardinale's District 39, 47 percent of all registered Republicans are aged 60 or over.  Just 18 percent are under age 45.  64 percent of Republican super voters (3 of 4 or above) are aged 60 or over.

Can these legislators afford to vote against a tax cut for retirees?