Hey Star-Ledger’s Julie O’Connor… this is who you are…

We all know who Julie O’Connor is.  She writes those lousy editorials about people when Tom Moran gets too bored to do it.  You know those editorials.  The ones that tell you more about the kind of day the writer is having than about anything actually going on in the world.

Julie O’Connor is part of the problem in corporate journalism today.  Here a colleague of Julie O’Connor is examined rather closely by a panel of the non-corporate/ non-neo-con Honest Left – on the Jimmy Dore show.  Enjoy…

Received opinion… (aka corporate opinion)

Amazing isn’t it?

If only the Star-Ledger had the moral mettle of the Atlantic City Press.

Once upon a time in America… newspapers provided a safe space for the exchange of ideas.  They kept the drama in check, maintained a rational balance, and never let their emotions get the better of them.

You need only read an editorial written by the Star-Ledger’s Julie O’Connor to know that those days are long gone.  Today’s media is all wrapped up in the moment and very, very emotional about it.  There is no civil exchange of ideas, just the daily line that the Establishment media is right… and the average working man and woman is wrong.  And if you disagree with them, they call you a “racist”. 

Once upon a time in America… newspapers didn’t tip their hand as to whose side they were on.  You couldn’t tell if they were leaning Democrat or Republican – and they tried not to give it away until their endorsement a few days before an election.  Now there’s no hiding who they support and what they are.  As the Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran wrote last year:  “Voters will be standing in the booth Tuesday, and our core mission is helping them decide which lever to pull.”

With a “core mission” like that, it sounds like the Star-Ledger needs to register itself as a political action committee.

Of course, there are still a few – very few – old style newspapers.  About the same time the Star-Ledger was publishing its “core mission”, the Atlantic City Press wrote: “Telling readers how to vote, however, is contrary to the mission of newspapers and other media, which is to extend the public’s experience and perspectives.  Newsgathering organizations give the public eyes, ears and memory beyond the capability of an individual.  People want them to be reliable and credible.  When the media start making judgments, their audiences wonder if they’re altering their content to support that judgment too.”

Once upon a time in America… colleges and universities were safe spaces for the exchange of ideas.  Freedom of thought and of speech was respected – even when disagreed with. 

Now look at them.  They threaten those they disagree with and – if they show up anyway – they get violent.  Who would have believed that students would one day get violent over the idea of being exposed to a different point of view?  The parallel to another time, and other students, is an exact one.  And that ended in book burning.

Recently a Sussex County Democrat wrote:   "Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."  He went on to explain that Fox News should be banned because, in his view, it was “propaganda”.  The idea that this Democrat is aligned with an institution of higher learning – in this case the Sussex County Community College – is chilling. 

The safe space for civil discourse, the safe space for the exchange of ideas, is fast disappearing.  And when society’s “betters” behave irresponsibly – equating words with violence – what do we expect from the “unhinged” elements of society?  Who is teaching society how to hold a civil, rational discussion with someone with whom they disagree?

Instead, by equating words with violence, the editors, reporters, faculty, and administrators are telling society that they engage in violence (with words) and so it is okay for others to engage in violence (on their terms).

The problem with writers like Julie O’Connor, Tom Moran, Matt Arco, and Matt Friedman is their lack of humility and lack of intellectual curiosity.  Their moral certainty has closed the book on considering any viewpoint but their own.  They are good… everybody else is evil.  That makes for a pretty darn predictable writing style.  Pretty darn boring. 

There has been a lot of social change in America.  O’Connor-Moran-Arco-Freidman and the like are in a rush to make everyone conform to those changes.  They believe it to be a moral imperative that any diversity of opinion be labeled and then stamped out.  But they are acting out at a very dangerous time in the world. 

Democracy defeated the older models of totalitarianism because it produced both freedom and prosperity.  Totalitarianism failed to produce either freedom or prosperity.  Now there is a new model of totalitarianism – Chinese fascism – that is quite good at lifting people out of poverty and making them prosperous.  Prosperous… but not free. 

If we lose our safe spaces for civil, rational discussion.  If we lose the ability to exchange ideas.  If we convince our people that they must be “protected” from the freedoms in Bill of Rights – from being exposed to speech they disagree with, from the right to self-defense.  What will we be left with?  Will we embrace the Chinese model if it ensures prosperity and protects us from the “threat” of freedom?

We have been warned before about the inorganic imposition of new cultural ideas on society.  We have been warned about what happens when you are not patient, by that old-fashioned liberal, Mrs. Lillian Smith.  A Southern writer, she was a pioneer in the battle to end segregation. We recommend her book, The Winner Names the Age.  In it, you will find this passage she wrote when she accepted the Charles S. Johnson Award for her work:

“It is his millions of relationships that will give man his humanity… It is not our ideological rights that are important but the quality of our relationships with each other, with all men, with knowledge and art and God that count.

The civil rights movement has done a magnificent job but it is now faced with the ancient choice between good and evil, between love for all men and lust for a group’s power.”

“Every group on earth that has put ideology before human relations has failed; always disaster and bitterness and bloodshed have come.  This movement, too, may fail.  If it does, it will be because it aroused in men more hate than love, more concern for their own group than for all people, more lust for power than compassion for human need.”

“We must avoid the trap of totalism which lures a man into thinking there is only one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now.”

Why is a journalist on a sexual-identity “power” list?

Some people still subscribe to newspapers in the hope of providing themselves with basic information on the current events of the day.  And once upon a time, newspapers did just that.  Older journalists worked very hard to keep their personal opinions, emotions, feelings, and biases away from their job of reporting the news. 

Not anymore.  Now newspaper reporters publicly celebrate their biases – flaunt them – and, as a result, journalism as a career is on life support. 

Readers today expect reportage to be grossly untrue and biased and they are guided accordingly.  More and more, newspapers bore voters.  Most voters can tell you today how the newspapers will report on each and every debate next year between Donald Trump and whoever the Democrat candidate is.  You could place a bet on it if anyone would take a bet on it but nobody will because everybody knows.  So very predictable.

What happened to intellectual curiosity?  Back during the day before yesterday, a reporter approached a story with an open, interested mind – excited by the prospects of where the story might take it.  Not today.  Now it is “time to make the donuts” – the work of drudgery – a fine cabinetmaker reduced to nailing together crates.  Reporters have everything arranged in advance.  The story is written before they write it.  There are those with the white hats and them with the black – with 95 percent of the story slanted against the designated “baddies” and praising the “goodies” – and 5 percent reserved for a “response” from the “baddies” (which, in the course of a conversation with the reporter, is often turned into the worst bit).  Journalism today is like writing while sleepwalking.  A fiction produced through automatic writing.   

Many reporters – the Star-Ledger’s Jonathan Salant comes to mind – cannot get their brains out of their comfortable suburban surroundings, the cozy press club, the shared prejudices and opinions.  Never meeting another soul who is unlike them, they cannot imagine any way but their own.  A machine stuck at one speed, one function, doing the same thing, grinding on until it burns out. 

Then there are the activists.  These are the so-called journalists who think it cool to show that they are compromised from the start, their minds made up.  The Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran laid in out last year when he wrote:  “Voters will be standing in the booth Tuesday, and our core mission is helping them decide which lever to pull.”  Sounds more like the “core mission” of a political operation than of journalism.

Of course, there still are some genuine journalists out there.  A month before Moran wrote that stunning admission, the Atlantic City Press published an editorial which included these reassuring lines:  “Telling readers how to vote, however, is contrary to the mission of newspapers and other media, which is to extend the public’s experience and perspectives.  Newsgathering organizations give the public eyes, ears and memory beyond the capability of an individual.  

People want them to be reliable and credible.  When the media start making judgments, their audiences wonder if they’re altering their content to support that judgment too.”

Which brings us to Matt Arco of… you guessed it, the Star-Ledger.  Why is Matt Arco number 34 on a list of 100 “LGBT Power” brokers?  Why is that kind of self-defining celebrity necessary for a journalist?  We thought he was covering the news, and here he is a power broker making the news.  What is a journalist doing cheek-by-jowl on a list of politicians, lobbyists, and political operatives?  

And why is he described as a “voice” when he should be a conduit of information, which is the heart and soul of journalism.  Is anyone really looking for another celebrity “voice” shouting to be heard, telling us their feelings, thoughts, opinions – or do we want to be informed about what’s really going on?  The title “political reporter” shouldn’t be meant literally. 

How can a journalist who allows himself to be placed on a celebrity “power” list be taken seriously?  As one of the top named members of a political identity group, how can we expect Matt Arco to fairly and honestly cover stories concerning religious groups with theological traditions that don’t line up with the policy agenda of his political identity group?  Groups such as Biblical Christians, Torah Jews, and adherent Muslims. 

How can Matt Arco be expected to fairly and honestly cover a candidate or  political organization whose positions or platform is not in agreement with the positions and platform of his political identity group – of which he is the 34th most powerful operative in the state?  Having Matt Arco cover the Republican Party is like sending Ann Coulter to cover the Democrats.  It’s not fair or honest.

Trenton Democrats need to call out Bryan Miller’s racist image

This is Bryan Miller.  He advocates for taking away the means of self-defense for working class single moms in cities like Paterson, Newark, and Camden. 

Even the Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran now understands that the police have no legal responsibility to protect each and every individual in America.  In a Republic, that job is left up to its citizens.  YOU CANNOT SUE THE GOVERNMENT WHEN IT FAILS TO PROTECT YOU.  That is established legal precedent. 

So disarming single moms in towns like Paterson, Newark, and Camden… or anywhere else in New Jersey for that matter… is an open invitation to rape and murder for any thug passing by.

But that’s not enough for Bryan Miller.  He wants to use racist images like the one above to scare groups like Moms Demand Action and the Brady Campaign into taking away the rights of single moms and other at-risk people to get the training and equipment to defend themselves against violent criminals determined to harm them and their children. 

This is an old and sad story in America.  Gun control laws were first used to disarm black people so that they couldn’t defend themselves against groups like the racist KKK.  Racist appeals to support these laws were made to upper middle class women like those who make up Moms Demand Action and the Brady Campaign today. 

Along with disarming black people and taking away their right to self-defense, came something called the “poll tax” which served to take away black people’s participation in public life.  Now the Trenton Democrats – led by Governor Phil “coddler of rapists” Murphy – have come up with a way to do both in a single piece of legislation that raises the permit fee to own the means of self-protection from $5 to $300. 

These Democrats are filthy racists and they need to be opposed.

No hard-working single mom should have to live in fear just because she can’t afford to live where the politicians live.  Fear of rape and other forms of violence shouldn’t be the penalty for not having enough money to raise your kids in a town like all those Moms Demand Action and Brady Campaign folks come from.

Unless Murphy and the Trenton Democrats are willing to pay to post a full-time police officer on every street in every at-risk community, raising the cost by which women and other at-risk people can get the training and equipment to protect their bodies and lives is morally wrong and should be opposed by all right-thinking people.

Pushing for a $15 minimum wage, the Star-Ledger pays its drivers $10 an hour (are any undocumented?)

The Star-Ledger doesn’t report the news.  As Editor Tom Moran wrote (November 1, 2018):  “Our core mission is helping voters decide which lever to pull.” 

That’s right, the Star-Ledger is a advocacy organization.  First and foremost, you can always depend on the Star-Ledger to lobby for its own bottom line. 

For years, the newspaper was a strident supporter of the New Jersey State Supreme Court’s Abbott Decision – which forces working class families in suburban and rural New Jersey to subsidize the property taxes of wealthy corporations and professionals in urban areas.  Among those wealthy corporations was the parent corporation that owns the Star-Ledger, whose property holdings were so extensive in Newark that the city named a street… no, make that a plaza, after the Star-Ledger. 

Now comes this new hypocrisy.

A few days before Christmas, the New Jersey Globe reported that while editorializing for a $15 minimum wage, the Star-Ledger  was paying workers at $10 an hours, with no benefits.  The corporation that owns the Star-Ledger is itself owned by one of the richest families in America. 

Here’s an excerpt from the New Jersey Globe:

The state’s largest daily newspaper ran an advertisement in Wednesday’s print edition seeking drivers for newspaper deliveries willing to work 2-3 hours daily, “starting around 3 AM,” with a typical bi-weekly compensation that starts at $400.   That could mean less than $10-per-hour.

To get a job like that, applicants must have their own cars. Star-Ledger drivers – they call them Delivery Service Providers — receive no benefits; they “are independently contacted, meaning they are self-employed” and receive 1099s.   Minimum wage laws do not apply.

There is no paid vacation time, no workers compensation, and since drivers do not handle collections, there are no gratuities involved.

“The job, once the bastion of neighborhood kids looking to make a few extra bucks on their bikes, has evolved into a grueling nocturnal marathon for low-income workers who toil almost invisibly on the edge of the economy,” wrote Associated Press reporter Michael Levenson in 2016.

Today the Star-Ledger once again editorialized for drivers’ licenses for resident undocumented immigrants illegally in the United States.  Is this another self-serving position for the owners to take?  Will this help drive down the cost of newspaper distribution?  We wonder if there are any internal memos on this?

While the Star-Ledger and its owners are up on all the latest virtue-signaling, paying just enough lip-service to reassure the cocktail set that they are good and worthy people, their actions seek to drive down the wages of American workers, while creating an immigrant class of toiling wage slaves.  Raising the minimum wage is a farce until you can control the gray economy that doesn’t abide by such rules.  Normalizing the gray economy (by things like drivers licenses) will only solidify its position as an alternative workforce.

And while the Democrats talk about the minimum wage, Governor Murphy is doing his utmost to flood the state with illegal labor that every economist tells us will drive down wages.  When there is more of something, you pay less, we all know that.  Either the Democrats are well-meaning but stupid, or they are engaging in the very same hypocrisy that the Star-Ledger is engaging in.

Here is the original New Jersey Globe story:

https://newjerseyglobe.com/media/star-ledger-editorializes-in-support-of-15-hour-wage-but-pays-drivers-much-less/

The Hugin campaign would have done better in a Democrat primary.

Bob Hugin is a great guy.  Really.  He’s a good and decent man.  It was unfortunate that he found himself in a Republican primary… this year.  The fact that he persevered with such confidence and grace makes him a heroic, somewhat tragic, figure.  

Bob Hugin could have run in the Democrat primary.  $35 million… against Bob Menendez?  Hugin had the issues right for a Democrat primary… and the media wouldn’t have pounced on a Democrat Bob Hugin the way they did a Republican Bob Hugin.  The media love rich members of the One Percent when they are Democrats (it is a capital sin when you are a Republican)… they love woke, right-on pharma folk of the proper political affiliation.  They would have forgiven him everything.

But Bob ran as a Republican, and he ran this year.  A year when the media he wanted to appeal to was working to nationalize the election – to make it about Trump.  That media ended up vouching for Bob Menendez, despite having formerly called for his resignation. That media still cuts it with the people who Bob Hugin wanted to convince:  Democrats and liberal-leaners.   

Rather than shutting down Menendez, Hugin’s attacks were used by the media as evidence that he – Bob Hugin – was a “bad” man.  Of course, this only works with those who are open to receiving a message from the likes of Tom Moran and MSNBC.  Unfortunately, they were precisely the voters that the Hugin campaign was aimed at. 

Can we put aside the myth that Republican voters will come out no matter what, and dutifully vote Republican?  That myth should have finally, once and for all, been discarded after the low turnout Assembly races in 2015, when Republicans AGAIN lost seats in the Legislature and were AGAIN provided with irrelevant excuses for having done so. 

Oh the excuses!  One year it is Christie’s fault, the next it is Trump’s, and in between, the dog ate it!  New Jersey Republicans should set up their own public relations firm specializing in excuse-making.  Excuses aside, New Jersey’s GOP establishment should understand that the days of Republicans “holding their noses” and voting are over.

Republican voters are like anyone else.  Ignore them, say you are embarrassed to be with them, that you are “different” from them… and they will reward you in kind.  As an experiment, try some of that language next time you are in public with your wife and her family (or your husband and his).  Invite them out to a restaurant, then tell the host:  “I’m a different kind of member of this family, I’m not really one of them… They are a little, umm… backward.”  And say it so they hear it.  Say it loud, like ten million dollars’ worth of loud, and see how they like it.  Go ahead, try it.  Get back to us on it.

And that’s what the whole Hugin campaign was based on, wasn’t it?

“I’m a different kind of Republican.”  They are a little backward, a little off, but I’m with it.  I am a cool Republican.  Except that there are no “cool” Republicans.  Not in the minds of the media.  They only thought John McCain was cool when he was pissing on Bush.  The moment it became about him and Obama, John McCain became a troglodyte in the minds of the media.  After the dust settled, he became cool again, especially when pissing on other Republicans… especially when pissing on Trump.  But when he needed them, the media screwed John McCain.  So why even bother with them?

President Ronald Reagan understood the media (and they were a lot more condensed, more centralized, and a lot stronger back then).  That’s why he talked past them – to the people.  He didn’t give a damn about their approval.  He fed them the diet he wanted them to eat and even when they shit it out it contained the kernels of his message.  Reagan wasn’t afraid to be a Republican and to explain what that meant.  He had a message that he tested and honed by human contact – by speaking to people, engaging them, listening for the examples that would be used in his speeches, turning them on to his way of thinking, building a movement of ideas and about issues that mattered to people.

How many Republicans today, in New Jersey, can explain why they are Republicans or what Republicanism is?  At the big Republican show put on by the NJGOP last spring in Atlantic City, two professional Republican organizers up from Washington, DC, posed the same questions to attendees.  Not only was there no apparent theme or connectivity between the responses, even the organizers couldn’t adequately provide reasons or an explanation as to why they were there in the first place.  It was kind of sad.

What that confab did showcase, however, is the top-down meddling that has become the hallmark of the establishment in New Jersey, with a congressional candidate in a contested primary receiving top billing as the event’s featured speaker.  Yes, there was resource-draining meddling in districts 2, 5, and 11 – in an effort to promote candidates who would fit seamlessly with the statewide message being promoted by the campaign of Bob Hugin.

Instead of building a grassroots coalition of Republicans and reformers – of the kind Ralph Nader wrote about in his book, Unstoppable – the Hugin campaign  actually determined that their best chance lay in targeting “soft” Democrats and culturally “left-leaning” independents.  But these are the very same voters open to arguments from left-leaning media like CNN, MSNBC, NJ.com, and the Bergen Record.  So when the Hugin campaign pushed a relentlessly negative message about Menendez, those “independent arbiters” pushed back and were listened to. 

This allowed the Menendez campaign to focus on making the link between Hugin and Trump – which the media backed up.  The more the media pressed, the more Hugin denied Trump, the more he suppressed his own base.  Meanwhile, the Hugin campaign went right on churning out GOTV communications and efforts to turn out those “soft” Democrats and culturally “left-leaning” independents who had by now been convinced by the media that Hugin was a “bad” man who was lying about Menendez.  Gagged and gagged again.

In the days and weeks ahead we will be taking a proper, in depth, examination of the Republican operation in the Garden State.  It will be a necessary, warts and all, detailed review.  So stay tuned.

For now, we will leave you with this: 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  - Winston Churchill

Tom Moran’s propaganda or the A.C. Press’ journalism?

The showdown over the future of journalism is happening right here in New Jersey.  It’s between the editors of the Atlantic City Press and Tom Moran (and his acolytes) at the Star-Ledger (and elsewhere).

In October, the Atlantic City Press published an editorial which included these very remarkable lines:  “Telling readers how to vote, however, is contrary to the mission of newspapers and other media, which is to extend the public’s experience and perspectives.  News gathering organizations give the public eyes, ears and memory beyond the capability of an individual.  People want them to be reliable and credible.  When the media start making judgments, their audiences wonder if they’re altering their content to support that judgment too.”

“Altering their content to support (a) judgment”?  Isn’t that what Jonathan Salant (pronounced S’lant) does every day?  Isn’t his tongue so far up Editor Tom Moran’s perspective that it functions as a redundant tongue for Moran?  Repetition, repetition, repetition… via Salanted coverage and outrageously partisan editorials… isn’t that what political propaganda is all about?

But don’t take our word for it.  Here is Star-Ledger Editor Tom Moran himself, in his own words, in an editorial published just yesterday:  “Voters will be standing in the booth Tuesday, and our core mission is helping them decide which lever to pull.”

Well shit, if swaying voters is your “core mission” shouldn’t you register as a political action committee?  Afterall, the Star-Ledger is owned by some of the richest people in America – real 1 percenter scum – who have left no stone unturned in their relentless screwing over of working class union members and their families.  If they are going to exist with their “core mission” to influence elections, shouldn’t there be some transparency?  Or are we just going to let them operate in darkness – to use their billions and their paid whore mouthpieces like Tom Moran and Jonathan S’lant to keep screwing over working people and working class families?

Labor unions need to account for how their money is spent.  So do political campaigns and lobbyists and special interests groups.  So why not billionaire newspaper publishers whose “core mission” is helping voters decide which lever to pull? 

What makes it worse is that the rich pricks who own these newspapers are subsidized with taxpayers’ money.  They used their power and influence to lobby for a law that forces municipalities to buy advertisements in newspapers that could run for free on their own municipal websites.  This not only vastly expands their carbon footprint, and with it the threat to environmental sustainability, but it turns beautiful green forests into shitty pulp factories.  End the taxpayers’ subsidy unless the newspapers institute some transparency!

Now for some thoughts on the conduct of the campaign season that will come to a close on Tuesday.

The two major parties have starkly different ideas on how to conduct a political campaign.  The Democrats are all about the grassroots.  They raise money from their grassroots.  They make use of their grassroots base and their allies to prepare the ground, soften up their opponents, and inform their candidates.  You see it in these debates, with the Democrat candidates constantly referencing some conversation or concern with a real or mythical human being in the district

Most insiders don’t get what’s happening here because they are creatures of Trenton or Washington or politics – but it skews the outsider perspective into one where the battles appear to be between “a representative  of the government” (call him the Sheriff of Nottingham) and “a movement or collective of people” who are speaking through this individual who appears to be on their side and fighting for them (call him Robin Hood).  It is moving under the surface and goes beyond the traditional ideas of scoring debate points, which most pundits seem to focus on. 

The Democrats have the advantage here because they still have a grassroots that they have a relationship with and can work with and that depends on and works with them.  Because of their symbiotic relationship, the Democrats’ grassroots is well-funded enough to produce a harvest of volunteers, money, and votes for regular Democrat candidates.  Yes, there is a tinge of radicalism to much of this grassroots, but they appear to understand when to tone it down or keep it underground.  That’ probably because they are helped in their financing by the regular Democrats.

Republicans have largely decommissioned their grassroots in the Garden State, with campaigns becoming smaller and smaller “entrepreneurial” enterprises outside state and county party organizations.  The answer to everything is some new service or technology offered by some for-profit wunderkind.  The idea of motivating people with a message, of reaching out to one’s natural allies and of making them a part of a mission is utterly superfluous to this style of campaigning.  

And so, in keeping with this, Democrat candidates talk about the people they have met and what they have learned from them, while Republicans land the punches rehearsed in barren settings, devoid of anyone not political.  If the Democrats are real.  If the stories are not make believe.  If there is a depth of humanity to back each one up… look out on election day.

Finally, the talking heads who bracket these televised debates – both Democrats and Republicans – appear to forget that the same audience viewing the debate, is viewing them.  Cut the gentlemanly bullshit and get to work.  Rip the opponent worse than your candidate did (hey, your name isn’t on the ballot).  It’s the same damned debate, the same viewers, you are just a different means to deliver the message and continue the fight.  So get in the killer point that your candidate forgot.  Be a good wing man.  Shoot the bastard down.

Besides, nobody wants to see a self-reverential daisy chain of colorless “experts” or “professionals”.  Get into the mud and fight!

Tom Moran shits the bed again. NJ.com editorial goes nuts with the name-calling (again).

By Rubashov

At what point did Star-Ledger/NJ.com editor Tom Moran go from a somewhat reasonable – albeit excruciatingly liberal – man of journalism, to New Jersey’s own Julius Streicher, throwing invective and hate at anyone who doesn’t see the world through the increasingly dark and confused lens he does.  Like Streicher, who edited a newspaper called “The Attacker,” Moran discards journalism and adopts a political role as the state’s leading propagandist for what has come to be known as “The Resistance.”

Of course, what he is “resisting” is the outcome (under long established rules) of a national election in the world’s foremost democracy.  Moran and his movement are not only threats to the political and economic stability of United States, but of the World.  It takes humility to live in a democracy, to preserve a Republic.  But Moran and his movement place their will above all else – and if their will should triumph, all future elections would be fought after the fact, regardless of outcome, endlessly, the way they are fighting this one.

To Moran and his movement, we are in year three of the 2016 presidential election.  This election will not be over until they get their way.  Only then will they permit us to move on to the next election. 

But who is this movement?  They are the permanent Establishment Party of government.  That’s what they would be called if they were honest about it.  In Mexico, where honesty rates higher than in Washington, DC, the longtime ruling political party calls itself the Partido Revolucionario Institucional – the Institutional Revolutionary Party.  They held power for 71 uninterrupted years – until the corruption and economic decline got so bad that voters, in their pain, sought other answers (both good and bad).  Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, like Ralph Nader and Ron Paul before them, are symptoms of a corrupt institutional party producing more pain than benefits. 

Tom Moran is a chief propagandist for global corporatists, like those who publish his newspaper, and for all those who are made comfortable and secure by government and the largesse of the taxpayers.  These include the crony capitalists, pay-to-play government vendors, the Wall Street operators (like Moran’s heroes Jon Corzine and Phil Murphy), and the legions of lobbyists and senior bureaucrats who might as well be interchangeable.  It includes too, those well-off academics, like Brigid Harrison of Montclair State University.  A failed Democrat candidate, Harrison was provided a second life as an Establishment propagandist whose work has been pushed as required reading.    

The permanent Establishment Party straddles both established political parties in America – where our political choices are limited to faux chocolate and faux vanilla – and where propagandists like Tom Moran direct members of the working class to battle each other over race, ethnicity, and gender.  Using the last, they are now in the process of endlessly expanding the opportunities for internal division amongst the 99 percent. 

Candidates like Mikie Sherrill are the face of this “Resistance” to working class pain – to those same voters who bet on Barack Obama to rescue them in 2008, and who, in their pain, reached for Donald Trump in 2016.  A wealthy, expensively trained, representative of the Elite – whose career path was to “check the boxes” on the way to being given “power” as a safe pair-of-hands for those who actually wield it.

The means to Sherrill’s rise to celebrity are notorious.  Along with her Antifa-inspired thugs, she stalked and hounded the aged Congressman and Vietnam War Vet, Rodney Frelinghuysen.  They spat insults at him and lied about his record – acting as if this most bi-partisan and gentlemanly of public servants was akin to David Duke.  In this, they are not so different from Tom Moran and the NJ.com editorial board who over the weekend used words like “fraud” and “fanatical” to describe those who oppose their nurtured-by-hand celebrity, Mikie Sherrill.  If anything, they are using others as a mirror to reflect back what they see in themselves… frauds and fanatics.

Over the next two weeks and beyond – until they get their way and the result from the 2016 presidential election that they believe they are entitled to – Tom Moran and company will continue to behave the way they have been, calling names, spitting hatred, urinating down their own trousers.  They are like beings possessed, confirmed in their certainties, their righteousness and indignation.  They can not think outside of it… just ask Jonathan Salant. 

The same NJ media that covered up for Clinton, tries to do the same for Menendez

Remember how the newspapers tried to discredit the source for the claim that Bill Clinton had seduced Monica Lewinsky in the White House?  Remember how the media told us that Linda Tripp was a “liar” and that she used “right wing” media outlets to peddle her "meaningless" allegations?

All part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton assured us.  And NOW – the National Organization for Women – stood by their man, and so did legions of Democrat women politicians.  They all assured us that Bill Clinton would NEVER act so inappropriately.

Yep, the media was right on that!  We all know today that Bill Clinton DID NOT have sex with Monica Lewinsky, right???

And as more and more evidence piled up, the media just dismissed it.  When other women came forward and said they were raped.  The media trashed them, called them trailer park trash, said it was all a plot to damage the good name of William Jefferson Clinton.  They advised us to Move On…

One New Jersey newspaper published an editorial with the title:  "GOTCHA" POLITICS HIT A NEW LOW WITH STARR'S SEX INVESTIGATION. 

Another New Jersey newspaper did an editorial that simply said:  TIME TO END IT.

Well, it’s déjà vu all over again!

On Wednesday, there was United States Senator Bob Menendez and, like Bill Clinton once upon a time, he was surrounded by NOW and a bevy of female Democrat office holders whose political fortunes (for better or for worse) are tied to the Senator’s.  There was Bob Menendez himself, doing his best… “I did not have sex…” imitation of Bill Clinton.  And there was the media, once again failing to read what they wrote last time, talking about “gutter” politics and “right wing blogs” and trashing the women, and the prosecutors, and the GOP. 

Hey Tom Moran, Fred Snowflake, Hand of Hand, Moe of Moe, and all those media mavens who want to shake their tallywhackers at us to make it so…

Guys, you bullshit us once.  Then – along comes Brett Kavanaugh – and you went back on your bullshit and said the opposite of everything you said when it was Bill Clinton.  Now (and it’s just been a few weeks for Christ sake!) you want to go back on everything you just said about Brett Kavanaugh and tell us there’s a new set of rules – and why?  Because it’s about Bob Menendez???

Fellas, keep your bullshit.  You have the collective credibility and moral authority of an unwiped ass.  Nobody is buying it besides those phonies from NOW.

Are all Hollywood “makers of our culture” rapists and molesters?

Liberal Hollywood runs on money.  The “art” of imagining what will hook both investors and consumers.  Hollywood is what makes our culture – has made our culture – for nearly a century.  This November we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of the what was built on hard work and “manifest destiny” and the beginning of the culture of modern make-believe. 

It is no surprise that Hollywood is liberal.  That the “entertainment” industry and its media sidekicks are the Democrat Party’s most consistent donors. 

From that perfectly “sincere” smile to his well-manicured toenails, Senator Cory Booker is a media darling.  Hollywood sees nothing wrong in the importation of women (“for a friend”) or in exchanging luxuries for “help” (“for a friend”)… and so Hollywood sees nothing wrong with Senator Bob Menendez.

And Hollywood just adores that weasel class of ex-bureaucrats with Hollywood manufactured “back stories” who now menace New Jersey’s voters… Andy “winner of the hot cross bun, with bar” Kim, Tommy (him pretty) Malinowski, and Mikie Sherrill.  BTW, “Mikie” is Hollywood for “Rebecca Michelle”.  Aside from the ubiquitous “AKAs” employed by the criminal class, apparently the two careers for which a change of name is accepted practice are Hollywood and politics. 

Among the latest Hollywood icons felled by the #MeToo movement is one of its prominent feminist leaders (who is alleged to have seduced a teenaged boy).  No, it wasn’t her student and she isn’t a member of the NEA. 

Then there are the two LGBT activists who drugged and raped another man.  Prior to this they were famous for having been “married” by no less than far-Left U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  According to the New York media, the rape was “violent”.  One of those names came up as a contributor to our old pal Andy Kim, a candidate for Congress in South Jersey.  You need to check it out Andy and make sure it’s not the guy accused of rape.  See buddy, we’re giving you a heads-up (that’s the kind of sob’s we are). 

We kid with Andy about him winning the “hot cross bun, with bar” because he got a civilian award from a famous general.  No, it wasn’t as important an award as the one the general’s mistress got… or as big a deal as the one the general gave to his other gal pal.  But hey, that shit probably wasn’t worth it anyway, so we’re just happy you got your handshake and photograph.  It’s all cool.

As the list of fat donors to the Democrat Party and its candidates felled by the #MeToo movement has rotted and eaten through the Democrats’ hegemony in Hollywood, their sidekicks in the media have largely looked the other way.  The Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran has, once again yesterday, used his newspaper’s editorial pages as an in-kind contribution to Democrats on the ballot this year. 

“Impeach, condemn, then execute” seems to be Tom Moran’s and the Star-Ledger’s message – for both the President and congressional Republicans – but that’s not how it used to be.  We remember finding stuff like this in the Ledger…

“Kenneth Starr, meat-ax in hand, is entering the critical and, let's hope, final stages of his rugged surgery to transform Bill Clinton's image from cut-up to criminal. He must also change the country's mind-set from so-what shrugs to gasps of begone. It may take some doing.”

“Most members of Congress from New Jersey would like to hear more facts and less speculation in judging the allegations facing President Clinton, but U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he's heard enough. Lautenberg, the state's senior Democrat, said he was satisfied with Clinton's denials… ‘I believe him,’ he said.”

Ah, now that was journalism.  Not what you get today…

“Dramatic, split-screen findings of criminality by President Trump's ex-lawyer and his former campaign chair this week… Both will probably go to prison, and testimony also implicates Trump in a serious crime… two women who said they had affairs with Trump… it's a felony, a final insult from a man who rose to power on a promise to drain the swamp, but instead gave it over to even bigger gang of grifters, including himself.”

“Robert Mueller, whose job it is to sort through all this stink, is pursuing his own investigation of potential collusion by the Trump administration in Russia's hacking of our 2016 election… But if the president committed election fraud, it rises to the level of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ and is therefore an impeachable offense.”

“Once again, the focus turns to our own squirming GOP representatives, and we hear crickets. None would say on Wednesday what they will do to ensure that Congress investigates this; not even two newcomers running for office… Not only have they done absolutely nothing to curb Trump's swampy behavior, as he brazenly profits off his public office and invites serious conflicts of interest; all five -- including three seeking re-election -- helped to cover up any crimes…”

Wow… Trump is a criminal, all Republicans are criminals… even the ones not yet in office!

This is certainly a change in tune for a newspaper that defended Hillary Clinton’s monetization of the Office of the Secretary of State, or that never asked how Bill Clinton, who entered national office a rather economically challenged man, left office decidedly well-off and who has gone on to amass a fortune worth more than $100 million.  Grifters?  Conflicts of interest?  Crickets, Mr. Moran… crickets?

In fairness to Tom Moran, this editorial came out after a particularly eventful lunch (one with which his very white gut couldn’t cope) leading to a three hour long stream of consciousness, during which his screed was composed.  In future, remember this, and don’t fault the man.  Fault his bowels.

To close on an up-note, the Star-Ledger suggested we look to the leadership of the great and the good… that godfather of a family of saints – priests even – the incorruptible Pascrells.  So what did godfather, Congressman Bill Pascrell, have to tell us about President Trump?  That his family was part of the swamp?  Too close to bad people?  Conflicted?  A crook?  “I’m the face of Democrat Party reform,” says the godfather.  Indeed.  A monograph is long overdue, charting that family’s financial progress, as godfather made his way up the greasy pole of political advancement.  The face of sweetness and light.  Indeed.

We appreciated him more when he was a little less full of shit, considering the fate of President Clinton…

“Democrat Bill Pascrell Jr. said Clinton's admissions were ‘painful to all of us,’ and added he hoped ‘we can soon put this behind us.’  But he said he could not second guess what Starr would eventually report to Congress. ‘I'll keep an open mind if I'm called to make a decision in my official capacity.’”

Yes, “an open mind” – good idea.  You do that.  Keep an open mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Tom Moran will keep on writing his apologia.

Democrats silent on locking child in cage with sex-offenders

Trenton Democrats have been curiously silent on liberal activist and Democrat campaign contributor Peter Fonda’s call to have the President’s child put “in a cage with pedophiles”.  Especially given their over-the-top behavior when it comes to band banners or photos of men in high heels or Facebook posts comparing Democrats to Fascists or mere humor of any kind (except Trump jokes, those – like the Bush jokes of yore – are permitted).

Where is Lorretta Weinberg (does grandma approve of Fonda’s plan?) or Tom Moran (would he want to climb into that cage too?) or Britnee Timberlake or Ben Silva or NJTV’s Michael Hill or Jersey City’s Michael Maddalena or Michael Billy or Green Party moe Kenneth Collins… Where is the outrage?  Where are the demands that he be fired or that his business enterprise be boycotted?

Can we assume that “silence equals consent”?  Isn’t that what the idiots above claim?  Silence = Consent… correct?  So YOUR silence means… what?

A couple Wednesdays ago, local Democrat Party officials, the National Organization for Women, and some LGBT activists – led by Democrat-turned Green Party-turned Republican-turned Green Party activist Kenneth Collins – showed up at a meeting of the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders to demand that Freeholder Carl Lazzaro, an ordained Christian clergyman, apologize and resign for expressing the following opinion:

Yes, they wanted the man’s head for writing that.  Yep, that’s it.

But from their SILENCE can we gather that they approve of this…

Where is the outrage?  Where are the demands that something be done?

Do they approve?  Or are they just engaging in a sneaky bit of schadenfreude?

Where is the National Organization for Women on this???  Why isn’t the Green Party’s Kenneth Collins organizing a rally on Newton Green?

MEMO to Loretta, Tom, Britnee, et al… Don’t ever bring up “hate” again until you face this head on, openly discuss it, and state your opinions publicly.

Why is the NJ media so very anti-Roman Catholic?

An interesting case study is emerging in New Jersey political circles that could have national implications and might very well, in the long run, change the way people look at who the "Establishment" really is.  First, the setting...

This story takes place in the same week that a committee of the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill to discriminate against people who do not engage in homo-erotic carnality when handing out government business assistance.  How they determine that, they haven't quite figured out.  Does experimenting in college count?  Does one act count or a dozen?  Is there a time cut-off?  If somebody applied based on the sex partners one had in the 1990's -- would it count?  Do you need to go all the way -- oral, anal, and so on?  And who certifies it?  Does just thinking about it count?  Does someone who is sexually abstinent, but who considers themselves to be part of the LGBT community get the money?  And it is money we are talking about here... taxpayers' money.

Hey, we are all for helping members of the LGBT community -- or indeed, ANY community -- to get a leg up in starting a business.  But make it about NEED.  Base it on their ECONOMIC CLASS -- not on what someone does in his or her or whoever's bedroom (or indeed anywhere else one can think of).  Rich people, no matter what their sexual orientation, don't need any more help.  Money attracts money, and it's all green and all spends the same.  Make it about ECONOMIC CLASS, not about how someone gets off.

So that's the backdrop.  Now here's the story...

We all know that we live at a time when saying the wrong thing about the wrong people can earn someone a media-stoked one-way ticket to demands for your public shaming, loss of employment, and calls for your assisted suicide. Seemingly normal people will spit on your children or poison your dog and think that they are doing so for the greater good... that they are on the side of the angels.

Some have put it down to a state of madness brought on by environmental factors -- as in the Terror during the French Revolution (when apparently a bread mold made everyone take to beheading each other) -- and blame it on all the crazy dieting we do.  Does it never occur to anyone to just ignore the media and stop buying ever varying things to stuff down our gullets?

But we digress...

There are some groups that are sacrosanct.  This is true in every age.  For every time -- there are those who you dare not speak against.  It is a form of blasphemy.  Try saying something against them and there is an immediate backlash from all the forces of Establishment culture.  They are the agreed upon, "sacred" objects.

And everyone else is dreck. 

Well, Roman Catholics, it's official -- so far as the New Jersey media is concerned, so far as most of the political blogs in the state besides this one are concerned -- you are dreck.

Every week someone is calling on someone to resign because they said something or did something.  Go to the wrong concert and stand in front of the wrong band banner and it's... resign; call out some Democrats because they talk like 1930's Fascists and it's... resign; make a joke about the Women's March (which lauded a cop-killer) and it's... resign; and the madness just goes on and on.

The Star-Ledger's Tom Moran can write in introspective detail about how he loathes Catholics and he is praised by the Establishment... they even lay-off a few more workers in celebration!  A few weeks ago, some Democrat who ran for mayor in Bogota claimed that -- 12 years ago -- Steve Lonegan called him a "faggot".  Hey, gay people call each other that, not to mention students in junior high.  It is a rude word. But a hanging offense?

And it was just an accusation.  A dozen years old.  That the accused denied making.  And the accuser said that he wasn't gay.  Soooo.... a hanging offense?

Apparently, yes.  The Star-Ledger's lead moron -- Tommy Moran -- said to hang him high.  He played judge, jury, and executioner and said that Steve Lonegan had to resign from his campaign for public office over the allegation.

A few weeks later and there is Steve Lonegan again, holding a meeting of those who question the modern day sacrament of abortion.  The idea that in the passage from adolescence to adulthood, a woman's womb should first hold death before it holds life.  That's a heavy duty concept... Wiccan, even.

Steve Lonegan is a Roman Catholic.  Like many millions of Roman Catholics (as well as other religions and philosophies), Lonegan is Pro-Life regarding abortion.  He takes the exact position that his Church takes.

So someone from the campaign of Joshua S. Gottheimer -- a Member of the United States House of Representatives -- fires back at Lonegan and his gathering of mainly Roman Catholic Pro-Lifers.  The Gottheimer campaign calls them a "brand of extremism."

Come again?  The Roman Catholic church's teaching on abortion is very clear.  It believes the fetus to have a human soul and so, the body encompassing that soul is worthy of human protections.  It is a spiritual idea that one can respect even if you disagree with it from a pragmatic aspect.

But to dismiss it as a "brand of extremism"?  And from a Congressional office that wouldn't be caught dead saying the same thing about a tenant of the Muslim faith?  Or about a giveaway to rich members of the LGBT community?  Or about anyone or anything that the Establishment has said that we can't get away with criticizing?

Lots of media outlets covered the exchange and published the words of Gottheimer campaign spokesperson Andrew Edelson.  But a curious thing happened when the Lonegan campaign shot back a reply...

It wasn't covered.  It wasn't published.  In fact, so-called political blogs and websites that post EVERY press release from EVERY kind of critter imaginable would not post Lonegan's reply. 

So what was it that InsiderNJ and NJGLOBE and Politico and all the rest of the state's media didn't want you to read?  Well, here it is...

Yes, that's it.

They didn't publish an attack on Josh Gottheimer because it accused him of being an anti-Catholic bigot. 

See, you can accuse Republican Steve Lonegan of being an anti-gay bigot, based on a 12-year old accusation by a straight guy, but you can't accuse Democrat Josh Gottheimer of being an anti-Catholic bigot, based on a days-old statement from his campaign spokesperson.

This isn't about Republicans and Democrats as much as it is about anti-Roman Catholic hatred.  The Establishment -- its politicians, its media, academia, and the PC corporate world -- hates the Roman Catholic church.  They don't recognize anti-Catholic bigotry because, in their collective view, you cannot be anti-Catholic enough.

They want to tax all non-conforming, politically-incorrect religions out of existence.  For them, spirituality is meaningless unless it can be monetized and a good profit made from it.  They have no time for our old-fashioned Gods who speak of selflessness and balance.

Most of the media outlets in New Jersey -- and especially its political blogs -- are the trained lapdogs of the Establishment.  They will not even consider that something can be anti-Roman Catholic.  In their collective view, all things should be... anti-Roman Catholic.  They -- as is much of the rest of the Establishment -- are already operating in a Post-Christian world.  Their attitudes are visceral and displayed thoughtlessly.  They are the enemies of Faith.

And the enemies of justice.

Because shilling for someone like Josh Gottheimer sets a very low bar.  The behavior of this kitten from the Clinton years has been as astonishing as it has been repulsive, to all persons of good-will. 

Hey, don't take our word for it.  Here's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had to say about the firm where Josh Gottheimer held the number two position as International Vice President (his buddy Mark Penn was International President):

Yep, Josh Gottheimer and his pal Mark Penn ran the "PR Firm from Hell"!  So now we know who it is that the NJ media is shilling for.

#MeToo... meet Tom Moran and the dirtbags he works for.

View fullsize

Remember the Moran prescription:  Any allegation is proof of fault, the penalty for which is the suspension of civil liberties and removal from public life. 

So here are just a few of the allegations made by women against the people who employ Tom Moran. 

In this case, the women "suffered from consistent disparagement during their employment... managers, who directly supervised (the women) and were responsible for setting their compensation, repeatedly disparaged them on the basis of their age and gender, among other things."

"...referred to female employees as 'wenches' and that 'women should stay home in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant'."

"...female sales representatives were 'lucky' to be allowed to work."

 The women were called, among other things "old farts" and "old f*ckers."

Management "disparaged one woman on the basis of her religion.  On repeated occasions he referred to individuals who practiced Judaism as 'your kind'."

"Around the time of Hurricane Sandy, the women requested to leave the office due to the closings of bridges in New Jersey."  Management became irate and stated "you women, you are all a bunch of wusses."

One Latina woman came to management to explain that she was pregnant.  She was told "that child-bearing was all women were good for" and that it was "her fault for being a single parent" and that she had "put herself in that position."

Management discriminated against the women "by subjecting them to discriminatory pay, discriminatory denials of bonuses and other compensation incentives, discriminatory denial of promotions, and other forms of discrimination in compensation in violation of the Equal Pay Act" including "lower base salary and commission."

"The differential in pay between male and female employees was not due to seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or a factor other than sex, but was due solely to gender."

These allegations were made by three long-term female employees.  One resides in Hazlett, one in Fords, and one in Old Bridge.  There are dozens of others who have alleged similar suffering under the regime Tom Moran works for.  Their stories will be told.

SOURCE:  Federal Court Records

We would like commentary from Tom Moran before we move on to the next group of women who suffered at the hands of the corporation that employs him. 

In lieu of commentary, perhaps some other form of atonement might be in order, such as the wearing of the editor's undershorts on his head at the next meeting of the editorial board.  Or the public wearing of a sweatshirt with the words... "I know, I'm a Dick." 

Stay tuned...

Democrat Menendez broke federal law. Star-Ledger asks Republican to quit race.

It's a severe case of payback for daring to ask a question.

A day after the Senate Ethics Committee's "severe admonishment" of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, Steve Lonegan, a conservative Republican congressional candidate in CD05 wrote to the Star-Ledger editorial board and asked when they might comment on the Senate Ethics Committee's action against Menendez.

"The Senate Ethics Committee said Thursday that Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, who avoided conviction in a federal corruption trial last year, violated federal law and Senate rules in accepting unreported gifts from a friend and political ally." (Washington Post, April 26, 2018)

It's now been five days, and the Star-Ledger has yet to comment on Senator Menendez.  Instead of making a statement about the corrupt Democrat , Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran quickly scratched around for a Republican to attack.  It's called deflection.

Moran claimed that a 12-year-old unfounded allegation from a former Democrat candidate for mayor in Lonegan's hometown, long known as crank, and noted for his serial accusations of officials in Bergen County, amounted to  a "gay slur" even though the man alleging the slur isn't gay.  Despite there being no proof to the allegation, when Lonegan asked about Menendez, Moran replied in writing to Lonegan:

"We are also writing about the accusation against you making a gay slur, as you know.  We believe that's grounds for you to step down from the race."

Unfortunately, for the Star-Ledger, while editor Moran was writing these lines, a New Jersey court was confirming that the accuser Moran based his attack on had no veracity at all.  The case was dismissed.  When this was pointed out to Moran, he published anyway.

It is no surprise to those who have been following Moran that the Star-Ledger editor doesn't believe in fairness or due process.  After all, in another Star-Ledger editorial (from 2013) Moran labeled the Constitution as a “source of our woes” and suggested that President Obama or a future President Clinton be given the power to appoint 10 senators and 50 congressmen to serve “at large”. 

Five days on and still no word from Star-Ledger demanding that corrupt Democrat Bob Menendez step down from the U.S. Senate.  Maybe they will never comment? 

You can read the Ethics Committee's full statement here:

https://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=49C12C75-7A26-4FE6-B070-19FCEF4D7532

Julie O’Connor: Stark raving ideologue

(originally published by CNJ in February 2013)

“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.” ― Milan Kundera

According a 2009 account given in the Star-Ledger, Julie O’Connor spent her formative years in that bastion of establishment liberalism, Montclair, New Jersey and now lives in one New Jersey’s Abbott Districts – Jersey City.  Like similar members of the establishment, Ms. O’Connor has had the benefit of most of the state’s income tax payers working hard to subsidize the property taxes paid by the affluent households in her community.  Isn’t it nice to live in one of the wealthy colonies dependent on the largesse of the state’s Democrat Party? 

Isn’t it nice to see your property tax bill subsidized by everyone else – including the 49 percent of the state’s economically deprived children living outside the Abbott Districts?  And this number comes from the state Supreme Court’s own Doin Report.  Even Governor Jim McGreevey’s Education Commissioner said that the state should stop subsidizing rich gentrified urban communities at the expense poor rural ones.

Before joining the Star-Ledger’s editorial board, Ms. O’Connor was active in the Peace Corps – in the vacation paradise known as Costa Rica.  The Ledger’s promotional piece on her notes:  “In her spare time, she enjoys running, drinking chai tea and watching reruns of ‘I Love Lucy.’”  Get the picture?

Somewhere along the way, this hothouse orchid developed quite a mouth on her and an intolerance to civil debate.  If she happens to disagree with your opinion, that makes you “nuts”, and she’ll call you that, in print.

And it doesn’t matter that her own newspaper, in editorial after editorial, once expressed the same concerns about the same issue – if you disagree with Julie O’Connor, you’re “nuts”.

In a February 14, 2013, editorial penned by Julie O’Connor on behalf of the entire Editorial Board and management of the Star-Ledger, Ms. O’Connor put forward the argument that anyone concerned about the unwieldy size, composition, or process that has gone into concocting the Bush-Obama “Terrorism Watch List” and the effects this might have on due process and the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights, was – in Ms. O’Connor’s word – “nuts”.

Apparently she hadn’t read the concerns put forward by the Star-Ledger itself, in earlier editorials:

“Terror list cries out for reform” screams one editorial.  Criticizing the million name list it notes:  “The number of names on the terror list, many as common as ‘Gary Smith’ or ‘Teddy Kennedy,’ guarantees thousands of innocent travelers regularly get pulled aside for questioning at airports and borders. Besides being a pain for ordinary people, it wastes valuable law enforcement time with no real security benefit.”

The Star-Ledger advises the FBI to “shelve” plans to use “profiling” to enhance its “terrorist” watch list.  The Ledger editorial warns:  “Comparing untold numbers of Americans to a terrorist profile would endanger civil liberties and wouldn't be a very effective way of ferreting out those who threaten the nation.”

In another editorial headline, the Star-Ledger concludes that “the watch list is dangerous”, and makes the following observations:  “The flaws in the FBI's handling of names on the nation's terrorist watch list are troubling enough. Inaccurate, outdated or incomplete data are passed along by agents without being reviewed for reliability. The result is a list with many names that shouldn't be there. Here's something more troubling: The FBI is probably doing the best job in government in processing names to be added to the list, according to a recent Justice Department inspector general's report. Other agencies don't share information reliably, don't all follow the same reporting protocols and don't even always define ‘terrorism’ the same way. Information isn't updated. Names aren't removed when people are cleared of any connection to terrorism.”

Those are from just three of the many editorials written before the management and editors of the Star-Ledger executed an about face on the question of due process and the Bill of Rights.  The list is flawed and should not be used as the basis of whether or not we are afforded our constitutionally protected civil rights.  In the following clip, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert shreds the ridiculousness of the so-called “Terrorist Watch List”, noting that Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela was on the list for many years:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/167607/may-07-2008/terrorist-nelson-mandela

Look, we all know why this editorial was written like a piece of attack mail from the New Jersey Democrat State Committee.  The day before the editorial’s publication, PolitickerNJ.com reported that state Democrat Party leaders had held a strategy session by conference call that day and were “mobilizing” for a “public relations assault” against Republicans on exactly the issue on which Ms. O’Connor labeled Republicans as “nuts”.  Maybe she was on the call?

In the past, Star-Ledger editors and management, through their editorials, have lectured the newspaper’s readers on the importance of “civility” in public discourse.  They have lectured against name-calling and bullying and on the need for a greater understanding of mental health issues and a greater sensitivity to those who suffer from mental health problems.  The Ledger praised then Acting Governor, Senator Dick Codey, for his good service in this area and noted the difficulties braved by the state’s then First Lady.  It is a good thing Julie O’Connor wasn’t selecting the words for that editorial.

Of course, the management of the Star-Ledger is in hock to the state’s Democrat Party and there is little the editorial board can do about it.  Like Julie O’Connor, the Star-Ledger is located in one of the state’s Abbott Districts and the corporation’s property tax bill would rise astronomically if New Jersey were to adopt Fair School Funding.  And the Ledger is only a tiny part of a much larger corporate enterprise with significant holdings that benefit from the largesse of state Democrats. 

Remember how the state’s newspaper industry panicked when they thought they would lose their corporate welfare?  When there was a bill up that would have allowed county and local governments to post notices on-line instead of forcing them to spend the money from property taxes to publish newspaper notices that nobody reads.  That’s right, in the age of digital technology your property tax dollars are being used to prop up a failing business model that depends on deforestation and flushing effluence into waterways. 

But there is a larger question here and it is a really BIG and IMPORTANT question:  The management of New Jersey’s largest newspaper, through its editorial board, appear to believe that due process and the Bill of Rights have no place in our current situation.  That in the twelfth year of the “War on Terror”, with no formal Declaration of War and no end in sight, we as a nation must accept that ideas such as due process, the rule of law, and justice no longer have a place in our society.  They appear to want to convince us that “if we can save just one life. . . for the children” then we should shove the whole Bill of Rights into the shit bin.

Tom Moran, the man entrusted by the management to run the Star-Ledger’s editorial board, has labeled the Constitution as a “source of our woes” and as much as said that we need to scrap the American Constitution in favor of a strong-man executive style of government, similar to what they have in Egypt or Russia.  One idea that Moran floated was to allow newly elected presidents to appoint 10 senators and 50 congressmen to serve “at large”. 

Let’s put President Obama aside for the moment.  Here’s the question for Tommy Moran:  “Would you really want a President Nixon, George W. Bush or even a President Christie with this kind of power?”

What Tom Moran advocates is neo-Fascism disguised as an attempt to break the slow, deliberative process inherent in every democracy.  It is no wonder then that the management and editors of the Star-Ledger want to dump due process and the Bill of Rights in favor of a secret list, with a secret process, developed by an unaccountable bureaucracy answerable only to the executive.

What happened to Blackstone's formulation that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"?  Too old-fashioned?  Not chai tea enough for our contemporary “lifestyle”?  With thousands of drones set to take to the skies and some in the government arguing that Americans can be killed extra-judicially – is neo-Fascism our future?

Maybe we will get some answers.  CNJ’s editor has been reaching out to people concerned about due process and the Bill of Rights, regardless of party or ideology, because that doesn’t matter.  Without due process and the Bill of Rights, all of us are susceptible to being terrorized by the government of the day.  Who gets terrorized will just depend on the regime.  And who “wins” in a game with no rules? 

In the next week or so, the editor will be contacting the management and editors of the Star-Ledger, to ask them to be part of a cross-party, cross-ideology, cross-community discussion about due process and the Bill of Rights in a time of endless, undeclared “war”.  We will all be watching to see if the Ledger’s apparatchiks have the courage to come out of their well-guarded building to sit down with other Americans to discuss the position put forward in their name, by Julie O’Connor.

Star-Ledger's Tom Moran: An accusation is enough to convict!

View fullsize

Well, there goes the rule of law.

In the future, we should not expect a judicial process to determine our guilt or innocence.  What we should expect is the Moran prescription:  Merely to be accused, then to have a media-appointed judge determine our guilt, and finally a social media firestorm whipped-up to ensure our punishment.

How arrogant must someone like Tom Moran be to believe that he has the power to erase due process and our Republic's democratic traditions?  With his dutiful satellite Julie O'Connor, knelt passively by his side, Moran passes  judgment to take away the civil rights of an American citizen.  To muzzle a point of view by saying that someone should not be permitted to access their constitutional right -- protected by our Bill of Rights -- to run for office and freely voice their opinion.

Hey Julie!  Didn't you recently write an entire column about the falsely accused and admonishing those who would rush to judgment?  Guess your words don't apply to Tom, do they?

Is it not enough that the property taxpayers of New Jersey are made to subsidize out-of-date print media like the Star-Ledger?  Moran and his ilk have used their political relationships to successfully lobby for a law that forces local governments to use money from property taxes to advertise in print media when so many other formats cost nothing.  The law keeps Moran and his kind in a job even as the pressure it places on working people raises New Jersey's foreclosure rate to the highest in the nation.  But this is only one instance of Moran's corruption.

Sadly, Tom Moran and the Star-Ledger newspaper continue to add to the growing stain that is New Jersey's public life.  Moran has long been the subject of derision by professional journalists, who have been appalled by his panegyrics to political bosses like George Norcross.  Moran has long supped at the posterior of the Newhouse clan, who own the Star-Ledger and other organs (Moran amongst them) and for this Moran has been hated by the union workers and journalists who have suffered personal and material privations to service the greed of the Newhouse corporate masters.  Yes, Tom Moran is a sheepish fellow (and from the looks of him he might have been sired by one).

But it hardly ends here.  Tom Moran and his editorial board of sports writers and pom-pom girls have purposefully participated in the lowering of New Jersey's standards in public life.  They have steadfastly ignored the presence of convicted criminals in New Jersey's political system and have unflinchingly remained silent when these convicts were given political power or even elected office. 

When Montclair State University proposed fashioning a course in public service modeled around the life of a bureaucrat and lobbyist who had actually been criminally indicted for public corruption (he was saved from the legal process by an untimely death) Moran and O'Connor did not wince.  There was no admonishment in the Star-Ledger's editorial pages about what they were "celebrating".  The judicial process was mocked -- even though those who were indicted along with this "model of public service" were found to be, most guilty.

You see, to Tom and Julie, public theft and public corruption and criminal conviction and all that once was bad, it no longer matters.  What matters now, so our warm couple insist, is what goes on in your head.  They -- Moran and O'Connor -- want to be the judges of your inner moral conduct.  And while their concern for public morals does not encompass corporate prostitution and office trysts, what they will not tolerate are words.

Words and writing and books and speech are what they are on about.  They will use them, to reach into another person's soul, to determine motives and character, to decide if their subject is worthy of a human consideration, like doubt.

Tom Moran and Julie O'Connor are corporate versions of Captain Beatty in Ray Bradbury's  Fahrenheit 451.  Narcissistic windbags, usurpers of process and of judgment, haters of any way other than their own, of words and of writing that expresses what they do not embrace, and so -- haters of books and of free speech.  They terrorize them without power while sucking corporate ass, are friends of corruption and criminality.  They are authoritarians and the destroyers of liberty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sell-out.

On guns, Senator Weinberg's rhetoric doesn't match her actions

We can't quite figure out which came first.  Did Senator Loretta Weinberg emerge from the parchment white bunghole of Star-Ledger editorial boss Tom Moran, or is it the other way round?  Who came first? 

One thing is certain, if there is a threat to their safety, both Weinberg and Moran make sure that they are well protected by men with guns.  Both Weinberg and Moran erect borders that are extremely well protected.

It's too bad that they don't extend the same protections to other citizens that powerful politicians and corporate newspaper editors have.  Especially children. Apparently Weinberg and Moran don't think much about protecting children.  If they did, they wouldn't propose the watery measures they have.

Weinberg is a husk, the residue of her once activist self.  Moran is just an old-fashioned pussy.  If they really believed that the absence of legal firearms would end America's culture of violence, then Senator Weinberg would propose a Constitutional Amendment to abrogate the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and Editor Moran would advocate for it.    

Of course, Weinberg and Moran know that such an amendment would be for firearms what the 18th Amendment was for alcohol.  The 18th Amendment declared the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal (though curiously, not the consumption or private possession of it).  The amendment wasn't particularly effective, had a lot of bad side-effects, and was repealed a few years later.

We know they know because we are constantly being told by Weinberg and Moran that making laws are meaningless.  They tell us that America cannot possibly enforce its border controls.  They tell us that America cannot keep people out or find and deport those here illegally.  They tell us that abortions must be legal or they will simply be performed illegally.  They tell us that we must decriminalize certain drugs because we have no ability to enforce the laws that make drugs illegal.

So it stands to reason that they must know that outlawing firearms would be just as meaningless.  So why do they mislead us by acting otherwise?

A case in point is yesterday's quasi-religious orgasm on what goes for the editorial pages of the Star-Ledger these days.  Did you know that these editorials are largely written by ex-sports columnists?  Because they are.  And they have all the make believe and canned drama attendant with such columns. 

You can tell the depth of these so-called journalists by the fact that they fail to even research what their own newspaper said about the issue they are currently having hysterics over.  A case in point is what the Star-Ledger calls "no-fly, no-buy" bills "that would deny firearm purchases to known or suspected terrorists."

Now to show you just what kind of festered arseholes write this kind of garbage, the Star-Ledger itself has criticized the no-fly and terrorist watch lists that are the basis for this silly legislation.  That's right, the Star-Ledger has trashed this concept on its own editorial pages, pointing out that the list is too vague, that it lacks due process, noting the informal manner in which an individual can land on the list, and the difficulty an innocent person has in getting off the list he or she has been improperly placed on.  Oh, and currently the terrorist watch list has 1.8 million names on it.  That's more than the population of Essex and Bergen Counties put together.

Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist no-fly list.  So was Senator Ted Kennedy, as have other members of Congress.  As the ACLU pointed out, the "no-fly list policy rests on the idea that the government will never confirm or deny whether you're on the list.  They won't tell you whether you're on the list, they won't tell you why you're on the list if you are, and they won't tell you what they suspect."

The no-fly list is often equally frustrating to members of law enforcement, as a former FBI agent who now teaches at New York University noted:  "The FBI isn't the secret police, or at least it isn't supposed to be.  Such excessive secrecy demands, especially where an American is alleging a violation of his civil rights, undermines the rule of law the FBI and Justice Department are supposed to be defending."

Once upon a time, the editorial board of the Star-Ledger could write a well-reasoned piece that would capture the nuances of a debate and provide a well rounded review of both sides.  But that was called journalism.  They don't do that anymore.  Over at the sports-department (aka the editorial board) it is all loud-mouthed and spittle.  They should just write in all caps and exclamation marks, noting how many times they shit themselves in the production of the column and when. 

There was a time when the Star-Ledger cut its way through to the truth.  That time is gone.  Now they add to the fog of ideological warfare that covers everything from Sunday morning sermons to late night comedy.  The editorials are little more than advertising narratives, violently written.  There is no balance, no reason.  They tell you who to hate and how much.  They add to the culture of violence in America.  They do nothing to ameliorate the gnawing coarseness of our social discourse.

Tom Moran wants to be New Jersey's Donald Trump

Tom Moran runs the editorial section of the Star-Ledger, a small piece of the multi-billion dollar corporate empire that includes Discovery Communications, the company whose lobbyists ensured that they make money off the implementation of Common Core.  Yes, that's the difference between the rich and the rest of us.  We pay money to the government .  The rich pay lobbyists to harness the government so that it pays money to them.  That's who Tom Moran works for.  And that's why he always supports making us pay more taxes to government.

As the chief spokesperson for two of America's richest men, Tom Moran has watched as his newspaper screwed its unionized workers -- replacing them with cheap, out-sourced labor, and part-timers.  Moran's prescriptions come right from the hip, the better to avoid all that messy reasoning, and with the force of a petulant child.

Moran plays the liberal -- to salve the knowledge that he, in fact, speaks for the richest 1% of the 1 percent.  But try as he will, that self-awareness keeps breaking through, which leaves him a touchy, nasty sort.  Disagree with him and he'll write that you are "insane."  Tell him he's mistaken and he'll come back at you with the accusation that you want to kill people.  It's wild stuff, and a bit hypocritical, when you consider all the lives of workers Moran has watched destroyed, silent, so long as he kept getting his.

For years and years, property held by his rich masters benefited from the subsidy redistributed from the working poor in rural and suburban New Jersey.  Disagree with that subsidy and you would be called a "racist."  That's cute, coming from two old, rich white guys.  Moran wrote, and as he wrote, New Jersey has gotten poorer and poorer.  Is there a worst state in America to grow a business, find a job, keep a roof over your family's head, or see that your children don't go hungry?

His latest prescription is to raise taxes on this already over-taxed state -- without any accompanying tax cuts.  On top of a high income tax, the sales tax, and the highest property taxes in America, Tom Moran wants to see higher taxes on workers who commute and a special tax on those high earners who haven't yet been convinced to move outside the state.  The workers -- many underwater with a mortgage or who need the support of an extended family -- they'll have to just take it, because they're too poor to move.  As for the rich.  Well, money spends well everywhere.  Moran should ask the guys he works for and they'll tell him.  Rich people always find a better deal.

And when enough rich people move you will begin to see shortfalls in income tax collections.  Taxes on spending will suffer too -- and then there goes your safety net.  At a time of high unemployment and growing dependency, New Jersey needs high earners to provide the life support that others depend on. 

There is no loyalty to the state of New Jersey in the way there is to the nation of the United States.  Even top members of the political class who structured the high-tax, low-job creation, corporate crony playground that New Jersey is, bolt to low-tax states when they get the chance -- and their pension checks and spending follows them.  Case in point:  Former Democrat Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Norcross).

According to figures provided by the Internal Revenue Service (that's President Barack Obama's IRS) over the last ten years those leaving New Jersey have taken $19 billion more income away with them than the those moving into New Jersey have brought with them.  This is called net outflow -- and a $19 billion net outflow allowed to grow at the same rate, year by year, will in time kill New Jersey's ability to fund a safety net.  Then who will be left to tax?  People who can't afford it, that's who.

Tom Moran can trot out as many career government bureaucrats or career Wall Street bankers as he wants.  It won't lessen the pain of the screwing they're preparing for the people of New Jersey.