NJ.com strains its sphincter with Independence Day editorial

Someone should tell brother Tom Moran that babies don’t come out that end. 

The day before yesterday the editorial board of what used to be the Newark Star Ledger gathered in the staff convenience to have a collective dump.  Yesterday they published their incitement to (riot?/ do someone bodily harm?) and titled it:  “On this Independence Day, striving for a new birth of freedom.”  

No, this isn’t the second coming of Thomas Paine.  What they offered up was a collection of selective complaints, some of which they have loudly supported when applied to those they don’t approve of.  For instance, the editorial board cheers on a global corporation like Facebook when it refuses service to those it disapproves of… but let some small-time baker do it and it becomes something to start a civil war over.  There’s no logic or balance to these guys. 

For Tom Moran and his bunch, “freedom” is a subjective construct limited to people who they like.  If they don’t think you are a “good” person, as they define it, then they sincerely believe that you shouldn’t have “freedom”.  Heck, they don’t even believe you should have the right to speak or earn a living to sustain yourself. 

They cry about ICE sending parents who break the law to one detention center and juveniles to another but ignore the fact that everyjurisdiction in America does the same thing every day.  An ACLU study from 2017 shows that of the 219,000 women incarcerated in the United States – 80 percent are mothers.  And here is something even more shocking:  60 percent of the women behind bars in America have not been convicted of any crime but are simply awaiting trial. 

Where is the outcry about separating them from their children?  Where are the rallies?  

The reason for their incarceration is the biggest threat to Freedom in America today:  Money.  Those women don’t have any or enough to count for anything in our judicial process… and so they rot in jail… separated from their children. 

The NJ.com editorial board – part of a corporation owned by two of the richest billionaires in the world – conveniently left out how the accumulation of wealth and power serves to undermine and destroy democracy.  Sure, they quoted President Ronald Reagan (who they hated, by the way).  It was Reagan who reminded us that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Well, a recent Princeton University study concluded that America has already passed from being a democracy and is now in the ranks of oligarchy.  What?  You didn’t read about it in the Star-Ledger or any other of the organs owned by the oligarchs who the NJ.com editorial board work for?  There is only one battle worth fighting but Moran and his buddies dare not speak its name...

If you want to resist something… resist this! 

Of course, it has nothing to do with President Trump or any of the issues being pushed on us by NJ.com.  We’ve been on this trajectory for 40 years.  The oligarchs who own NJ.com want us to ignore what they’re up to.  They want to keep us fighting each other.

Their campaign of illusion and distraction – to pit working Americans against each other – is designed to keep their wealth and power secure.  Now they want to abolish ICE!  Isn’t it time we abolish the power they use to shout down democracy?

President Reagan reminded us that we don’t pass freedom down to our children through our bloodstream.  “It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”  The oligarchs who own NJ.com, the power they represent, and their ability to pervert democracy is an existential threat to freedom in America today.  We should reject the attempts to distract and divide us put forward by the amanuenses who do their bidding.

Every politician has an attack dog

One-party states don't have "negative" campaigns.  In one-party states all the candidates share the same "insider" perspective and everyone thinks everyone else is a "goodfella" because they all are.  The Soviet Union had elections, so did National Socialist Germany, but they didn't have campaigns that focused on the contrast between candidates because none existed (outside of hair color, height, weight, age, and so on).

So when you hear a person complaining about the "negativity" of a campaign, what they are really complaining about is democracy.  Because it is only in democracies that you find "negative campaigning". Everywhere else you find detainment camps.  And when you read about this pundit or that talking about the good old days of early American democracy, remember that those good old days featured negative campaigns that would make today's campaigners blush. 

Every political operation has it's attack dogs.  They vary in terms of competence but they are all there none-the-less doing battle on behalf of a candidate or, in the case of this election, a government vendor with a contract before the county.

So here's a run-down on how Watchdog sees the attack dogs of election 2015:

Phil Crabb and Rich Vohden have one...

The Sussex County GOP has one too...

 

Marie Bilik has two...

 

Warren County's GOP takes a different approach...

 

There's a reason the Essex GOP leaves Sussex in the dust...

 

But the Hometown Conservative Team had one...

 

As for Parker Space.  He doesn't have an attack dog, but he has a tiger named Chris Russell...