McCann: "I got to stop drinking in the morning."

Yep, that is what John McCann said as he -- the candidate who hopes to take on Democrat Josh Gottheimer -- stumbled about, mistaking the Sheriff he had invited to his Saturday kick-off for a Democrat Mayor.  That was his excuse, "...drinking in the morning."  No kidding.  It is in his video, posted on YouTube, about twelve minutes into his speech.  Oh well, if you say so.

Candidate John McCann is a shambolic mess.

He had a member of the notorious Zisa family... yep, the liberal niece of far-left Democrat Loretta Weinberg's former running mate, up front, running the event for him.   Remarkable.

The Bergen Record correctly reported "scores" of supporters -- not the inflated numbers reported by the former house blog of the Christie for Governor campaign.  But then half of those were Democrats.  The candidate even acknowledged them as Democrats and told a shambling story about how he had apologized his "fault" for running a campaign critical of Democrats in 1995.  Wow, is that an asshole move or what?  You run at the height of Bill Clinton's madness and you apologize for calling out the Democrats?  Donna Brazile would make a better GOP candidate.  At least she's not afraid to call out the Clintons.

But it got worse.  McCann actually mocked people who get involved in politics because they believe in something.  He publically eschewed right wing and left wing -- instead he came up with a new way to describe people like him:  The Chicken Wing of the GOP.  And what does the Chicken Wing stand for?  It stands for getting paid.  It is no big deal for a member of the Chicken Wing of the GOP to be employed by a Democrat office-holder.  The Chicken Wing exists to make its members some dough and they don't let principles or things like party loyalty or right and wrong get in the way of that.  That's the GOP's Chicken Wing and every elected official -- other than the Democrats, of course -- present at Saturday's kick-off will be made to explain, at some strategic point in time, why he or she is down with the Chicken Wing.  Let's hope they don't choke on the bone.

Like the noisy guy at the end of the bar, candidate McCann rambled on and on bragging that he invented health care or some shit like that and that he was the founder of the property tax cap -- even though he wasn't around when it was passed, had nothing to do with it, and none of the legislators who actually passed it even remotely remember his name in connection with it.  In what became an extended rant encompassing a lot of unconnected thoughts, McCann claimed that there is no difference between the family values of a Roman Catholic and an Islamic fundamentalist.  Has he never heard of honor killings, arranged marriages, or child brides?  Yeah, those are "family values" in some places.  Hey, in Mecca, you can get your head cut off for being gay -- in Vatican City... no.

But it is all the same to John McCann who is perhaps the most well-educated idiot running for office who we have ever had the delight to cover.  This isn't the shallow end of the pool we're talking about here -- this is sitting in a bowl of your own piss and calling it the shallow end of the pool.  You see, ideas don't matter to John McCann.  Differences in ideology or theology or party loyalty don't matter to John McCann -- only the scam matters, the deal, the money.

Which brings us to his campaign's lack of it, money.  As the Record put it:  "Gottheimer, a former Clinton political aide from Wyckoff, spent $4.7 million to unseat Garrett. Garrett spent $4.3 million.  'If you’re running for Congress in the 5th District, you have to raise $2 million at a minimum,' said Dr. Benjamin Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider College.  Dworkin said the 5th was one of only four congressional districts nationwide which switched from Republican to Democrat in 2016.   McCann said Saturday he has yet to raise any money."

Why would he?  McCann's candidacy seems to be designed by the Democrats and run by the Democrats to do nothing but screw up the Republican primary.

How so?  Remember the Democrats' reaction to Steve Lonegan's announcement?  They attacked him from the DCCC in Washington, DC, and from Gottheimer's home base in Wyckoff and they have kept on attacking him -- in emails, press releases, fundraising letters.  That's what you do when you face an opponent you are afraid of. 

And what do the Democrats make of John McCann?  Not a word.  Not even a barely suppressed yawn.  Why should they?  As the Record noted in its opening line:  "John McCann, the attorney and longtime right-hand man to Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino." 

That's Michael Saudino -- the Democrat Sheriff of Bergen County.  McCann is his right-hand man.  He is one of them.

In Sussex County, every person holding state or county office had to first pass through a Republican primary in order to get there.  Sussex County isn't Bergen County.  Backing someone because he works for another office holder isn't going to cut it in a Republican primary.  Especially when that office holder is a liberal Democrat.  Just saying.

Public shaming is bullying. Treat it the same.

The attempt by the powerful -- in the form of the corporate media and the dominant political class -- to force others to conform to their social values or face the loss of employment, economic security, and status is textbook bullying.  In the case of Assemblyman Parker Space, it is clear that the Republican holds tastes in music and is of a socio-economic class different from that of the dominant establishment class. 

Space is a country boy, a blue-collar farmer, a Trump supporter, and a believer in traditional values.  This makes him a target for establishment bullying.  As for the establishment's complaints that Space used a five-letter word in private conversation, this is simply a case of rank hypocrisy by individuals who use the same words and far-far-worse in private and in public, as evidenced below.

Again and again, we are told that in America, we are a nation of laws.  But this is being steadily eroded by corporate media and their puppets in the political class.  With the connivance of establishment political figures the corporate media are attempting to create an extra-judicial method of determining everything from whether or not you can hold a job or operate a business to serving in public office.

Under this informal, extra-judicial system, the accusers do not need to produce proof of their accusations, neither does the accused have the opportunity to refute the charges made in any legal setting.  In this bullying culture, corporate media whips up a frenzy of bullying -- mobbing -- in order to indict, convict, and punish someone. 

The accusers simply need to "feel" that someone has done something for reasons that they disapprove of.  Of course, these "feelings" must conform to the social norms of the establishment.  Conforming to establishment norms allows some people to believe that they have the right to fire someone from his or her job, or put someone out of business, or overturn the will of the voters.

This is a form of technological vigilantism -- a post-modern lynch mob -- with elements of religion to it.  For "apologize... apologize... apologize," read "repent... repent... repent."  And it was specifically warned against by prescient writers like George Orwell, with the neo-religious fervor whipped up in a shaming exercise very like the two-minutes hate he describes in his great work, 1984:

Think of it.  Political figures like Democrat Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg actually suggested that they could reach into another person's soul to determine evil there, adjudicate on said evil, and then demand that the will of the voters be overturned and said person be stripped of public office.  Mind you, the office-holder in question -- Assemblyman Parker Space -- is one of the most popular elected officials in New Jersey, as determined by the number of votes he receives, and gets more votes than any Republican legislator in the state.  So it does take a particular kind of philosophy, distinctly undemocratic, to suggest such a thing.

Also remember that no laws have been broken.  Unlike Senator Robert Menendez or Assemblyman Neil Cohen or Assemblyman Raj Mukerji or any one of a hundred New Jersey Democrats who actually broke the law, but who nevertheless enjoyed and enjoy the steadfast support of fellow Democrats, Assemblyman Parker Space did nothing even remotely illegal.  Fashion was breached perhaps -- the fashion held by some elites in a few, well-to-do enclaves -- but no laws were broken.  For the moment, our Bill of Rights and our First Amendment are holding firm -- but for how long?

If the media can use extra-judicial shaming to deny employment, ruin a business, or overturn an election, then they will have successfully undermined the Bill of Rights without recourse to a legal challenge before the United States Supreme Court.  It is a subversion of the law, and the imposition of punitive sanctions, through the use of fashion and media technology.  Through the use of it, America will no longer be a nation of laws, but rather a nation of fashions, manipulated by a corporate media controlled by the likes of Jared Kushner, the Newhouse brothers, and the corporate racists at Gannett News.  A bullying culture in which anyone who wishes to work, own a business, or hold office will have to conform to the establishment norms of the bullying class.