Tucker Carlson: Our culture could use some modesty

A wonderful exchange between Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Jay Parini, a professor, author, and poet.  Given the circumstances, they make the salutary point that "we all proceed on insufficient knowledge" and conclude that what is lacking in current political discourse is "modesty" and that we need to "teach modesty" and "inculcate a spirit of modesty" as a corrective.

Meanwhile back at the blog run by Freeholder George Graham and his cohort...

https://www.facebook.com/whowhatwherewhen/videos/10208392022592286/

Yes, this is one of the folks from Mark D. Quick's four-man rally on February 25th and he is... yes, urinating on the campaign literature of Freeholder Graham's political opponents.  Nice. 

Last week they were burning literature.  This week, they are pissing on it.  This is the world that Graham has made.

We all should know the Graham story by now.  A local yokel Democrat political consultant gets pushed out of Hudson County by the bigger fish.  Does odd jobs for some of the politically-connected construction firms out that way.   Moves on the Sussex County market.  Says he's in the "paper business" and a few local businesses get taped and screwed.  Gets elected in Stanhope as a Democrat, switches to Republican, back to Democrat to vote for Barack or Hillary, then to Republican again. 

Takes over the Sussex County League of Municipalities (which almost immediately experiences "financial irregularities"), one of nature's "ham and eggers" so he needs to play underhanded, he lies and spreads over-the-top rumors in an attempt to push out incumbent Republican political consultant in order to get his business, when that fails, becomes a candidate and wins a Freeholder seat, promptly turns on those who helped him and destroys them (just ask Freeholder Dennis Mudrick). 

As a Freeholder, he is always on the lookout for a dime.  Gets others to pay his bills, fund his campaigns.  Suckers, he calls them.  He participates in every vote to make the solar project worse and then, turns on the board, points the finger, and blames them.  Wrecks any attempt to rationally work a way out of the solar mess by heavily politicizing the issue BUT he does elect his cronies and takes control over the Board.  Promptly hires NYC leftist and forces out long-time, local Republican.  Hires politically-connected NYC law firm to handle solar review -- which goes from a money recovery operation to a therapy session costing half a million dollars.  Gives a no-bid contract to the very lawyers he said were to blame for the solar mess. 

Moves on to state politics.  Sows seeds of discontent between District 24 legislators.  Targets Gail Phoebus, the unstable one, and gets her to spread outrageous rumors about BOTH her running mates and their families.  Horrible, low as dirt stuff they spread, but hey, this is George.  He is there to undo every attempt at reconciliation.  Meanwhile, he is using his political consulting business to cash in.  Claims to be working in other races around the state, claims to be working for a gubernatorial campaign... is he working for some of the firms that do business in Sussex County?  We would need a more detailed ethics filing to find out. 

This is who is running your county government.

This is why Sussex County needs an Ethics Committee.

Running with Quick was too much for him to bear

Former Morris County Freeholder and Mt. Olive Mayor Dave Scapicchio got into the District 24 Republican primary for Assembly with what he thought were good intentions.    Given his record, he believed that he had something positive to add to the debate.  Then he got a good look at the man who wanted to be his running mate -- Mark D. Quick -- and Scapicchio thought better of it.  He quietly changed his plans and is now running for Morris County Freeholder on a ticket that has NOTHING to do with Mark D. Quick. 

Mark D. Quick is a blue blood who brags that his American ancestry goes back to the Mayflower.  But as Nathaniel Hawthorne observed, "Families are always rising and falling in America."  In Quick's case, they have been on a losing streak.  After serving a truncated stint with the Marine Corps, Quick went into business and farming.  Both ventures failed.  Then he tried his hand at politics.

Mark D. Quick -- yes, Dick is his middle name -- is running for Assembly on Gail Phoebus' ticket.  This is Quick's fifth run for higher office but only his first as a Republican.  All his other failed attempts were as an independent, siphoning votes away from the Republican candidate.  In 2012, Quick even endorsed a candidate in the Democrat Party primary.  The Democrat who Quick endorsed had the support of a special interest PAC run by Lyndon LaRouche, a notorious left winger and former head of the Marxist U.S. Labor Party.

Mark D. Quick is a bully.  He harassed the female staff at conservative Republican Congressman Scott Garrett's office to the point that the police had to be brought in.  Quick picks fights with women, as he did last July, when he was tossed out of the  Lafayette House for his behavior towards a woman who disagreed with him. 

His loud, obnoxious, and sometimes violent behavior is the reason why he was removed as a member of the Skylands Tea Party group and asked not to attend.

Quick runs with a posse of other bullies who can't seem to have a civil conversation about politics or policy or even the weather.  You disagree with them at your peril.  Now they have taken to burning other people's literature and justifying it because anyone who disagrees with them are what they call "Satan."

Yes.  Quick and his posse of idiots actually shared on Facebook how they got off on burning other people's literature.  Of course, we've seen this kind of behavior before when bullies were uncomfortable with the written word. . .

The sad thing is that even young Nathan Orr, who we thought had more sense than to get mixed up with a nutcase like Quick, had to tell the world that he too "liked" the idea of burning literature.  That's a shame.

After announcing that he was running for the Assembly, Mark D. Quick held a rally on the Green in Newton last Saturday.  The weather was beautiful!  It was springtime in February.  But to say that Quick's rally was under-attended would be something of an understatement.  Quick didn't attract enough people to organize a proper burial -- not enough even for a detail of pallbearers.  Four people showed up!

 

Hard as it is to believe, the "rally" managed to attract two of the self-regarding idiots responsible for damaging conservative Republican Scott Garrett to the point that now we have liberal Democrat Josh Gottheimer!  Is everyone happy? 

Yep, in addition to three-time congressional candidate Quick, there was one-time congressional candidate Peter Vallorosi too.  Hard to believe that these two moe-moes once complained that Scott Garrett's 99.38% American Conservative Union rating "wasn't conservative enough."  Now that they have managed to replace Garrett with a liberal who will be doing something if he scores higher than a 10.42% rating, they can pat each other on the back or whatever it is that moes get up to.

But don't tell these bullies that they screwed up. . . big time!  First they get offended, then they go off.  That is the routine they picked up in high school and it still is their guide star.

But as Dave Scapicchio's departure shows. . .  apart from a few fellow bullies, nobody is interested in spending 10 seconds around Mark D. Quick.