Some Democrats think Sussex County is a "shithole"

By Rubashov

Shitholes... seems like there are a lot of them. 

And how they are defined depends on one's perspective.

When we go to a diner and the soup has a fly in it, the eggs are adorned with someone's hair, the table top is greasy, and we can smell the restrooms (another cozy euphemism, eh?) we say that "we'll never go back to that shithole."

But for others, the bar is set much, much higher.

Like Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, who once said of Binghamton, New York, and its environs:  "This place is kind of a shithole... There was nothing that I passed (on the three-hour ride from New York City) that I couldn’t milk."

Assemblyman Joe Cryan said as much about Sussex County when he was Chairman of the Democrat State Committee.  Even local Democrats -- like Byram Councilman Scott Olson -- mock Sussex County as backwards.  One Democrat candidate for legislator last year said that Sussex County's culture needed changing in order to bring it into line with leftist hotbeds like Montclair.  So much for their claim to a belief in "diversity." 

We get it.  For some Americans, places like Sussex County (AKA "fly-over America") are, to use Jon Stewart's phrase, "kind of a shithole."

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump's alleged remarks about a few Third World nations, some have attempted to define it as "racist" -- the most overused moniker in use today.  So much today is called "racist" that the word has lost its punch, much in the way the word f*ck has (though still blocked by some Internet filters). 

But can we actually define the term "shithole" in any meaningful way?

Actor James Woods made this attempt:  "Rule of thumb: if the water where you live is not potable because local engineers can’t somehow separate well water from sewage water, you live in a #shithole country."

Fair enough.

Writer Scott St. Clair suggested that we turn our attentions to the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics and its studies of each country's level of "open defecation" to determine which are "shitholes" and which are simply borderline.  Does a high level of shitting in the street define one's nation as a "shithole"? 

Many people don't like the idea of characterizing a whole nation that way.  They say that you can't paint with a broad brush like that.  But many of these same people are quick to claim that all white Americans have "privilege" -- ignoring the fact that there are more of them in poverty than any other "group."  Many of these people assume that all white Americans have ancestors who owned slaves (percentage wise, it is far more likely that a black American had an ancestor who owned a slave or was involved in the slave trade).  Black Lives Matter's great misstep was to ignore all those "sovereign citizen" videos on YouTube and to assume that their white fellow citizens were racists instead of fellow sufferers (albeit, for many, to a lesser degree) of a vastly empowered and increasingly militarized regime of policing. 

BLM could have won outright had it not taken a "minority" position.  But when one considers that Al Sharpton and Chris Christie use the same establishment public relations firm, maybe it has gone the way it was supposed to go.  After all, working class black Americans and working class white Americans haven't been at each others' throats like this for decades... while the one percenters are getting richer and richer off a booming stock market.  Go figure.

The media is constantly programming Americans to paint groups with a broad brush.  The entertainment industry's portrayal of black Americans are the imaginings of suburban Gen-X writers and is decades off.  So too are its ideas about the South -- while its portrayal of working class America, particularly of those who reside in mobile homes... well, talk about one's perception of what a "shithole" is -- the suburban trailer park must jump in the minds of America's media.

It seems to us that it takes two kinds of people to turn a Third World nation into a "shithole" -- that nation's politicians and the world media.  Rich celebrities like Bono -- a world class tax-avoidance artist -- reap public relations windfalls from advocating for the Third World, sending working class taxpayers' money into the hands of a corrupt political class, who invests it in places like Switzerland.  When anyone notices this, they are called "racist" by the media -- who run heart-tugging appeals that picture suffering children, covered in flies, without proper drinking water.  America's taxpayers see all this media and say, "What a shithole!  We need to help those people!"  The people who live in those Third World nations say, "This place is home, but our politicians have turned it into a shithole and there is no getting rid of them, so we're out of here."  You can't blame them.

Yes, you can't blame them, because they are no different than most Americans in wanting to escape the "shithole" and move on.  In America, the grass is always greener somewhere else.  We are a people on the move.  That's not how is used to be.  A few generations ago, we stayed in one place for so many generations, we developed regional --even neighborhood -- accents.  Once upon a time, there were people in a section of Philadelphia who talked like Rocky did.  Now it is an out-of-date stereotype on SNL. 

That's why so many of our most educated and well-to-do fellow citizens take a relaxed view of illegal immigration.  Lacking loyalty to a place -- leaving it for greener pastures instead of staying to make it better -- is a way of life for many Americans.  And when there is something they don't like, they move.  No wonder they so readily understand when others abandon somewhere, leave it to those who would despoil it, to come here.  The working class and the poor, they can't move as easily and are often left with no choice but to improve their community in order to improve their circumstance.  Of course, they look upon illegal immigrants coming into their community differently than do the rich and mobile.  They see increased competition for jobs, increased taxation to support expanding social services, increased pressure on remaining green space, the potential disruption of established folkways, and the loss of property value (which, for many, could lead to them to ending their days in a substandard nursing home, laying in their own piss).

We might expect the better-off and well-educated in places like Haiti to stay put and help their nation out of its troubles -- but how many rich people stayed in Detroit, Michigan, to help the town that raised them get out of its troubles?  No way!  It is easier to tear the shithole down, street by street.  In the end, there will just be two groups left in Haiti -- the political class stealing the international money that media coverage and the western elites bring them -- and the poor who will be kept poor so that those appeals and the money keeps coming.  Who is to blame the more adventurous of poor Haitians who attempt to follow their middle-class to places like France and the United States?  And you can say just about the same thing for Detroit.

If the nation's moving companies are to be believed, New Jersey is one of America's main shitholes.  The Trenton Democrats regularly screw rural and suburban residents with laws like Abbott funding, COAH, and the Highlands Act -- and strongly favor chic urban areas and the environs of the elites over everyone else.  Lots of people are moving out of New Jersey because of the tax and regulatory policies imposed on them by the political class here.  Not that the political class itself stays.  Rich guys like former Speaker Joe Roberts, Democrat of Camden, get out of this over-taxed shithole the moment they leave office and move to Republican-run states, like Florida. 

Of course, there are a lot of people who come from a whole lot worse shitholes and who would love to get to New Jersey.  So maybe, in the end, what is or isn't a "shithole" is a matter of where you are.

We thought of this when reading a Facebook post by a Republican candidate -- a fellow named John McCann -- who repeated the silly mantra:  "All are welcome."  Yeah, yeah, but this candidate has moved from state to state throughout his life.  He's a lawyer, his wife is a doctor, and they are plenty rich to say "enough of this shithole" if too many people he ends up not wanting to live near take him at his word.  Yep, "all are welcome" until too many of those "open defecators" take advantage of your front lawn, and then... "we're rich honey, so we can move to someplace better."  Only the poor and the working class who can't move get screwed by the silly virtue-signaling of elites like this guy.

Speaking of which, we came across a breathless article on a Trenton-based political website, written by a former official of the administration of Governor Christine Todd Whitman.  This fellow was demanding that every Republican publicly break with President Trump by calling him bad names over his alleged "shithole" comment.  Too bad that he never had anything public to say about all the sexual abuse and skirt-chasing (by both males and females) that went on during the Whitman administration.  It was all far worse than saying the word "shithole."

Look, for better or worse, Donald Trump is a performance artist.  Always has been.  Like Jon Stewart, he practices what can be called a transgressive art form.  He engages his audience by getting a rise out of us.  By the time his presidency is over, he will probably be running through George Carlin's list of "words you can't say" at the start of his press conferences.  But hey, he is the elected President of the United States and will be so for the next three years unless there is an illegal coup of some kind.  By-the-way, such an act would make the United States of America... officially... a shithole -- politically, if not materially.

Always remind yourselves -- you holier-than-thou pricks in the political and media and corporate establishments -- that it didn't need to be this way.  The Democrat Party could have run an honest primary process.  You didn't all need to conspire to give us the "President" you wanted us to have.  You fixed the Democrat Party primary process but couldn't fix the national election.  So here we are.  Stop complaining about it.

Dem national vice-chair pushes ANTIFA training manual

Congressman Keith Ellison, the Vice Chairman of the Democrat National Committee, hyped the ANTIFA training manual in a tweet to followers yesterday, saying that it would "strike fear in the heart" of the elected American government led by President Donald Trump.

(Twitter/Keith Ellison) Wednesday, 03 Jan 2018 06:14 PM 

You can view Congressman Ellison's tweet here: 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/keith-ellison-antifa-anti-fascist-handbook-donald-trump/2018/01/03/id/835002/

Ellison is a convert to the Muslim faith who nevertheless entertains some rather anti-religious (not to mention, anti-American) ideas.  As a for-instance, allow us to recommend this controversy noted by Wikipedia on the Congressman's page:

"On July 8, 2007, Ellison discussed the power of the executive branch in a speech before the organization Atheists for Human Rights.  He stated that Dick Cheney said it was 'beneath his dignity in order for him to answer any questions from the citizens of the United States.  That is the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship.'   He went on to say, 'It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that.  After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country, Hitler, in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.  The fact is that I'm not saying September 11 was a U.S. plan or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you.'"

Yep, the Vice-Chair of the DNC is a first class nutjob -- and it was the Women's March/ANTIFA wing of the Democrat Party that insisted on him getting the job.

ANTIFA is an authoritarian far-left organization that supports the idea of "necessary violence" to combat what it perceives as right-wing authoritarianism.  The book being pushed by the DNC's Ellison was written by Mark Bray, an Occupy Wall Street organizer and Dartmouth professor who in remarks to NBC News' Meet The Press last August defended violence against those whose ideas he opposes.

That's right, unlike most sane people who want nothing to do with either Hitler or Stalin, Bray and Ellison want to play Stalin to attack those they perceive as Hitler.  Like we said... first class nutjobs.

After Bray's gig on Meet the Press, Dartmouth President Philip Hanlon released a statement saying "we condemn anything but civil discourse in the exchange of opinions and ideas."

ANTIFA is merely the latest incarnation of the old anarchist-communist movement.  As the Wall Street Journal reported (08/28/17), " Antifa activists also search for and publicize damaging information on their targets or opponents, or launch campaigns pressuring their bosses or companies to fire those opponents."

We saw the ANTIFA playbook in action last year, when Sussex County Democrat Party officials attempted to drive a 90-years-old Sussex County business out of existence and leave dozens of working families without the means to live.  Here is more from the Wall Street Journal report:

Antifa activists believe in censorship and don’t rule out violence, as they showed again Sunday.

...They’re mostly anarchists and anarcho-communists, and they often refer to fellow protesters as “comrades.” Adherents typically despise the government and corporate America alike, seeing police as defenders of both and thus also legitimate targets.

The anti-fascist anarchist website CrimethInc.com recently summarized its philosophy: “In this state of affairs, there is no such thing as nonviolence—the closest we can hope to come is to negate the harm or threat posed by the proponents of top-down violence . . . so instead of asking whether an action is violent, we might do better to ask simply: does it counteract power disparities, or reinforce them?”

Antifa’s activists use the Orwellian-sounding notion of “anticipatory self-defense” to justify direct confrontation. That can include violence, vandalism and other unlawful tactics. Many draw a false moral distinction between damaging private property and “corporate” property.

Antifa activists have also developed their own moral justification for suppressing free speech and assembly. As anarchists, they don’t want state censorship. But they do believe it’s the role of a healthy civil society to make sure some ideas don’t gain currency.

So they heartily approve of the heckler’s veto, seeking to shut down speeches and rallies that they see as abhorrent. Antifa activists also search for and publicize damaging information on their targets or opponents, or launch campaigns pressuring their bosses or companies to fire those opponents.

Words don’t constitute violence, despite what Antifa activists believe. But there are dangerous ideas and practices, and the radical left has embraced several of them. Democracies solve conflict through debate, not fisticuffs. But Antifa’s protesters believe that some ideas are better fought with force, and that some people are incapable of reason.

Implicit in this view is that Antifa alone has the right to define who is racist, fascist or Nazi. It’s a guerilla twist on the culture wars, when a microaggression must be met with a macroaggression.

To read the entire Wall Street Journal report and view an interesting video on the subject, visit: 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-bedlam-in-berkeley-1503961537?mod=e2fb

CNN has an excellent report called "Unmasking ANTIFA".  You can access it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html

The DNC's Ellison is certainly free to push the reading material he chooses to push, as long as he understands that those who take his support and money are going to be asked about it.  That includes YOU Congressman Gottheimer.  So get your excuses ready.

McCann comments on Moore... after the race is over.

A profile of courage it isn't.  On the afternoon after the Alabama special election in which Republican Roy Moore was defeated, candidate John McCann issued a press release saying that candidates like Moore were "unacceptable." 

Hey, Stumbling John, the election is over.

And what does McCann mean by "unacceptable"?  Social conservatives?  Pro-lifers?  Born-again Christians?  Pro-Second Amendment?  Was McCann referring to the allegations by women against Moore?  He doesn't say.

What he does say is that it is "the loss of another seat in the United States Senate."  Another?  Is McCann referring to Al Franken, the Democrat Senator from Minnesota who recently resigned?  What is McCann referring to?

McCann has been trying to style himself a feminist -- and to contrast his feminism with what he claims is Lonegan's anti-feminism.  In a recent Politico column, McCann brought up his tax liens and suggested that they arose from his wife's medical practice and that Steve Lonegan was somehow an anti-feminist for raising the issue.  Someone looked into this and suggested to us that candidate McCann was being less than honest with Politico. 

Candidate McCann's first IRS lien was filed September 8, 2011 for $17,704 against John McCann's legal practice (John McCann/Law Office of John McCann) and not his wife's medical practice (she is a doctor in New York City).  McCann's wife does not use his last name in connection with her practice.  This first lien appears to cover several quarterly tax periods beginning in 2010 and ending in March 2011. This lien in no way directly involved either his wife or her practice.

That lien was prepared by the IRS in Detroit, Michigan, for filing in Bergen County, New Jersey.  Separately, the IRS office in Baltimore, Maryland, also prepared a duplicate of this lien that was separately filed in Hillsborough County in Florida, where McCann owned property. This is done to ensure the debtor's judgment is paid if the real estate he owns is sold.  This tax lien was paid in December 2011 and released. 

The second lien -- for $118,295 -- was filed in February 2014 against both McCann and his wife.  This lien came was filed 2 1/2 years after the first, and doesn't impact on his earlier business lien.  Now, it has come to light that there are more liens, but that is for another day...

McCann's is a very strange candidacy.  It seems entirely spent on dishing out DCCC talking points on Republican Steve Lonegan.  When asked to comment on an actual issue -- like the Republican Tax Bill -- McCann clams up.  The best the New Jersey Herald could get from him is "noncommittal." 

Why?  Well remember where John McCann came from.  He put together his campaign for Congress while a political patronage employee for Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino.  The Bergen Record said he was Saudino's "right-hand man."  Yes, this Michael Saudino...

That was posted just a few days ago, before McCann's latest round of DCCC talking points inspired attacks on Republican Steve Lonegan. 

Oh, and did we mention that John McCann is the lawyer for the NJ Sheriffs' Association?  You know, the same folks who put out a press release yesterday lauding Democrat Gottheimer and attacking the Trump administration.  And guess who was quoted?  Yep, McCann's boss...

“Last year, Bergen County taxpayers received more than $500,000 back from the federal government through the SCAAP program, and almost $7 million through a cooperative agreement with the federal government at our correctional facility in Hackensack. I applaud Congressman Gottheimer for fighting to make sure local law enforcement here in North Jersey has the resources needed to fulfill our mission, protect our communities, and save taxpayers money.”  said Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino. (InsiderNJ, December 13, 2017)

Like we've said before, John McCann's candidacy seems designed to screw up GOP chances in the 5th District.

Why John McCann is a non-starter for Congress

So-called "Republican" John McCann is following the Democrat DCCC playbook and -- just as they do with President Trump -- trying to question conservative Republican Steve Lonegan's bonafides.  They did it to every Republican since Ronald Reagan.  It's just what liberals do. 

But there is a reason why the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and every elected Republican in the 5th congressional district have said "no thank you" to stumbling John McCann:  They don't trust him.

And why should they?

During the 2016 Presidential Election in which Democrat Hillary Clinton faced Republican Donald Trump, John McCann was the "right-hand man" (according to The Record newspaper) to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino, Hillary Clinton's running mate.  That's right, wannabe Republican candidate John McCann was the consigliore to and "brains" behind a Bergen County Democrat candidate who shared a ticket with Hillary Clinton.

Not only did McCann's boss, Democrat Saudino, share a ticket with Mrs. Clinton, he shared it with Democrat congressional candidate Josh Gottheimer.  And yes, on election night, in Bergen County, they all partied together and celebrated Josh's win and Saudino's win... and then they all started to cry when Hillary didn't.

Now why would any self-respecting Republican trust (forget support!) a guy like McCann -- who was in the middle of all those Democrats?

Here they all are, on election night in Bergen County, whooping it up.

The only people rooting for John McCann are Democrats who want to see Josh Gottheimer not have the tough fight he deserves -- so that the Democrats are free to focus on races against Republican congressmen Rodney Frelinghuysen, Leonard Lance, and Tom MacArthur.  Any Republican who goes along with that is either corrupt or a fool.

NJEA leaders fail to oppose all political violence

Over the weekend, we heard from a college-educated, professional woman, who resides in a new McMansion in an upscale suburban community, and drives a very expensive energy-efficient automobile.  From all outward signs perfectly sane.  The argument she put forward is this:  That Kim Jong-il is "only trying to protect his country" and that Donald Trump is "a far greater threat to the world's peace."

This is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its worse.  We run into egregious examples of it all the time.  For instance, there's a group of social warriors called Action Together Sussex County.  This group has been doing a lot of virtue-signaling lately, with calls for "peace & love" and the like.  They recently did an "education rally" with two NJEA-backed legislative candidates in which a lot of holier-than-thou language was employed.

Unfortunately... they have a past.  And it's a not-too-distant past. 

Take April 9, 2017... the Action Together Sussex County Facebook page.  Get a load of this "peace & love" routine:

"Got a friend who hates Trump"?  WTF!

"...Please email share this link with Democrats and progressives not on Facebook so that they can participate."  Participate in what?  Hating Trump, that's what.

How's that for spreading the hate?

On June 14, 2017, a United States Congressman was shot down while attending a baseball practice.  Action Together Sussex County makes no mention of this act of violent hate on its Facebook page... ever!  Why?  Is it because the victim is a Republican and the perpetrator a "leftwing activist" (per Wikipedia)?

Where were the vigils, the rallies, the calls for "peace & love" then?  Isn't the life of a Republican worth as much as that of a Democrat?  Apparently not.

Also shot were a female Capitol Police officer, a Congressional aide, and one other bystander.  They too did not earn a mention.

Then there is Action Together Sussex County's support of the Women's March and its silence when the media reported that the Women's March "honored" cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur), a terrorist on the FBI's "most-wanted" list.

According to groups like the Women's March (which the NJEA supported, by the way) terrorists like Chesimard -- who murdered a New Jersey State Trooper in cold blood -- "inspire us to keep resisting."  Oh do they?

The Women' March organization issued a statement "celebrating" Ms. Chesimard's birthday, praising her as a "revolutionary."  Which brings us to the NJEA leadership's statement on the murder of a young protestor in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

To begin with, the purple prose is somewhat embarrassing, particularly as it comes from people claiming to be educators.  Remember, this is the organization that consistently uses restrained language when describing the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.   While describing September 11th as a "tragic event" the NJEA uses the term "horror" to describe a young man driving his automobile into a crowd of protestors.  That is an odd formulation given the relative scales of the two incidents.

We believe that what James Alex Fields did was willful murder and that he should pay for it with his life.  On this point, we part company with the NJEA, who oppose the death penalty.  They employ hard words.  We prefer hard sentences.  In this case, the murderer's life.  Enough talk.

The NJEA has often been silent in the face of political acts of violence.  When they do rouse themselves, it is more often about the ideas expressed than the violence that has become a part of our general political discourse.  Often enough, the NJEA's reaction could be misconstrued as itself an incitement to violence.  Take its statement on Charlottesville as an example, with its calls to "act boldly" for the cause of "social justice" and to change society.  "Act boldly" means what?  "Social justice" includes which issues and solutions? 

Was James Hodgkinson -- a "leftwing activist," late of Belleville, Illinois -- acting boldly when he sought to shoot some Republican members of Congress in June?

The NJEA's statement is full of such unclear language, open to gross misinterpretation.  Again, shocking for educators who should know how to write clearly.  We suggest they pick up a copy of The Elements of Style, a classic by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

The statement by the NJEA's leadership never mentions the act of murder -- and instead conflates this act with a tragic aircraft accident that occurred.  The NJEA never acknowledges that America is rapidly devolving into a place that no longer understands the idea of a "loyal opposition"  -- a place where people can no longer peaceably hold contrary points of view.  The NJEA statement does not call for an end to political violence.  Instead, the NJEA focuses on the ideas expressed by "neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hatemongers" (Are the Women's March and Action Together included amongst those "hatemongers"?) and on the "symbols" displayed and by "rhetoric reminiscent of Nazi Germany" (As in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, perhaps?).

Is the NJEA statement a call to fight violence with violence... to "act boldly"?  You must ask them.

We believe that this is the moment for the NJEA to place aside its inner Che Guevara and dust off and channel its inner Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.  We should not fear ideas -- especially the stupid ideas expressed by racists and neo-Nazis.  They are too easy to refute and make a mockery of.  We should not need to stoop to their level -- to call for censorship or speech bans or other forms of authoritarianism -- to undo their foolish propositions.

Speech must be met squarely with speech.  It does no good to force ideas underground.  It is far better to lure out foolish ideas, into the sunlight, where they can be tested, argued, and disposed of.  Those who do otherwise lack confidence -- or are simply propagandists and scam artists on the make who will use the same violence that they pose to condemn.  There is no idea, no argument, that an intelligent, civilized people need fear.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right when he said, in a somewhat different context, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."  Instead of stoking fear, the NJEA's leadership should be pushing the debate forward into the "bright sunlit uplands" of clarity.