Red Bank Mayor Pat Menna, wearing a pre-COVID mask, and Red Bank activist and Board of Education member Sue Viscomi. photo via Viscomi’s facebook page
By Tommy DeSeno
“There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by
those who hear it.” – William James
A regrettable development in American culture is that racism
is being obscured by false claims of racism.
Both destroy their targets.
If a racist is one of the worst things a person can be, then
falsely claiming someone is a racist is one of the worst things you can do to a
person. We are in a current whirlwind of
Cancel Culture and instant ostracization by social media. Those who are
careless labeling others as racist can easily ruin the life of someone who had
been careful not to be one. No one should have such power over the reputation
of others, but in these odd times where the Internet is forever, everyone does.
The New York Times published a report yestersay that argues that the coronavirus is racist. The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirusis the headline.
The Times sued the CDC to get data that “is far from complete. Not only is race and ethnicity information missing from more than half the cases, but so are other epidemiologically important clues — such as how the person might have become infected.”
If we named sports teams after their owners, how long would be it before Joe Buck makes a crack about keeping up with the Joneses? Not until Dallas starts winning.
Congressman Chris Smith, House of Representative portrait
Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District is an original cosponsor of the JUSTICE Act, comprehensive legislation which was introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday. The legislation would build safer communities by ensuring greater transparency and accountability in policing.
In signing an executive order on policing today—Safe Policing, For Safe Communities—President Trump said that “reducing crime and raising standards are not opposite goals.”
“For too long, we Republicans have been content to lose the black vote because we found that we could win elections without it. But when we gave up on trying to win the support of African-Americans, we lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln. As the party of equal opportunity for all.” -former Texas Governor Rick Perry
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, a candidate for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, addressed the National Press Club last week in Washington.
His remarks as prepared for delivery and a video of his remarks followed by a Q & A are posted below:
The Star-Ledger hit a new low of innuendo and guilt-by-association smear tactics in editorially trying to link racists to the Republican Party. You get an A+ in McCarthyism and dirty tricks, but an F in integrity and respect for any point of view other than your own.
The editorial’s subliminal message is that Republicans who disagree with the paper’s editorial board or President Obama on policy do so for racially-motivated reasons.
Why not consider that maybe, just maybe, those who disagree do so because the policies are horrible, not in the national interest and complete failures?
“I have a handicap, you know. I’m a white guy, running in the State of New Jersey. That’s my handicap. “
“I took down an inappropriate, silly tweet after 20 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. 5 months later, Anti-Semitic, hate filled videos are still posted on Cory Booker’s website. Where’s the race card now? Where’s the media now? “Where’s the liberal left now in defending us against this kind of hate filled Anti-Semitism?”
~Steve Lonegan
Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, the front runner in the August 13 Republican primary for the nomination to replace the late U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, held a press conference in Kinnelon yesterday afternoon to address the reaction to the tweet(pictured to the right) posted by his campaign on Thursday night during the Democratic Senate Debate.
Lonegan billed the event as a “press conference on political correctness” but the tweet and his opponents “pulling the race card” was the topic. In classic Lonegan fashion, the candidate confronted the problem and flipped the criticism back on his opponents. In this case, his opponents being Booker, who is expected to win the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, the “liberal media” and Dr. Alieta Eck, his opponent for the Republican nomination.
Lonegan said the tweet, which was removed quickly, was posted by a young staffer who remains employed by the campaign. “He made a mistake. I’m not going to ruin his career by firing him. I don’t do that. I will help him learn from it,” Lonegan said.
“Racism, racism, racism. They can’t wait to play the racist card,” Lonegan said of the Booker campaign and the media, “They couldn’t wait for the opportunity, any opportunity at all, a silly map, which is meaningless, sent out by some kid in a campaign, that had no intent other than to ah, whatever the intent was, I don’t even know what the intent was. But they can’t wait to pull the race card. Cause that’s how they play politics.
Death threats, charges of racism and the disapproval of his neighbors couldn’t get Bill Skuby to remove a photo altered to depict President Obama as a witch doctor from the window display of his high end mens clothing store in Spring Lake.
Click on photo for full view
Skuby removed the photo, “for now” he says, that has generated strong reactions, both pro and con, from his window display yesterday. He said respect for the office of President of the United States and the bullying that his bi-racial granddaughter has experienced since the controversy has emerged moved him to remove the photo that has generated nationwide attention. He said he will decide whether to put the controversial photo back into the display on Monday.
Skuby has been using one of his windows for edgy advertising for years. His Halloween display mocked President Obama last year too. This year he added the witch doctor photo over the words Obama Care with the C in Care being a Soviet hammer and sickle and a black hat with F.Y.B.O. embroidered in white on the front and S.L.N.J. Tea Party embroidered on the back. The hats are for sale for $25 and Skuby says the proceeds are going to charity.
This year Skuby’s display is making an impact beyond the borders of the tony town on the Irish Rivera.
Spring Lake resident Barbara Parnell walked past the display on Monday and found it to be “overtly racist.” Parnell called the clothing manufacturers who supply Skuby’s store to complain. She told them that the press had been alerted. “I plead the 5th amendment,” Purnell said when asked directly if she alerted the press. Later during a phone interview she said that one of the people quoted in the Asbury Park Press’s initial article about the display, not her, alerted the media to the display that she said “does not represent the Spring Lake business community.”
While Skuby seemed to be enjoying and cashing in on the publicity on Tuesday and during radio interviews on Wednesday morning, when MMM visited his store on Wednesday afternoon the ugly phone calls and emails from all over the country as well as the negative reaction of his fellow business owners on Third Ave were taking a toll on him and his wife Gail.
“90% percent of the reaction has been positive and supportive, but the 10% has been over the top,” said Skuby, “I’ve gotten six death threats and someone threatened to destroy the store if the display is not removed. I’m resigning from the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Improvement District, putting my house on the market and moving my business out of town when my lease expires at the end of the year.”
During a phone interview on Thursday, Skuby said that about half of the negative responses he received were not about race, but about respect for the office of the presidency. “That’s what got me to take it down. I’m not sure I will keep it out of the window, but I see their point.”
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon called for fiscal accountability in Newark this week. You wouldn’t have known that unless you read The Star Ledger. The Asbury Park Press, the newspaper/pay site that covers O’Scanlon’s Monmouth County district missed it.
At issue is the $24 million in state aid that Newark is “due” this year, after the state taxpayers kicked in $32 million to Newark’s budget last year, in the face of blatant waste on the part of Mayor Cory Booker and the city council.
Booker squandered $3.7 million in legal and consulting fees in a fight with the New Jersey Devils hockey team over revenue sharing. Booker lost the fight, which even The Star Ledger says was a waste and should have been settled, and vowed to spend more—O’Scanlon says $1 million more, The Ledger says $100 thousand more—in appealing the ruling that favored The Devils. As the ruling stands, Newark owes the Devils $600 thousand.
Newark’s city council is disgrace. A “gaggle of blowhards,” Ledger editor Tom Moran calls them, who “awards itself the highest salaries in the state, along with a free car.” Newark’s city council is paid six times more than Jersey City’s city council, according to Moran. $3.45 million in salaries paid to the Newark city council in 2011.
Also at issue is that the overpaid council has yet to pass their budget that was due in February. Yet, they want the $24 million from Jersey taxpayers.
According to The Ledger, O’Scanlon said,
“Cory Booker is fighting an expensive personal vendetta with one hand while he has the other hand out expecting state aid”
and
“As the ranking Republican member of the Assembly Budget Committee, I cannot, in good conscience, imagine handing Newark another $24 million when the mayor is continuing to rack up legal fees and costs for litigation that could have been settled months ago,” O’Scanlon said. “The state should not be in the habit of bailing out towns and cities that are unwilling to help themselves.”
