Obama Muzzles American Jews

By David Wanetick

During the same week that his administration diluted the commitments required from newly naturalized Americans, President Obama in word and deed baited the scorning of American Jews. Let’s take a look at these issues one at a time.

On July 21, 2015, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services modified its naturalization policy to allow immigrants to become citizens while refraining from committing to military service if the country called upon them. With the stroke of a pen, the standards and obligations for becoming an American were lowered. Maybe the intention was to foster a bigger melting pot. A melting pot, the administration would like us to believe, where all Americans will be treated equally. A melting pot where no religious or ethnic group will be the target of government invective and stereotypes. A melting pot where no group will have its, even heretofore higher standards of, loyalty to the United States questioned solely as a function of their religious convictions.

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O’Scanlon: We MUST move forward on pension and budget reform

By Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon

Now that the 2016 budget debate is over, we must get back to the most pressing state issue of our time.  The suggestion of some in the public worker sector that those of us who voted against the budget are in favor of our abandoning our commitment to ensuring their pensions is completely false.  For any responsible elected official, and decent human being, it is imperative that we meet our commitments in a way that protects our pubic workers – and the NJ economy at the same time.

The reason we couldn’t make a payment larger than the $1.3 billion one included in the Governor’s budget has nothing to do with a lack of will or integrity.  It’s about devoting as much $ as possible without inflicting massive, economy-killing, tax increases on an economy just now showing signs of real growth.  Without economic growth there will be no chance we will be able to meet our commitments to the system in the many years to come – so ensuring growth is as important to public workers as anyone else.  We don’t simply have a $1.8 billion deficit this year. We have a $6 to $7 billion hole over the next few years. Taxing the life out of our economy this year, with no plan going forward – and leaving us in a $2 billion hole next year as the Democrat’s proposed budget would – is bad policy, for all New Jerseyans.

But it is true as well that we can’t foster growth to the exclusion of our obligation to our dedicated public workers.  And I can’t state that point vehemently enough.  Our teachers and other public workers are decent, devoted, professional people.  Generalizations to the contrary are without merit.

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Rather than honest debate, Star-Ledger tries McCarthyism by slapping race card

By Scott St. Clair

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?

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What Happens When The President Uses The “N” Word?

By Tom DeSeno

 

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” — Juliet of the House of Capulet

I’ve written columns for many outlets over the past 15 years, and one practice I’ve always maintained is to spell out the whole “N” word when it is being used in an historical context, as in, “Slave owners referred to blacks as “N.” I do the same when quoting another person, as in, “He called him a “N.” I’ve also reserved the right to spell it out in condemnation of the word itself, as in, “It’s wrong to call anyone a “N.”

My thinking was that the “N” word is an insult when intended that way. I owe my American brothers and sisters with superior protective pigment the courtesy of not using that word as an insult, because it is worse than other words on the insult scale.

However, I don’t owe anyone a distortion of history. I don’t owe anyone less than exactitude when it comes to a quote, lest I be distorting history myself.

Yet every single editor I’ve had changes the spelled out word to the abbreviated “N word” before my column is published (I’m using the abbreviated “N” word now instead of spelling out the word, in recognition of Ricochet’s past practice).

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t use the word casually. I don’t use it in my own conversations and have not done so in decades. I think the only time I ever really used it was during a fistfight on the playground. There are different rules when throwing down — I would get called a cracker, a honky, etc. and I would yell out as many reciprocal remarks as I could. None of the white or black kids watching considered it racist. Afterwards, even the combatants did not. When you are in a fight, the rules of decorum are suspended. You’retrying to insult the guy you’re punching in the face.

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The Arnone Report: You need to get out & vote!

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual–or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. ” – Samuel Adams

By Monmouth County Freeholder Tom Arnone

Freeholder Tom Arone

The primary election is over and I want to extend my sincerest congratulations to all the candidates that won. Now as you prepare for November, I look forward to seeing positive campaigning over the next couple of months – let’s keep the focus on the issues concerning our constituents.

Voter turnout in Monmouth County was 2.9%, based on the number of eligible voters in the county. We need to improve this number! Your vote is your voice as an American citizen – you need to show up at the polls to have that voice heard. If you are unhappy with how things are being run in your municipality, our county and throughout the state of New Jersey, it is your duty to make a difference by voting.  Our right to vote in the United States is a privilege that was granted to us hundreds of years ago by the founders of our great country.  If we do not exercise our civic duty to vote, then we fail to create a government that epitomizes the voice of the people, and therefore we will not have representatives that reflect our opinions. So each vote is important, each vote counts.

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Sanctimonious Pundits Get Christie Mocking Wrong

“I never thought I’d see so much of your anatomy” –The Camel Toe Movie

By Art Gallagher

Respected columnists on both the left and right have come to Governor Chris Christie’s defense against the viral social and new media reaction to the ridiculously embarrassing photos of Christie in a way too tight softball uniform last week.

Star Ledger sports columnist Steve Politi writes that we should give Christie credit for not being ashamed of his body and applaud him for putting on the skin tight uniform that revealed both girth and a lack thereof and getting on the field to raise money for a very good cause–the families of slain New York City police officers.  Politi noted that he was fat in high school and that he’s covered high school sports.  Therefore, he argued, we should not ridicule Christie because fat kids might stop participating in sports.

A Star Ledger editorial, presumably written by Editorial Page Editor Tom Moran who launched Christie’s YouTube career when he lectured to Governor on his manners, lectures his readers for acting like fifth graders, asks if we’d tolerate such nastiness if a female politician dressed like Christie did last week, and like Politi, asked if it would have been better if Christie had not taken the field in his tight white pants, as if Christie did not have another choice.  Moran, if he wrote the editorial, did not mention if he has ever been fat.

Ken Kurson, publisher of The Observer and a friend to many MMM regular readers, writes that he used to be fat and probably will be again while dubbing the social and new media’s reaction to the Governor’s appearance as “Disgraceful and Stupid Fat Shaming.”

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Anti-suicide fence planned for GWB by 2024. Why isn’t there one already?

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Don’t sell the nursing homes until these questions are answered

By Art Gallagher

This evening at the Monmouth County Agriculture Building, the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders will listen to a report on the state of the county owned care centers/nursing homes. Following that report, the are very likely vote to move forward in the process of selling or privatizing the facilities.

There have been compelling arguments made on both sides of the issue. There has also been emotion driven demagoguery on both sides of the issue. What may have been missing, so far, is a dispassionate analysis. There are those of both sides of the issue who have been fighting for their intended outcome based on ideological, emotional, and political concerns.   Ideology, emotion and politics are all appropriate factors.  However, those drivers should be informed by a dispassionate analysis of all the facts and options. Any official who casts a vote on the future of the care centers based solely on ideology, emotion, politics or personal preference is guilty of malpractice.

I respectively ask all five of my friends on the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders to consider the answers to the following questions before making a final decision on the future of the John L. Montgomery and Geraldine Thompson care centers.

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50 Shades of Useless Sociology

By Tom DeSeno

“It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.” –Graham Greene

50 Shades of Grey: never has a book caused so many random acts of sociology, with people exclaiming what the book “says about women” or “means for society.” A Google search will turn up varied exclamations that the book is the apocalyptic forbearer of all things pro-feminist, anti-feminist, or pro and anti-capitalist. It also apparently has implications for class warfare, abuse, romance and the death of chivalry. Good grief. Despite my promise not to join this collection of chaos by opinion, I suspect I will.

My intent is only to state that the desire and act of sex itself is fraught with simplicity. There is no great mystery to it, only a juvenile fascination with the subject by artists. That cloak of mystification is buttoned tighter by the faux-Freudian analysis of people who will find “deeper meaning” in any thing, or any act, when, in reality, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

When I mention the simplicity of sex, I carve out first “romance” and all the emotional baggage that comes from coupling (or, since it’s the 21st century, tripling and quadrupling). I leave for another day the religious determination that sex is for procreation, as even Catholics will admit (since the Vatican promotes the rhythm method), that sometimes sex serves other purposes, like stress relief. I write here only of people who are secure in their partnering.

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Opinion: The many appetites of Chris Christie

By REV. ALEXANDER M. SANTORA GUEST COLUMNIST Gov. Chris Christie is a man of many hungers. Early in his administration, pundits made fun of his weight, and he turned the tables on them by laughing along with them even to go so far as to eat a doughnut on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” But… Read the rest of this entry »

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