Anne Coulter: Shut up.

If you take time to re-arrange the letters of the words, “Shut up, Anne Coulter,” you get the phrase “Petulant or eunuchs”.

Sometimes, there is so much truth in re-arranged letters.

During the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, with host Donny Deutsch, Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws.”

What a total ass. And she is amazingly unapologetic in her assertions. Host Donny Deutsch took her comments as Anti-Semitic, and so do I.

When Duetsch asserted that he took offense at her comments, she questioned as to whether he was a practicing Jew or not. What a moron.

From an email from the New Jewish Democratic Council:

As you are probably well aware, Ms. Coulter has a long history of making comments that border on hate speech. She was fired from National Review in 2001 after calling on the U.S. to invade Muslim countries, "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." In 2006 she wrote about 9/11 widows: "I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much."

Similarly, last December, a resident of Flemington wrote a letter about the current state of Christmas celebrations. She wrote to the Hunterdon County Democrat declaring, “We are a Christian nation, tolerant of all others.”

It was the writer’s assertion that because the Framers of the Constitution were Christian and that the majority of our population is Christian, that we are a Christian nation. I assumed that the writer also thinks ----given the same flawed reasoning ----that New Jersey is a Christian state; Flemington, a Christian town and perhaps her street is a Christian street. Go figure.

That is wrong on so many levels; I don’t even know where to begin. And I am an American. I do not need your 'tolerance', thank you very much.

Memo to Coulter and the Flemington writer:

Majority never means identity ---especially in America. That was not what the Framers had in mind, although closed minded Neanderthals like the two of you would like to think so.

People like Coulter, as well as the letter writer from Flemington, are what is wrong with the Christian right wing:
They both suffer from the narrowest possible viewpoint of society, and they are both superior in their ignorance, at that.

The rest of us need to be ever vigilant to this kind of point of view of America. Their ignorance goes round the nation faster and faster these days.

“Too many damn laws!”

A few weeks back I attended the United Way annual dinner in Hunterdon County, and as always as a United Way Board member, I was sitting at a table with several UW supporters, clients, and volunteers. Being one of the only Democrats at the table is not an unusual experience for me, and the subject matter always turns to local, state and national politics.

Now, even the Republicans at the table have nothing to crow about regarding national politics these days with ‘Mr. 28%’ [and falling in NJ, thank you] in the White House, and both of NJ’s Senators being Dems. The same can be said for Trenton with the Dems holding both houses of the Legislature and Drumthwacket. [I always like saying “Drumthwacket”, mostly because when I was growing up in Brooklyn my house did not have a name.]

Anyway, the only thing the that many Repubs in Hunterdon have to drone on about these days is local politics. After our discussion about the Rs heated sheriff’s race and the multiple candidate freeholder race, the main R at my table made an ‘interesting’ observation:

“Problem with you Democrats is, you want too many damn laws! Laws for this! Laws for that. We should have a limited number of laws. Like we do in the Constitution. Just a dozen or so amendments. Like we do in the Bible. Only ten commandments there. And we do OK with them.”

Now when I came to the table, I had figured the guy voted for GW with his being a Repub and all----but after his last comment, my figuring was confirmed. So, I played along, and inquired, “Well, that’s interesting, how many laws do you think we should have?”

“Maybe no more than a hundred. Or a thousand, if you really need them," he chimed, with a big smile on his face.

Now, that I was too far in to this discussion to get out, I asked, “So, when we reach the limit, do we get rid of some laws? How do we do that?”

The answer seemed so logical to him:
“Well, you just set up a state commission to get rid of the old laws. I’m not saying you just get rid of the oldest ones first, but the commission looks at the bad laws, and just -----Phsxxsst [insert Bronx cheer here, which I do not know how to spell]---get rid of them. Off the books. Sayonara, amigo.”

Well, at least he has a sense of diversity ---- with his ‘Sayonara, amigo’ quip.

Before, I turned to my right and spoke to the one other Democrat at the table---the one with good sense to not speak to Mr. Repub, I asked finally, “This commission you want to set up to get rid of the extra laws---wouldn’t that require a new law to set up the commission? And what law would you get rid of to establish the new law to set up the commission?”

“I leave that to the lawyers”, he replied confidently.

Good call to give to ‘the lawyers’, I thought. And people always ask me ‘So, where do you get your comedy from? Real life, I say, real life.

Tomorrow: There is actually a commission that gets rid of old laws: The Law Review Commission. Well, some times they do, and sometimes it’s too ‘controversial’. But that story is for tomorrow.

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

Recently in my hometown of Flemington, a Republican member of the Borough Council, called for clean and ethical campaigns in the coming fall elections. Great idea, I thought. Ironic, though, when called for by the Republican Party.

The Councilmember stated [in the May 17th Hunterdon County Democrat newspaper] that he would like to see the Council draft a resolution in support of ethical campaigning; that the Council ban taking campaign money from “state organizations, county organizations or even private organizations because that money comes with strings attached.” While I agree with the sentiment he expressed, I was wondering if he understood the irony: The irony, of course, was that it was his Republican Party that had acted in the fall elections in the manner he found so offensive. It was his Party that made allegations of corruption that they knew were not true when they said it, said it anyway, and the newspapers declared were not true, also. His Party, not the Democratic Party.

It was his Party which took substantial cash from a local attorney, and then rewarded him with a job as the Flemington Public Defender, and a place in the New Jersey pension system----those were the "strings attached”.

It was his Republican Party that over the years rewarded a local business owner with an economic development consultant contract worth close to $80,000 in return for her support in recent elections. More strings attached.

It was his Party which engaged in the campaign that the Courier News called the “nastiest ever” in Flemington ---- using Karl Rovian-type baseless personal attacks on the integrity and veracity of his Party’s Democratic opponents.

And it was his Party’s candidate who refused to sign an ethical campaign pledge in the February 2006 special election. His Party spent thousands more than the Democratic Party candidates, and moved political campaign cash around from the County Clerk’s campaign to the local Flemington campaign.

So, I think the answer to his concerns are, first, cleaning up the mess in his own Republican Party, and then see what the Borough Council can do. Such is the irony.

In the last quarter century, the American voting public has seen a disturbing trend take place: An alarming decrease in the percentage of those who are registered to vote going to the polls on Election Day. According to David Wallechinsky in Parade Magazine, "One of the more shocking statistics also relates to elections. In a recent survey of the percentage of voting-age citizens who actually cast a ballot in their country’s elections, the United States ranked only 139th out of the 172 nations that held elections." There is an equally alarming increase in the negative tone of campaigning and 'politics of personal destruction' in federal, state and especially in local campaigns. Such was the type of campaign conducted by his Party in Flemington.

I truly believe that in order to change this, we must begin locally at the grass roots level---within each political party.

Basic retail politics in local elections in Flemington used to be the traditional knocking on your neighbor's door, handing out flyers with good ideas for your community, and attending coffee gatherings in the local church or temple meeting room or school community room.

Unfortunately, this has been replaced by the same kind of negative tone and broad-based personal attacks that is typical of the 'Karl Rove/Swiftboat’ variety of campaigning in national elections. And that is not good. There are several things that residents can do right away:

Demand debates by local candidates, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Letters to the Editor of the local community newspaper requesting in depth coverage of the local race and debate. A voluntary 'Truth in Campaigning' state-wide statute or local ordinance. Fair campaign practices. A "Clean Campaign Pledge" signed by the candidates. For some really great ideas, see an article by Seton Hall Law School Prof. Paula A. Franzese, the Chair of the New Jersey State Ethics Commission, at: http://www.cleancampaigns.net/3.html

Your elected officials, your local newspaper, and your neighbors can all be persuaded to do the right thing---and require the highest standards in New Jersey for clean political campaigns in local elections.