Pete the Parrot Strikes Again

The South Jersey Times Editorial Board managed to get their paper placed in the bottom of Pete’s cage with a hypocritical op-ed.

In a Sunday op-ed, “Trash talking Camden’s workforce is offensive,” the editorial board took Holtec CEO Kris Singh to task. They even ended the piece with:

By Friday afternoon, Singh had "clarified" his remarks, so all will be forgiven by the bigshots. The hard-working majority of people who live in Camden and environs have cause to remain offended.

The editorial board is entitled to their opinion, after all it was an opinion piece. What they are not entitled to is hypocrisy. This editorial board went out of its way to praise U.S. Representative Donald Norcross. They wrote:

It's not clear from the roi-nj interview to what extent Holtec accepts that responsibility. But, in comments for the same article, U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., suggests that other new-to-Camden employers are doing more. Norcross cites European Metal Recycling as one firm that has invested heavily in one-on-one training.

Not even Public Broadcasting, WHYY praised Norcross. WHYY wrote in a piece online:

Protesters also blasted U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, whom they claimed compared Camden workers to children in the same ROI-NJ story.

“When you stop to think about it, I say children are that one asset that you can’t blame them for anything,” the Democrat told ROI-NJ. “Same thing goes for people who have not had a structure that taught them.”

Yet at the City Hall press conference, Moran and a half dozen other local leaders vouched for Norcross’ character and praised the work he has done in Camden, where he lives. The two-term congressman also announced that he would be organizing a summit on jobs and career training in Camden next week.

One of South Jersey’s other papers reported on Norcross’ comments. So did others.

Not, the South Jersey Times editorial board. They chose to suck up to the congressman. Speaking of sucking up, Camden Mayor Frank Moran did the same.

We can argue over whether or not the “hard-working majority of people who live in Camden and environs have cause to remain offended,” but this hard-working person who gets in his car and drives to Wawa every Sunday morning to buy a copy of the South Jersey Times has a right to be offended, once again, by this editorial board.

The only question left for the South Jersey Times editorial board is: are they hypocrites or simply an extension of South Jersey’s Democratic Party?

It’s The Bottom Of Pete the Parrot’s Cage For The South Jersey Times Again

Pete the Parrot

It’s starting to look like animal week here at The Bob & Steve Show, first Cowboy Cal, for his connection to Murray Sabrin, and now Pete the Parrot, because the Editorial Board at the South Jersey Times used a disgraced school board candidate as a way to attack Seth Grossman, get mentions in the blog this week. All I have to do is find a way to work my dog into a post for a hat trick.

Yesterday, the South Jersey Times ran an editorial titled “Candidates go rogue for South Jersey’s racists.”

In the editorial the Times states:

"Suffice it to say that Grossman's self-assessment, in an op-ed published in our print edition Monday, may vary greatly from the assessment of outsiders -- notably, the GOP's own national congressional committee. The committee cut ties with the 2nd District nominee, passing up an opportunity to back a campaign that could keep an 'open' seat in Republican hands."

The key in all of that is the word “outsiders.” Outsiders, like this Editorial Board do not know Grossman and have no intention of getting to know him. Seth Grossman has been traveling within Republican circles for decades. I ran into him many times over the years. Never once did I walk away from an encounter with Grossman believing he was a racist. I found him to be a smart, honest man who says things to get a conversation going. Sure, I might phrase some of those things differently, but doing so would not get people talking.

The Times editorial goes on:

Grossman's inelegant posts, tweets, and interviews, in one of which he called diversity "a bunch of crap," do not use the typical racial, ethnic, homophobic or misogynistic slurs that the worst of our political candidates now feel the freedom to utter. For that, we have a Monroe Township (Gloucester County) school board candidate who just called it quits over the weekend.

In that paragraph the Times hit the nail on the head with the word “inelegant.” Inelegant is code for “not politically correct” and that is what Grossman is guilty of – not being politically correct.

Political correctness can be a good thing, but it can also be bad, especially when it robs us of honest, open conversation. And, that’s what Grossman has been trying to do since the 1980s, have open, honest conversation. He may say things in ways no political consultant would advise, but he does get conversations going. Unfortunately, folks like those at the Editorial Board of the South Jersey Times don’t seem to care much about the honesty part.

The Times continues its BS attack on Grossman:

Grossman used his op-ed to point out that he is Jewish, that he went to a minority-heavy Atlantic City high school and that, as an attorney, he has represented many African Americans in legal matters. Maybe, but his highly provocative views were well known before he entered the GOP House primary. Republican political organizations in some 2nd District counties are still backing him, if not financially, by refusing to ask him to stand down.

So, now having “provocative” views is a disqualifies one from holding elective office?

And, then the Times Editorial Board shows a little honesty, they, like some party power brokers, wanted Hirsh Singh:

Although the GOP party machinery backed another candidate in the House primary, Hirsch Singh, it failed to get the job done by coalescing effectively around Singh, and failed to limit the number of candidates splitting the non-Grossman vote.

"Open" primaries are usually good things, but not when party leaders fail to prevent the likely outcome from being a fall nominee who's a known embarrassment.

Notice they didn’t even spell Singh’s first name correctly? Maybe folks should accuse the Times Editorial Board of being closet racists over their misspelling of Singh’s first name the same way the Editorial Board falsely and openly accuses Grossman of bigotry.

The Times ends their editorial asking a question:

Can South Jersey's Republican hierarchy say they're equally blameless for what their rogue congressional candidate says or does?

First, the Editorial Board advocates for rigging primaries by saying the party “failed to limit the number of candidates splitting the non-Grossman vote” and then ask this stupid question.

The answer to their question is yes. The voters in the primary chose Grossman. This is partisan politics, the way it works is you hold a primary, the candidates beat the crap out of each other in that primary and then get behind the candidate the voters chose at the end.

So, the Times makes it to the bottom of Pete the Parrot’s cage again for (a) advocating the GOP rigs its primaries for the candidate their Editorial Board prefers and (b) for falsely accusing Grossman of being a racist.

Why I Put The South Jersey Times In The Bottom Of Pete the Parrot’s Cage

"Pete the Parrot"

The South Jersey Times has managed to again prove why the paper is only good for the bottom of a bird cage. For whatever reason the South Jersey Times Editorial Board just couldn’t let the Dennis and Judi thing go – the Editorial Board felt compelled to run a piece on the opinion page titled, “If you can't show respect, drop the radio mic.”

The radio duo apologized and have been punished with a 10 day suspension. This should be over, but not for the South Jersey Times. The Editorial Board just had to fan the flames with more than 500 words.

In the opinion piece the editorial board claims, “It's not so bad that Malloy called Grewal ‘the man with the turban,’ and that both hosts repeatedly referred to him as ‘turban man.’” I agree. Unfortunately, prior to that line the editorial board argues, “Before jabbering about the ‘PC police’ and giving ‘Dennis and Judi’ excessive latitude to claim that they're doing ‘comedy,’ let's analyze this.”

Analyze it? Are they psychiatrists? The people on this editorial board aren’t qualified to analyze what is in the minds of people. But, I digress, that’s really not my issue with their opinion piece.

My issue is simple, this editorial board isn’t upset over what I assume was two people kidding around. Two people who are paid to entertain. They’re upset with anyone that doesn’t think like them, anyone that doesn’t have at least some left or leftish leanings.

Of course, my claim isn’t very scientific. I simply scrolled through their list of editorials, I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. The only Republican they praised with regularity was Congressman LoBiondo, a moderate.

But, back to the Dennis and Judi thing. The story is over, yet this editorial board HAD to write something.

Could I find anything written by this editorial board about Michelle Wolf and her verbal assault of Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the White House correspondents’ dinner? No!

Did this editorial board have anything to say about Wolf going after Huckabee Sanders again on the Netflix talk show “The Break?” No!

Did this editorial board say anything when Kathy Griffin posted a photo of her holding a replica of President Trump's bloodied, decapitated head? Not that I could find!

Are you getting the theme here?

The South Jersey Times editorial board has obvious leanings toward the left of the political spectrum. They want their readers to think like them.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with Michelle Wolf or Kathy Griffin. They’re comedians, I don’t find them funny so I don’t watch or listen to them, others do. I have never advocated for either of them to be punished for the actions described above.

I also don’t care what professional football players do, I still pay for NFL Sunday Ticket (or whatever it’s called) every year because I like to watch the football games I want to watch. I would prefer football players stand for the national anthem but I’m not going to stop watching because they’re disrespectful.

This is America and we all have the right to freedom of speech and expression. What this means is that we also all have the right to not read or listen to those exercising their rights if we don’t like what they’re saying. (For the record I do have an issue with flag burning but I’ll save that for another day).

When it comes to the South Jersey Times I exercise my freedom of expression by putting their rag of a newspaper in the bottom of Pete the Parrot’s cage.