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| POP! Goes the weasel. |
Grab a bag of popcorn, if you missed Fight Night on Twitter! Here's what happened last night...
Shortly after 9 PM, GA was drifting off to the soothing tones of Rachel Maddow, when my cell beeped. After a string of expletives, I reached for it. Someone had texted a screenshot from Twitter: mayoral candidate Mike DeFusco attacked me by name ("Nancy" not my Twitter handle) calling me/this site "racist".
Oh, Hell no.rac·ist ˈ/rāsəst/
noun1. a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
GA said goodnight to Rachel and jumped on the Twitter thread. Here it is:
FIGHT NIGHT!
Did you follow? In chronological order:
- @travisjmiliken started the thread, to throw shade on Ravi.
- @GrafixAvenger followed next to inform folks that @travisjmiliken was a fraud. (Twitter has since removed "Travis" )
- Later, @amarHoboken gave me props, then questioned why "fake racist accounts" appear to support @mike_defusco.
- @mike_defusco entered to dissociate himself personally from the fake accounts that have been appearing on social media. He unwittingly acknowledged that the fake accounts do exist: "these types of false statements are just as bad as fake accounts which have nothing to do with me."
That's when Hoboken mayoral candidate DeFusco took the gratuitous shot at me, sandbagging me in a Tweet as a "racist."
LOCAL HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST QUESTIONS DEFUSCO
After DeFusco's slur, @EytanSternWeber chimed in. Eytan is a teacher and Hoboken civil rights activist who heads the Immigration Leadership of Hudson Community Action Network. GA doesn't know him. Anyway, he asked @mike_defusco FOUR TIMES if he "thinks" GA is a "racist" or if supporting me is "racist"- see below.
Crickets.
DeFUSCO MORPHS INTO BETH MASON
Instead of answering @EytanSternWeber's direct question, @mike_defusco dipped into the Mason Mud Machine.
If you had any doubts his advisors were the same slimeballs that tanked 2nd Ward Hoboken Councilwoman Beth Mason's political career, the following should dispel them.
Right out of the Mason Archives:
Here is the background to the 2010 nj.com article that Mike DeFusco posted.
In 2010, GA was victimized by a massive Mason conspiracy to (1) destroy my reputation and (2) to silence my First Amendment free speech on this blog, using the non-profit NJDC (National Jewish Democratic Council).
In short: Mason political operatives stole a satirical political graphic called "Triumph of the Shill" off my blog, and peddled it to various news organizations attacking me as anti-Semitic. Um, GA is Jewish, not anti-Semitic, and my Polish relatives (in Warsaw and Lodz) were killed by the Nazis. Like DeFusco, the Mason gang tried to silence their critics. The filthy NJDC operation was orchestrated by Beth Mason (NJDC donor)and Mason fundraiser (and NJDC Board member) Larry Stempler (Mason donor), assisted by Mason political operatives Lane Bajardi and James Barracato in coordination with Hoboken411.
Mason's souffle fell when GA publicly apologized for any hurt that the image had caused, as reported by nj.com.
Don't believe me?
Here's one (of many) emails that proves the conspiracy behind this dirty smear campaign against free speech. GA filed this as an exhibit in the 2012 First Amendment SLAPP suit against GA and 2 dozen Hoboken Reform bloggers. Read the email from the bottom up.
Tapping the ugly history of dirty tricks by Beth Mason operatives in their efforts to silence Reform Free speech is probably not a good idea for DeFusco.
Look no further than DeFusco campaign allies who never apologized for their "alleged" display of swastikas on the notorious "Nazi Truck"; the first (and only time) swastikas were used in a Hoboken political campaign. And for a School Board election. Oh yeah, DeFusco's associates have more baggage than Grand Central Station.
Which leads GA to wonder why this Hoboken mayoral candidate would attack the free speech of a constituent (me). Yes, I'm critical. So what?
I have a right to express my opinion without being libeled by a public official.
This petulant Twitter attack shows Mike DeFusco's character, his maturity, his willingness to defame members of the public as "racists" who exercise adverse free speech, and his readiness for the Office of Mayor.
Certainly, the first rule of politics is "never hit down". Why is a candidate for mayor attacking a member of the public (me)? Sorry, every Hoboken resident has the right to criticize their elected leaders and candidates for office.
Further, someone tell DeFusco that he is responsible for the actions of his campaign.
Why not get his spokesman to issue a denial, if his campaign is not behind the fake social media accounts? Of course, the candidate may be unaware of the action- that is what campaign surrogates are for.
But, the buck stops with him.
If his campaign is up to dirty tricks, he owns it. "It wasn't me!" doesn't cut it, nor does it portend the kind of leadership that Hoboken deserves.
They're afraid of you. That much is plain. Attacking you is a waste of time, politically. But they're putting the band back together, and the band always thought that was a great song and a real crowdpleaser. Hence the Nazi truck. Which was followed by a rout of the Real Results BOE ticket. The city is going to be treated to a remarkably ugly autumn. Unfortunately, a lot of the people who used to object to it aren't objecting to it now.
ReplyDeleteWhat's truly disappointing is that the Giattino campaign doesn't seem to see DeFusco or Romano as their opposition. Just Ravi.
ReplyDeleteWhat's even more disappointing is the ridiculous narratives being shopped around explaining why Mayor Zimmer endorsed Ravi. One I've heard is that Dawn preferred Jen but was told bu Phil Murphy to endorse Ravi instead. Another is that Dawn feels threatened by, and is jealous of, other women like Marsh, Giattino and Fisher.
Newsflash. After 8 years of working with Ravi and 6 years of working with Jen, Zimmer gave careful thought to whom she thought would be the best Mayor and endorsed Ravi both because she thought he would do a better job and was better positioned to win.
A word of advice. It's OK to say Dawn's is just one opinion and say you disagree and explain why. But inventing and circulating absurd stories to explain away Dawn's decision is not going to help Jen. Rather it unfairly taints Jen with the nastiness and insanity of the lowest commomn denominator of her supporters, and Jen herself is better than that.
1) Re: Defusco & Romano -- Don't be ridiculous
Delete2) Those rumors are more than likely started by Ravi's supporters; since the only people that are spreading them (with indignation) are Ravi supporters....don't believe me? - ask Jim Doyle who asked Jen directly instead of posting anonymously on a blog.
In court, this testimony would be thrown out as "hearsay".
DeleteIf the named third parties want to come on and speak (like Jim Doyle) he may. You don't know what Jim Doyle said to Jen unless you were there.
What I said was ask Jim; guess you could ask Jen if you preferred. Or are you intent on accepting numbers' hearsay about some narratives that s/he says are "out there" with no indication of from where or from whom or if they even exist outside of his/her comment and, perhaps, a rumor that s/he created and spread about Jen's campaign.
DeleteI take (or leave) unattributed hearsay for what it's worth. Once a Person X is quoted by a third party, it's fair to Person X to call the quote hearsay. Fair, right?
DeleteDidn't see any response to the wildly silly and completely unattributed supposed comments about the Giattino campaign from a Bhalla supporter. That would be fair too, right? Or do you think that sweeping silliness should go completely unchallenged and direct information (3rd party) should be dismissed entirely?
DeleteGive me a break, Indie. I spend enough of my time preparing these articles for information, entertainment and discussion. I don't read nor critique every comment, I don't moderate. There is no hidden significance in what I posted earlier, and you are free to comment as you have.
DeleteIdie you really need to work harder on your reading comprehension skills.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say Jen herself was spreading those completely moronic "explanations" for why Mayor Zimmer chose to endorse Ravi. I said she was ill served by the people spreading that pathetic drivel and that, fairly or not, she was suffering the taint created by those fools.
I'm not sure how a supposed private conversation between Jen and Jim Doyle would shine any light on that, but I guess you either felt a need to deflect or you genuinely didn't read my post carefully enough to understand it.
You yourself posted about the "jealousy" claim ( you said you hadn't posted it but you had heard it from several people). If you've forgotten I can provide the link. Were the people you say you heard it from not spreading the story? Were they Ravi supporters?
Are the voters (not one but several independently) who have described the too cute by 1/2 Phil Murphy story all lying?
The stories are too ridiculous to matter except for what they tell us about the character and intelligence of the people fabricating and spreading them. I do not believe Jen is one of those people, and I don't believe she would approve of the telling of stories that are so unhelpful to her campaign. In the case of the "jealousy" story (that you acknowledge hearing and seemed to be implicitly agreeing with) it seems designed to play into sexist stereotypes of catty women, something I'm sure Jen herself would find offensive and would never condone.
If you say you were not one of the people involved with either story then I take you at your word. But blaming the messengers and trying to shift blame to "Ravi supporters" is just another silly, untrue story added to the other silly untrue stories being spread, and it will be just as unpersuasive. An honest smart campaign would find out who was responsible and put a stop to it. I believe that is what Jen will do.