Month: January 2014

Categories
New Jersey Politics

Report: Under Christie’s Leadership, New Jersey’s Poverty Rate hit 52 Year High

It seems that when Chris Christie’s mentor asked this question – “is that what you want in your president?”-  he was not only talking about Christie’s possible involvement in the BridgeGate crisis. It is quite possible that he got a glimpse of this report.

Poverty in New Jersey continued to grow even as the national recession lifted, reaching a 52-year high in 2011, according to a report released today.

The annual survey by Legal Services of New Jersey found 24.7 percent of the state’s population — 2.1 million residents — was considered poor in 2011. That’s a jump of more than 80,000 people — nearly 1 percent higher than the previous year and 3.8 percent more than pre-recession levels.

“This is not just a one-year or five-year or 10-year variation,” said Melville D. Miller Jr., the president of LSNJ, which gives free legal help to low-income residents in civil cases. “This is the worst that it’s been since the 1960 Census.”

And it may get worse: The report warned Census figures for 2012 to be released this month may be higher. Those numbers are expected to show some of the impact from Hurricane Sandy, which took a bite out of the state’s economy and destroyed a large amount of affordable housing.

The numbers for New Jersey — one of the wealthiest states in the nation — mirror a national trend. In 2011, the federal poverty rate was the largest it had been in 18 years, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“The Great Recession was the worst major economic event since the early ’30s,” Miller said. “It’s taken longer for the U.S. to come out of it.”

The report — the seventh issued by Legal Services — defines being poor in New Jersey as a family of three making less than $37,060. That’s twice the federal poverty rate because New Jersey’s cost of living is among the highest in the nation.

The report found:

• A record high of more than 630,000 children — 31.2 percent — lived in a household defined as poor.

• The percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds living in poverty rose from 26.9 in 2007 to 32.8 in 2011.

• Of families headed by single mothers, 22 percent were poor compared to 3.6 percent of families headed by a married couple.

• African-Americans and Hispanics had poverty rates at least three times higher than whites.

• …Boosted by the consistency of Social Security payments, the percentage of elderly who were poor dropped from 26.7 in 2007 to 26.2 in 2011.

• Six counties — Passaic, Cumberland, Hudson, Essex, Atlantic and Salem — had more than 30 percent of their population living in poverty in 2011.

• Among cities, nearly 65 percent of Camden residents lived in poverty, and 79 percent of children lived in poor households. Poverty topped 50 percent in Passaic, Lakewood, Paterson, Trenton and Newark.

Categories
Politics

shhh… I see… republicans… walking around like regular people – pic

Cole Sear: I see dead people republicans.
Malcolm Crowe: In your dreams?
[Cole shakes his head no]
Malcolm Crowe: While you’re awake?
[Cole nods]
Malcolm Crowe: Republicans like, in graves? In coffins?
Cole Sear: Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re… dead republicans.

Categories
Politics

Governor Dirty – More Retribution Claims aimed at Chris Christie

HOBOKEN — In the wake of the George Washington Bridge controversy, several Democratic mayors are speaking out saying they, too, believe they were punished by the Christie administration for failing to endorse the Republican governor’s re-election in November, WNYC reports.

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said that after Hurricane Sandy, she applied to the state for a Hazard Mitigation Grant. In the spring, when Christie asked her to endorse him for re-election during a face-to-face meeting, Zimmer told the governor no.

“He was quite disappointed, but I wouldn’t say that he was angry,” she told WNYC.

When her request for grant funding came back, she said, Hoboken received $300,000 of the $100 million in grants requested — less than 1 percent.

“With 20/20 hindsight, in the context we’re in right now, we can always look back and say, ‘Okay, was it retribution?'” Zimmer told the station. “I think probably all mayors are reflecting right now and thinking about it, but I really hope that’s not the case.”

Meanwhile Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has said Christie’s office apparently canceled several meetings the day after Fulop refused to endorse the governor.

In Elizabeth, Mayor Chris Bollwage claims Christie targeted the city and shut down the Division of Motor Vehicle’s office there after its state legislators fought Christie on several pieces of legislation.

“The governor’s retribution was to close down the Division of Motor vehicles here in the city of Elizabeth, which is the fourth largest city in the state of New Jersey,” Bollwage said in the report.

Categories
Politics Water West Virginia

Water Ban Lifted in Parts of West Virginia – Back To Hating The Government in 3,2,1…

While private corporations contaminated the waters of the Elk river in West Virginia, causing hundreds of thousands of people to go without usable water, the government stepped in and brought water to those affected. Now that the ban on using the water is lifting, how soon before they start hating on government again?

Prepare yourself to hear that Government is the problem in 3,2,1…

Categories
Featured West Virginia

Wanted Ad for “a Black Man.” Have You Seen Him?

This is 2014. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. When you see wanted ads like the one below, its easy to think that the year is 1914.

According to Gawker, this ad was placed in West Virginia.

Categories
Politics

Feds Investigating Chris Christie and Hurricane Sandy Relief Funds

When it rains, it pours. Chris Christie,  presently dealing with the bridgegate controversy, is now faced with another crisis – a federal investugation into his use of Hurricane Sandy funds.

The Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has opened a federal investigation into whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) improperly used Hurricane Sandy relief funds to produce commercials starring himself and his family ahead of his re-election campaign.

Auditors will examine how the Christie administration used $25 million set aside for “a marketing campaign to promote the Jersey Shore and encourage tourism,” focusing on the bidding process to award a $4.7 million to a politically connected firm that cast Christie and his family in the Sandy ads, while “a comparable firm proposed billing the state $2.5 million for similar work” but did not include Christie in the commercials.

The ads produced by the company, MWW, attracted significant criticism. The New Jersey Star Ledger accused Christie of siphoning off “money that was intended for victims of Sandy to promote himself in a series of TV ads,” and described the move as “offensive” and a ” new low.”

Watch the ad here:

Categories
Celebrities Foreign Policies North Korea Politics

Dennis Rodman – “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything” about Kenneth Bae

BEIJING – Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, the only foreigner with access to North Korea’s reclusive dictator Kim Jong Un, returned from Pyongyang Monday defending his controversial “basketball diplomacy” there.

Americans and North Koreans “can actually get along,” said Rodman, who apologized he “couldn’t do anything” about Kenneth Bae, a Korean American missionary imprisoned in North Korea.

Rodman will return to Pyongyang in about a month for another game of basketball, he said, following the exhibition game last Wednesday between a North Korean team and a Rodman-led team of a team of ex-NBA players and current streetballers.

The ex-Chicago Bulls forward sang ‘happy birthday’ to Kim before tip-off, and spent the second half sitting beside his “friend for life”, reported to be a Chicago Bulls fan.

Rights groups and U.S. politicians have criticized Rodman for engaging with the North’s repressive regime. While in Pyongyang, he was forced to apologize for comments last week that blamed Bae for his own incarceration.

At Beijing airport Monday, at the end of his fourth trip to Pyongyang over the past 12 months, Rodman said “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything”, when asked if had raised Bae’s case with Kim.

Categories
Politics

Email from Head of Publishing Company Regarding Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh is feeling the heat, as advertisers abandon his hate machine.

After he was recently picked up by WOR, longtime advertisers on the station began objecting to having their products and services affiliated with Rush.

On Friday a Mexican-American Flush Rush volunteer contacted a WOR advertiser called Page Publishing to politely request that they not advertise on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

She specifically objected to Limbaugh’s characterization of Mexicans as being lazy by nature.

The response she received will make your day:

I am the president of Page Publishing, and I could not agree with you more. He is a disgusting, misogynistic racist. We have been advertising with WOR for quite a while, but they only recently added this moron’s program to their lineup, and we were assured that our ads would not inadvertently  run during his show. Thanks for pointing out that it did (I don’t have the stomach to listen to his show to verify if our ads do run). I will insist that our ads never run during his bigoted show. It amazes me that his show has any audience at all here in New York City- a progressive and liberal place if ever there was one (the place where I was born and raised, and a place that is amazing in its diversity).

Your email reached me because the staff here universally despises Limbaugh and everything he stands for, and they know of my feelings as well. The ironic things about most of the nonsense that he spews, in particular his references to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, is that there probably isn’t a harder working group of people in the nation right now.

He has the right to say what he wants, and we have the right to refuse to support him with our corporate advertising dollars.

Thanks for the email,
Stephen

Stephen Matthews
President and CEO
Page Publishing, Inc.

Categories
Politics

For Republicans, Public Enemy Number One? – The Poor

Paul Krugman writes: Suddenly it’s O.K., even mandatory, for politicians with national ambitions to talk about helping the poor. This is easy for Democrats, who can go back to being the party of F.D.R. and L.B.J. It’s much more difficult for Republicans, who are having a hard time shaking their reputation for reverse Robin-Hoodism, for being the party that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.

And the reason that reputation is so hard to shake is that it’s justified. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that right now Republicans are doing all they can to hurt the poor, and they would have inflicted vast additional harm if they had won the 2012 election. Moreover, G.O.P. harshness toward the less fortunate isn’t just a matter of spite (although that’s part of it); it’s deeply rooted in the party’s ideology, which is why recent speeches by leading Republicans declaring that they do too care about the poor have been almost completely devoid of policy specifics.

Let’s start with the recent Republican track record.

The most important current policy development in America is the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. Most Republican-controlled states are, however, refusing to implement a key part of the act, the expansion of Medicaid, thereby denying health coverage to almost five million low-income Americans. And the amazing thing is that they’re going to great lengths to block aid to the poor even though letting the aid through would cost almost nothing; nearly all the costs of Medicaid expansion would be paid by Washington.

Meanwhile, those Republican-controlled states are slashing unemployment benefits, education financing and more. As I said, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the G.O.P. is hurting the poor as much as it can.

What would Republicans have done if they had won the White House in 2012? Much more of the same. Bear in mind that every budget the G.O.P. has offered since it took over the House in 2010 involves savage cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other antipoverty programs.

Still, can’t Republicans change their approach? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is almost surely no.

Categories
Entertainment Television

The First Official ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 4 Trailer

Look!

Categories
Domestic Policies News Politics

Christie the Vi(ndi)cti(ve)m

If Governor Chris Christie thought that Thursday’s news conference, that turned into a two-hour fiasco of alternately blaming others and apologizing without remorse, was going to be the end of the story about the GWBridge lane closures, then he was clearly mistaken. As usual with a scandal, the more we know, the more we want to know.

For example, who actually texted David Wildstein that they were smiling at the traffic jam? This is going to be interesting because presumably it wasn’t Bridget Anne Kelly, the Christie aide who went from loyal and brilliant early in the week to “stupid” and “deceitful” at the press conference. And speaking of Kelly, why didn’t Christie speak to her before firing her? What kind of prosecutor assumes guilt first and worries about whether they’re being just later? Answer: A prosecutor like Christie who obviously doesn’t care about the truth.

Questions about Christie’s political future are also a main topic, as this scandal shows that he either doesn’t have control over his own aides, or that he sent a message to them that this was politically acceptable behavior. In any case, this has severely damaged his national reputation. Conservatives were always wary of him; now moderates might be scared off by a man who has been resolute in the past, but just might have spilled over into vindictive in the national mind.

But the worst aspect at this point is that mayors from across New Jersey are now reviewing events of the past year and wondering if the negative attention they’ve received from Trenton is a result of them not endorsing Christie or running afoul of him because they disagreed with his decisions. This is the atmosphere that the governor has created for himself. Yes, his YouTube videos were entertaining for his supporters, but they are now a liability because, together with this scandal, they show a man who has no tolerance for opposition. That’s dangerous for a man who wants to be president.

It will be interesting to see what new information comes out about this and whether the narrative as we imagine it today has more moving parts to it.

For more please go to:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

Categories
Politics tweets water crisis West Virginia

Some Great Tweets about The West Virginia Water Crisis

We all feel for the crisis in West Virginia… well, maybe not the Republicans. In fact, as the water situation in West Virginia got contaminated, House Republicans voted in favor of a bill that will take away the authority of the EPA – the agency responsible for among other things, making sure our water supply is not contaminated.

Although Republicans are hellbent on stopping the EPA, government stepped in and is bringing clean water to the people of West Virginia. And the good people on Twitter have figured it out – that sometimes, government will step in and do what’s right for the people. These people understand what’s going on, and these tweets below clearly shows that.

Here are a few examples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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