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Christie’s dismal record on union/labor rights just got worse

Christie, sweeney, bookerChristie has assaulted vulnerable New Jersey residents and labor rights all the years of his governorship. Next City shares the low-down on what Christie’s gotten away with, and how he’s done it.

Take public education: having promised when he was campaigning to take care of New Jersey’s teachers, after getting into office Christie proceeded to systematically destroy public ed, along with teachers’ and students lives and the bloodshed is far from over. Newark and Camden have been among the communities hardest hit. read more

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Twitter is great for power users, not so good for investors

tweet bird singingTwitter is my favorite social media platform. It works great for power users like me who share and pick up important news there, but casual users find it unwelcoming. And, although the company is worth $23 billion, Wall St. doesn’t love Twitter as an investment vehicle.

Matt Iglesias of Vox proposes an idea I like a lot: ignore investors and build Twitter up as a power user tool, which is what it seems to want to be anyway. It might be a great shot in the arm were Twitter to rekindle good relationships with 3rd party developers too – and bring back the robust user choice ecosystem it used to enjoy. read more

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Free YMCA sleep away camp for 7-12 year old Newark kids

YMCA campA glorious 2-week sleep away camp adventure for Newark children ages 7-12 is waiting for your child at a YMCA camp in Newton, NJ – and it will cost you nothing but a phone call! Activity options include archery, bike riding, craft making, boat paddling, nature walks, swim lessons and much more in a safe, well supervised lakeside setting where kids can relax, bond and enjoy clean, healthy, outdoor fun and fantastic meals.

Secure your child’s spot by calling Matt of Fairview Lakes YMCA: office 973-383-9282 or mobile 201-618-5880. read more

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Don’t be fooled – Christie’s still bent on destroying public ed & New Jersey

Christie IHOPIt’s more than laughable that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is suddenly trying to show the nation that he cares about public education and the teachers whose lives, finances and careers he’s been systematically destroying ever since taking office two elections ago. It should be next to impossible to show something that isn’t real, but we’re talking about a public relations genius who got elected in 2013 on the strength of mistruth whoppers, namely:

  1. Christie hugged Obama to make himself look like a moderate Republican ready to reach over the aisle to form an alliance with Democrats to care for the people of his state when tragedy struck.
  2. Christie acts like he cares about New Jersey residents hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy.

The facts are that Christie has no love for the President. He hasn’t “done a good enough job distributing the (Sandy recovery funds) New Jersey has already received” and he refuses to release $500 million of federal recovery funds to applicants that have been qualified as eligible for help. Christie’s political grandstanding also arguably cost New Jersey schools hundreds of millions of dollars. read more

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Listed: Christie’s dismal record of caring for New Jersey

bridgegateIt isn’t just the George Washington Bridge that Christie has obstructed in his home state. Here’s an excellent list from One New Jersey showing many of the ways Gov. Chris Christie has failed to do his job. Sections include:

  • Jobs Lost – NJ Falling Behind
  • New Jersey Families Falling Behind Crumbling Infrastructure & Rising Costs
  • Abusing Taxpayer Money
  • Taxpayer-Funded Corporate Bailouts
  • And No Job Gains Budget Mismanagement: Costing NJ Taxpayers
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Congressman Bill Pascrell says NO WAY to TPP at press conference

Pascrell rally against TPPAt a press conference at UFCW in Clifton, Congressman Bill Pascrell on 28 May 2015 announced his opposition to “Fast-Track authority” of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is now headed for Congressional vote. Although the bill to Fast Track the TPP bill was recently approved by the Senate, New Jersey’s Bob Menendez and Cory Booker voted against it, and now Cong. Pascrell will have his chance to do the same.

Truthout offers an explanation of what Fast Track is and why Americans should rally against it. read more

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Google maps search for N***** House returned: the White House

google maps search for n**** House yields White HouseIt’s an embarrassment to the search giant that Google Maps produced highly inappropriate racist results, even though it happened because racist terms are often shared on the internet. A Wired reporter explains:

It was discovered that when searching for “n***a house” and “n***a king,” Maps returned a surprising location: the White House. A search for “slut’s house” led to an Indiana women’s dorm. Initially, you may have suspected this to be the work of a lone vandal, or even a coordinated campaign. But Google Maps gave racist, degrading results not because it was compromised, but because the internet itself is racist and degrading … It … means that if enough people online refer to a specific place using vile epithets, even one of the most recognizable landmarks in the United States can be reduced to racist garbage. read more

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Feel-good social analysis fails to show how real change happens

the wire hbo image
HBO’s The Wire (Photo courtesy of HBO)
Through analyzing what’s wrong with The Wire, Dave Zirin takes a hard look at what is missing altogether from supposedly progressive TV shows that supposedly delve into the social injustices that are screaming for attention all across the US recently. Interesting read. Dave says:

I always shoved it to the back of my mind when my friends in Baltimore – I live about 45 minutes from the city – almost uniformly would tell me they either did not like or would not watch the show. People were hostile toward The Wire for a multiplicity of reasons. Some felt it was like gangster rap for a more sophisticated audience, glorifying black-on-black hyper-masculine street violence while selling itself as somehow more literate and ennobling to consume. My friend Mark once pissed me off fiercely when he told me that my favorite show was “NWA for people who read The New Yorker.” read more

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Prison to Whole Foods Pipeline: artisanal foods crafted by inmates

Prison work in progress
Flickr: kathrynsdays / Via Kathryndays Flickr
Fortune publishes the oddest stuff. This intriguing article covers the burgeoning artisanal food prison business, thriving because its labor force is prison inmates that earn – get this – 60¢ an hour. Although, Colorado Corrections Institute director Steve Smith points out, a whole $3-400 a month can be earned with incentives (emphasis mine). Naturally, the prison industry itself profits handsomely from these relationships as middleman and overseer, making it pretty clear what has been driving Big Money’s strategy to lock up 1% of the United States population. The US is returning to a slave labor model … and calling it “help” for prison inmates. UK politics professor Genevieve LeBaron says, read more

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Bill Benzon writes rocking tribute to B.B. King

BB KingMy friend Bill Benzon writes a sweet tribute to B.B. King on his New Savanna blog. Bill plays trumpet and in the 80s, once opened for The King in an Albany venue.

My memories of the Albany gig are a bit richer. To be sure, as I recall, King’s music was better at that SPAC gig, for the music comes and goes even with the best of them. Our manager (and saxophonist) Ken Drumm had seen to it that King had champagne waiting for him when he arrived in his dressing room and that got us an opportunity to meet him after the gig. But we had to line up with everyone else – mostly middle-aged ladies in big hats and Sunday dresses – and wait our turn. We didn’t have more than a minute, if that, in the man’s presence. read more

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Newark Students’ May 22 walkout and protest over 2000 strong

Newark 1505 student walkoutOn May 22 2015, over 2000 students and supporters shut downtown Newark NJ down for several hours to create visibility and bring awareness to the horrors Newark students have experienced at the hands of Chris Christie, Cory Booker and Cami Anderson, who jointly created a plan to break the back of public education in this city.

Anderson’s “One Newark” plan has young children from a single family barred from attending the school local to their home and instead, being sent far outside their neighborhood to 4 different schools in different corners of the city. Each child must take 2-3 bus rides and spend an hour of commuting time each way to reach school. Throughout the city, public school students are denied books and sanitary food; the principals and administrative staff of the city’s most successful schools are fired; and police charges were filed against a PTA president for hanging flyers announcing the PTA’s next meeting. read more

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Taking pix of or on a plane can get you clipped wings or worse

banned pilotIn the continuing saga of how weird America has become, HuffPost reports on the Kafka-esque rules concerning airplanes and cameras.

It’s not illegal or even against airline policy to take photos or video of airplanes, on airplanes or of airline staff. But if you do, the staff can decide to blacklist you, remove you from flights or create a report about your “bad behaviour”. They can also decide to do nothing and let you snap, or film, away without any consequences whatsoever. And by the way, these unpublished rules, not made accessible to the public, are subject to change without notice. read more

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Let evildoers fade into obscurity while we celebrate heroes

Arredondo saving bomb victimThe day after the surviving Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to death last Friday, May 15 2015, Boston Globe writer Kevin Cullen reminds us to let the evildoers fade into the obscurity of history, while we focus on the heroes. Kevin asks, “How do we forget the Tsarnaev brothers? How do we write them out of the narrative, so that the legacy of the attack on the Boston Marathon focuses on those worth remembering?”

…the Tsarnaev brothers made choices, too, and they actually had much, much more time to make them. They spent months listening to the jihadi propaganda that promised them paradise if they murdered innocents. They spent more months preparing their bombs, preparing their minds, dehumanizing the strangers they would kill and maim. read more