Issues, news and fact checking for NJ’s 2013 election season

THIS ELECTION VOTE YOURSELF A RAISE! Vote YES on the ballot referendum to raise the NJ minimum wage to $8.25/hr

Also in the 2013 election cycle, all of New Jersey’s state level positions are up for election including Assembly, State Senate seats and the governorship. Federal and state elected officials have the ability to make changes to improve, approve or eradicate the issues listed below. Your vote and your voice make them accountable so be sure to vote. (Download issues flyer).

Vision test - VOTE

  • Protect the constitutional right of every US citizen to have one vote and get it counted
  • Fund and enact The Amistad Act which calls for racially accurate history to be taught in NJ schools
  • Food justice: eradicate urban food deserts and barriers to home & community gardening; ban of genetically modified foods (GMOs); make college food healthier and more affordable
  • Reverse Citizens United ruling that gives corporations the status of personhood
  • Take big money out of general elections (see rootstrikers.org)
  • Save the open internet and protect it from takeover and control by corporate interests (see savetheinternet.com)
  • Ban prison based gerrymandering which causes prison inmates’ families to lose government resources in their home states and counties
  • Stop privatization of schools, prisons, nursing homes and food services
  • Moratorium on foreclosures to protect 1 in 4 Black &Latino families who are in danger of losing their homes
  • Hold banks accountable for wrongful foreclosures, charging Blacks and Latinos higher mortgage interest rates, refusing to renegotiate underwater mortgages; and failing to provide maintenance on foreclosed homes – which contributes to the creation of urban blight zones
  • Lower US prison population. We incarcerate almost 1% of American citizens, about 2.5 million individuals, whom are mostly Latinos and African Americans
  • Protect civil rights including: ban racial profiling, stop unfounded searches and halt incarceration of non- criminal undocumented immigrants
  • Achieve diversity of court justices on every level of the judicial system
  • Transition to a green economy and protect clean air, water and the environment. Prevent climate change.
  • Provide help to families with homes in foreclosure, the unemployed and the hungry
  • Protect women’s health, lives, career opportunities; and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
  • Hold major corporation and government agencies accountable for diversity in hiring and the awarding of small business contracts
  • Make minimum wage equal a living wage and protect American jobs. Vote yes to the NJ 2013 ballot referen- dum to raise min wage to $8.25/hr!
  • Expand the scope of the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which offers important protec- tions including: financial institutions may not enact excessive credit rate hikes or provide misleading informa- tion about credit terms and fees
  • Support for women and minority students wishing to enter STEM fields
  • Protect Obamacare and fund affordable community health centers
  • Continue the Deferred Action program & pass the DREAM Act for undocumented immigrant youth; enact comprehensive immigration reform
  • Increase support for Historically Black Colleges and Minority Serving Institutions and protect public education
  • End government subsidies to big banks and dirty fuel companies. Invest more in public education and health.
  • Maintain affordable interest rates on student loans (impacts 140,000 NJ students) and lower college tuition.
  • Increase the amount of Pell grant dollars available for low-income studentsTrack Congressional bills

FACT CHECK & OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES read more

We should name hurricanes after climate change denying politicians

Hurricane Marco Rubio

Hurricane Marco RubioI agree: we need a new naming convention for tropical storms and hurricanes. The Ivans, Andrews and Katrinas of this world should not be made to suffer when the blame for climate change rests largely on the shoulders of climate change denying politicians who continue to encourage commercialization of natural resources and phenomenal pollution of our beloved Planet Earth.

In future, let us have Hurricanes Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Michelle Bachman and Senator Marco Rubio … and leave the unnamed innocents to remain peaceably anonymous. read more

Is the US financially swimming, or sinking?

My insightful friend and great truth-teller, Han Broekman, shares this on the United States financial situation:

Disappointed that even Krugman doesn’t talk here about the difference between debt and deficit. Debt is the grand total of all debts the US Federal administration has incurred. The deficit is the difference each year between the outlays and incomes of the US. Sometimes (mostly under Democratic administrations), there is no deficit, but a surplus. Whether or not deficits are really bad, and whether debt is really bad, is a question economists can’t agree on. So small wonder that debt and deficit are huge politically charged subjects … read more